Less than a week ago, Swifties transformed their community into an online campaign headquarters for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, and the campaign wants in on the effort.
After President Joe Biden announced last week that he wouldn’t seek reelection, Emerald Medrano, 22, watched the news. As he watched pundits blather about the Democratic candidate, he felt he had to. somethingHe had never been involved in politics, but had a popular Swift fan account. Not knowing what to do, he tweeted, “I think we Swift fans in the US should get organized in droves to campaign for Kamala Harris, spread the word about how terrible Project 2025 is, and get public opinion to the polls.”
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Medrano received hundreds of replies and direct messages from other Swift fans primarily motivated by civil rights, transgender rights, and reproductive health care, offering their support. Some had backgrounds in politics, others ran large Swift fan accounts, and others worked professionally in social media. The fandom served as a social lubricant for politically interested Swift fans to get involved and apply the skills they learned in the community to the election.
“The shared interests and knowledge of fandom is definitely a really great way to channel that connection into civic engagement and political activism,” Madeline Miner, 22, social media coordinator for Swifties for Kamala, told WIRED.
Since Medrano’s tweet, Swifties for Kamala has grown to more than 300 members, with thousands more signing up to join its Discord server. The group has grown rapidly and has already “reorganized” three times. It now has more than 80,000 followers on TikTok, 48,000 on X, 16,000 on Instagram, and a Substack account titled “Paint the Town Blue,” named after the Swift song. (Other pro-Harris Swifties accounts have popped up in the last week, but Swifties for Kamala is the largest.)
The group has four teams: communications, finance, outreach, and social. For social, the teams are assigned to platforms, each with a leader. Rohan Reagan, the 21-year-old who already runs a successful Swiftie account on Instagram, is leading the group’s efforts. Reagan has posted edited posts about Swift for years, and now he’s editing Harris.
“All of the reels and posts are either created by me or outsourced to someone else,” Reagan said. “Right now, there are posts on the page that someone created themselves. All of the infographics for the surveys are ones I created myself. They brought them to me, I tweaked them a little bit, and then I posted them.”
Before Reagan or other social media leaders could make edits, social media coordinator Lee Bauer, 23, began building the account’s brand and voice. Bauer took inspiration from fandom, specifically the official Swift fan account for X, @taylornation13.
“They have such a distinctive voice that shares news and updates and lets you know when merch and albums are coming out and stuff like that, but they’re also really good at engaging with their fans online,” Bauer said, “So we want to build on that and continue to be another familiar voice that fans understand… and a voice that they respect.”
