Beyonce, Springsteen, Jackson: Kamala Harris turns to Hollywood in final pitch
Kamala Harris has turned to her A-list entourage to fire up supporters losing confidence in the home stretch. Here are the celebrities that have been most critical to the 2024 race.
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Megastar Beyoncé will headline Kamala Harris’ campaign appearances in a final pitch that includes rock star Bruce Springsteen, actor Samuel L Jackson, director Spike Lee and former president Barack Obama.
The Hollywood entourage will be deployed over campaign rallies leading into the weekend, with Beyonce reported to appear in her hometown of Houston on Friday, local time.
Ms Harris, seeing an erosion in the black vote – especially men – has been enlisting African-American star-power for her closing pitch, including mega-producer Tyler Perry.
Beyonce has already lent her 2016 track “Freedom” to the Harris campaign, and the singer’s reported appearance tomorrow is a pivot back to the only message that has seemed to stick against Trump: Freedom to have an abortion.
Her appearance has not yet been confirmed by the Harris campaign, which was already forced to defend empty hype around the singer’s reported appearance at the Democratic National Convention.
She never showed up, but the Harris campaign got its ratings bump anyway with the expectation she would.
“We never put out anything about Beyoncé. We denied it every time the media asked us — even though, by the way, people on my staff didn’t believe me,” Ricky Kirshner told The Hollywood Reporter in August. “I kept getting texts from news organisations saying, ‘When is Beyoncé coming out?’ But come on, we have the biggest star, the Democratic nominee for president. Why would we overshadow that?”
The most critical celebrities of the 2024 campaign so far:
Taylor Swift
She kept her powder dry until after the presidential debate on September 11, but when pop superstar Taylor Swift gave her endorsement to Kamala Harris, it carried real heft.
A dedicated voter education website she linked to in her social media post prompted 337,826 visitors to click though to the vote.gov URL within 15 hours, the US General Services Commission revealed. Many are likely to be previously unregistered voters.
The Shake It Off singer suggested Donald Trump had in a way forced her hand by sharing an AI-generated image on his social media which appeared to show she was supporting him.
Trump’s post – which showed the singer dressed as Uncle Sam with the caption “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump” – “really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” the singer told her millions of followers.
“It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
In other words: Look what you made me do.
Swift went on to say she would be voting for Kamala Harris because “she is a steady-handed gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” she wrote.
Charlie XCX
As a British citizen, singer/songwriter Charlie XCX can’t even vote in the US presidential election – but she may have made one of the most consequential interventions in the campaign with a three word tweet.
Soon after Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, the singer posted “kamala IS brat” – a reference to her album title, denoting a girl who is, to quote Charlie, “a little messy and likes to party”.
Immediately, it put a new lens on the Vice President. Viral videos of Harris dancing and laughing – which had previously been posited as evidence for the idea that she was not serious enough – suddenly made her seem relatable and fun.
Democratic staffers knew what a gift the Charlie XCX tweet was, and quickly changed the font and format of the Harris campaign social media profile page to resemble the cover of Charlie’s brat album.
Writing in The Conversation, British academic Caroline Leicht predicted the “brat” label could work well for Harris, because Gen Z and millennial voters liked to associate political candidates with a sense of fun.
“That Harris is considered ‘brat’ among these voter groups is high praise for the Vice President,” Dr Leicht stated.
Elon Musk
In the hyper-partisan world of US politics, when someone changes sides, it’s significant – and those sort of transformations have already played a big role in this year’s race for the White House. (Exhibit A: Former Trump staffer Stephanie Grisham endorsing Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention. Exhibit B: Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien praising Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention.)
But the biggest change of allegiance in this campaign would appear to be Elon Musk. The billionaire CEO of X had previously revealed he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, but after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July, Musk posted that he “fully endorse(s)” the former president in his re-election bid.
It was also reported that Musk would be donating $45 million per month to the Trump campaign – a figure he later said was “not true”.
George Clooney
It’s not every Hollywood actor who changes the course of history, but George Clooney may have done just that when he called on President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race in a The New York Times op-ed in July.
The piece came a few weeks after the Ocean’s Eleven star hosted a Democratic fundraiser in Los Angeles which raised a record $30 million for Biden’s campaign, with the president in attendance.
