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Taylor Swift has been at the top of the pop music charts for over 15 years. That’s an eternity in show business.
It’s no accident. Swift’s rise to superstardom was as carefully planned as a military campaign. Her studio recordings, her songwriting, her tours, her public appearances, and her advocacy have all been carefully structured to give her maximum exposure with minimum risk.
Until she endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
Swift transcended pop music to become an American icon. Her Harris endorsement has now squandered that precious admiration and goodwill and, for the first time in her hugely successful career, she has stumbled.
It’s not a big stumble, to be sure. But the Harris endorsement has opened the door to criticism and in show business, where everyone is waiting to pounce on any error you make and tear you down, it was a strategic mistake.
“Who’s afraid of little old me? Republicans”, Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, said of Swift. “Her personal ratings have dropped from +2 to -35 among Republicans.”
“A good lesson that it’s better to be a tortured poet than a tortured figure in the political arena”, Horwitt continued.
About 47% of Republicans say they view Swift negatively in a poll conducted days after her presidential endorsement, a sharp uptick from the 26% who reported viewing her negatively in NBC’s Nov.
