Meet the Taylor Swift fans who have raised $235,000 for the Harris campaign

When Swifties for Kamala began as an online movement the day Biden announced he was stepping down from the race they hoped to raise 13,000 dollars for the campaign. Today they’ve raised $235,000, and they’re “running out of Taylor-related numbers, that’s crazy,” said Irene Kim, co-founder of the group. 

The group is not affiliated with Taylor Swift, who has been widely reported on throughout the campaign. When Swift endorsed Kamala Harris on her Instagram story, over 400,000 people visited the vote.gov website directly from that link, according to CBS.

Kim said, “It was absolutely insane when Taylor endorsed Kamala.” But it didn’t have as big of an effect on their group as the media suggested, “we were taking action before she endorsed, and we would have done this regardless of her endorsement,” Kim said.

Kim is a freelancer and the executive director of the Swifties for Kamala campaign. She starts her day at 7 or 8 am, checking the group’s Discord, where they coordinate over 3500 volunteers, and it is “pretty much non-stop and then I go to sleep around 3 or 4 am.”

The campaign group coordinates with other democratic organizations such as Voters of Tomorrow and State Democratic Parties to provide enthusiastic volunteers for text and phone banks. 

Kim said organizers often comment that the Swifties did two or three times as much as other volunteers in a shorter time span. “That’s normal for Swifties,” she said, “We’re just gonna go the extra mile every single time. But it’s great because it’s for such a good cause.”

In addition to typical political campaigning, the group has more unique methods. Their friendship bracelets coordinator has helped distribute thousands of bracelets across all 50 states. And the day Donald Trump posted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” on Truth Social, Swifties for Kamala “turned that into a positive too.” 

“We encouraged people to rage donate and we raised over $40,000 that day because of that tweet,” Kim said. “So it was really a ‘look what you made us do’ moment,” she added, referencing the Taylor Swift song ‘Look What You Made Me Do.’

But for Kim, the campaign’s highlight has been the individual interactions with voters. “Whether it’s someone telling me that their sister in law or best friend is a Republican, but they are voting for Kamala Harris because they are a Swiftie and that they’re a Swiftie for Kamala.”

Kim is focused on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and the “harmful rhetoric” around immigration, campaigning so she can “get to live in a country where we are not afraid for our literal lives every day.” She said, “A lot of those issues are also what has brought a lot of Swifties together. We are first and foremost a community, so we care about each other.”

Swifties for Kamala puts a lot of focus on voter education. Kim said she didn’t learn about voting during her school education, and many of their followers are first-time voters. The group produces pun-filled blogs on voter rights, ID rules, ballot selfies, and disability access.

“We are used to sharing information together as a community. So now, instead of doing it around Taylor, we’re doing it around voting and this election, and I think it’s helped make it really accessible,” said Kim.

While the campaign group is called Swifties for Kamala, it is also focused on down-ballot races and making sure everyone feels their vote is important. Kim said, “It just really is so important to get out and vote, and that’s where change starts. And we recognize this isn’t a perfect system. It’s not even a good system, but it’s the one we have. So this is where we start, and then we keep doing the work from there.”

They’ll be watching the results closely on election night, hoping to finish the evening listening to Taylor Swift’s songs ‘Change’ and ‘Long Live’ but Kim and the rest of Swifties for Kamala are aware it may take longer for the results to come in.