Here's how Taylor Swift could save Biden's candidacy

While Donald Trump is getting closer and closer to securing the Republican nomination, President Joe Biden, who by contrast is trailing, is trying to 'energise' his election bid. The president's trusted aides are therefore meticulously drawing up a valuable list of so-called 'surrogates', i.e. prominent figures who publicly support him and try to convince voters to support him in turn. At the top of the list is global superstar Taylor Swift, whose 279 million followers on Instagram could give Biden's candidacy a boost.

According to American political experts, a new public endorsement by Taylor - she had already done so in the previous election - could in fact influence around one million votes. The 2024 version of the Oprah Winfrey effect for Barack Obama in 2008, when the media queen brought the former president over a million votes.

Trump's staff has long been working on a strategy to cope with a possible endorsement of the pop star, which is largely underestimated by the former president. According to sources close to the White House, Trump recently said privately that no celebrity will be able to save Biden with his endorsement, adding that he is 'more popular' than Taylor and has far more loyal fans. An outburst of egocentrism that is not surprising, but dangerously underestimates the singer-songwriter's extraordinary economic and political power.

Taylor, whom US magazine TIME named Person of the Year in 2023, calling her 'the master storyteller of the modern era', has in the past given ample proof of the influence she can have in the political arena, proving that a simple Instagram post or a mid-concert aside can mobilise millions of voters. Her first endorsement came in 2018, when she spoke out on the Tennessee congressional elections in favour of Democratic candidates. That very election - later won by Republicans - inspired one of the artist's most famous songs, Only the Young, whose lyrics speak of school shootings, Donald Trump and concerns about vote tampering, calling on young people to stand up for their ideas.

In September, the singer posted a short message on Instagram encouraging her followers to register to vote. Within the next hour, the site Taylor was directing to saw a 1,226% increase in users, with a total of 35,000 new registrations on the day, a record. In particular, there was a 72% increase in 18-year-olds registered compared to the previous election.