Taylor Swift will sing as the opener at the American Music Awards at 8 pm eastern time and 7 pm central time, after posting on Instagram that she would vote for Democrats in the midterm elections in Tennessee.
Taylor Swift will perform her single “I Did Something Bad” on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time and 7 p.m. Central time as she opens the American Music Awards on ABC.
And Republicans likely agree with her song choice.
Swift waded into politics in an Instagram post on Sunday, revealing she would be voting for Democrats on the ballot in Tennessee. The post surprised fans and critics, who have either chastised or praised the pop icon for years over her reluctance to be open about her personal political beliefs.
Swift wrote that “due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years,” she decided to break her silence.
“As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn,” Swift wrote, referring to the GOP member of Congress running for the state’s open Senate seat. “Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me.”
Instead, Swift said she will vote for former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen for Senate in Tennessee, and Jim Cooper for the House of Representatives.
“Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values,” Swift wrote.
Republicans such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee were quick to criticize.
Swift “has every right to be political,” Huckabee wrote on Twitter. But he said her opinion won’t impact the election unless 13-year-old-girls get to vote.
Could Swift’s call to action come up during her performance tonight? She hasn’t said, but in her Instagram post, Swift notes that Oct. 9 is the last day for voters to register in the state of Tennessee — and that happens to be the date of her AMAs performance.
Swift’s AMAs appearance will be her first at an award show in almost three years, CNN reports.
The midterms will be held Nov. 6, and control of both the House and the Senate is at stake.
While Republicans currently control both chambers, polling suggests Democrats have a chance of capturing the House. And the close Tennessee Senate race that Bredesen and Blackburn are locked in could determine which party controls the upper chamber, given the slim majority Republicans hold in the Senate.
Regardless of her performance tonight, Swift’s political call to action has already had an impact, according to a voter registration site.
“We have never seen a 24- or 36- or 48-hour period like this,” said Vote.org spokeswoman Kamari Guthrie, according to the New York Times. “This is leaps and bounds beyond what we typically see.”
Vote.org said that 65,000 registered to vote in the 24 hours after Swift’s post, compared to 190,178 new voters who registered across the U. S. in all of September, and 56,669 who registered to vote on the site in August, Buzzfeed reports.
