Taylor Swift’s Instagram Post Spurred Thousands to Register to Vote

The singer, who has long avoided wading into politics, broke that trend in a Sunday Instagram post. Writing that she’s “been reluctant to publicly voice” her political opinions in the past, “several events” in her life and the world have made her feel differently.

Swift went on to encourage her 112 million followers to register to vote, noting that Oct. 9 is the last day to register in her home state of Tennessee.

View this post on Instagram

I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway. So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting! 🗳😃🌈

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Oct 7, 2018 at 4:33pm PDT

And it appears Swift’s appeal worked—vote.org was flooded with new registrations across the country in the 24 hours after the singer uploaded her post.

Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for vote.org, told BuzzFeed that the site saw 65,000 registrations between Sunday and Monday—about a third as many as the site had in the entire month of September (190,178 new registrations).

In Tennessee specifically, close to half of October’s new registrations took place in the 36 hours after Swift’s post went up. Of the 5,183 registrations that Vote.org has received, at least 2,144 of them came after the post, according to Guthrie.

But that’s not all. The number of unique visitors to the site also soared, with 155,940 unique visitors in the day following the post. That number is only bested by the number of visitors on National Voter Registration Day, when the site had 304,942 unique visitors. For context, the site typically sees an average of 14,078 visitors this year.

“Thank God for Taylor Swift,” Guthrie said.

There’s at least one person who did not respond favorably to Swift’s post: President Trump. After hearing that Swift endorsed two Democrats, Trump told reporters on Monday, “Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now, OK?”