A Wednesday poll revealed that 18% of Americans believe Taylor Swift is involved in a clandestine government operation to aid President Joe Biden’s reelection in 2024.
Conducted by Monmouth University from Feb. 8-12 and released on Wednesday, the survey found that 83% of those subscribing to the Swift conspiracy express a likelihood to support former President Donald Trump in the upcoming election. Furthermore, nearly three-quarters (73%) of the conspiracy adherents also hold the belief that the outcome of the 2020 election was fraudulent.
Monmouth’s press release on the poll emphasized that 42% of individuals claiming belief in the conspiracy were previously unaware of it before being surveyed, underscoring the widespread acceptance of conspiratorial notions among right-leaning factions.
“Even many who hadn’t heard about it before we polled them accept the idea as credible. Welcome to the 2024 election,” remarked Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth University’s Polling Institute.
The conspiracy gained significant attention in the aftermath of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory, as Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays as a tight end for the team.
Some conservatives, including former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, speculated that the game would be manipulated to boost a potential “presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple.”
However, Ramaswamy is not the sole individual entertaining Taylor Swift election conspiracies.
Fox News ran a headline in January questioning if Swift was a “Pentagon asset” while discussing her advocacy for voter registration. Additionally, after the Chiefs’ triumph, a social media post by Biden, mocking the psyop conspiracy, revealed further individuals who had embraced the theory.
Swift—who endorsed Biden in 2020—has often been targeted by conservatives due to her political activism, as has Kelce for his advocacy of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
However, Swift has refrained from commenting on the 2024 presidential race, and the Pentagon has dismissed the conspiracy as baseless.
“As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off,” stated Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh, invoking multiple Swift hits in a statement to Politico. “But that does highlight that we still need Congress to approve our supplemental budget request as swiftly as possible so we can address potential fiscal concerns.”
Despite nearly one in five Americans believing in the conspiracy, the poll did contain some positive findings for Swift.
It revealed that 39% of adults hold a favorable opinion of her, while only 13% view her unfavorably. Moreover, the majority—68%—approve of Swift’s efforts to encourage fans to vote in the upcoming election, although Republicans are less supportive (42%) than Democrats (88%) in this regard.