But the guest of honour “wasn’t … the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote, effectively damning Biden’s bid for re-election.
The piece was persuasive; the calls for the president to drop out increased dramatically, and Biden withdrew his candidacy 11 days after it appeared.
And while Clooney had canvassed the idea of an open nomination process in his Times op-ed, he was also quick to endorse Harris when it became clear she would become the presumptive nominee.
Writing in Variety, the TV critic Daniel D’Addario reflected on Clooney’s celebrity, and why his opinion seems to carry such heft.
“As an actor and as a public figure, Clooney is a self-styled American conscience, a leading-man throwback who provides a sort of guiding sensibility to the films he anchors, and to the causes he supports,” D’Addario wrote.
“His step out of the public eye means when he speaks, it has an impact.”
Trump’s new backers
When Donald Trump emerged as an unlikely contender for the presidency in 2016 he was derided for the perceived D-list nature of his celebrity backers, including Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, Scott Baio and Antonio Sabato Jr.
They’re still with him, but this time he’s added a slew of new supporters.
Reality TV star Amber Rose spoke at the Republican National Convention, telling the audience she had previously believed “left wing lies” about Trump, but she had “done her own research” and was now supporting him.
Roseanne Barr and Russell Brand were also previously more aligned with left-wing causes and thinking, but are now also firmly Team Trump.
Eva Longoria
Stars don’t need to be quite at George Clooney’s level of megawattage to make an impact on the campaign. Eva Longoria might be best known for appearing in a TV drama that ended more than a decade ago, but she remains an important spokesperson as the Democrats attempt to arrest a decline in support from Latino and Latina voters.
Speaking at the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Longoria drew parallels between Kamala Harris’s experience growing up as the daughter of a mixed-race couple, and the stories of America’s estimated 36 million Spanish-speaking voters.
She also urged the crowd to follow her lead as she chanted she se pueda – “yes she can”.
Celebrities who are being dragged into this thing
Many recording artists have been prompted to set the record straight, so to speak, when their work has been broadcast at Donald Trump’s rallies.
In previous years, Adele, Pharrell Williams and Phil Collins have all demanded Trump stop using their songs at his public events or in his social media.
So far during the 2024 campaign, Abba, Beyonce, Celine Dion, Foo Fighters, Johnny Marrfrom The Smiths and the estate of Sinead O’Connor have all demanded the Republican nominee stop using their material.
After the Foo Fighters’ 1997 track My Hero was played at a Trump rally in Arizona, frontman Dave Grohl said any royalties earned will be donated to Kamala Harris’ campaign.
“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it,” the band told Billboard, adding that “appropriate actions are being taken”.
Celebrities who are not endorsing any candidate
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – who is rumoured to have his own presidential ambitions – endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 but in April said he would not be backing any candidate this year.
Other celebrities who prefer not to proffer a political opinion include Dolly Parton, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.
Celebrities who have not yet declared their hand
She’s the breakout star of The Greatest Showman and Dune, with 182 million followers on Instagram, but politics has been a no-go zone for Zendaya in her career to date.
In a recent CNN story on celebrity endorsements, an unnamed political strategist said securing an endorsement from Zendaya would be “the dream” as she is “the biggest Gen Z star”.
Political watchers are also watching to see if Kim Kardashian endorses Kamala Harris. The two discussed pardon-related matters at the White House back in April, but the reality TV queen has yet to back Harris in her campaign to become America’s first female president.
Her ex husband Kanye West is also yet to endorse any candidate, despite his previous support of Trump.
Other celebrities supporting Kamala Harris
Actors: Julia Roberts, Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, Mark Ruffalo, Nick Offerman, Blake Cooper Griffin, Jonathan Del Arco, John Stamos, Misha Collins, Jack Black, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Cynthia Nixon, Jeri Ryan, Keegan-Michael Key, DL Hughley, Kenan Thompson, America Ferrera, Olivia Rodrigo, Tony Goldwyn, Kerry Washington, Wendell Pierce, Sean Astin.
Comedians: Kathy Griffin, Tiffany Haddish, Mark Hamill, Robert De Niro, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Contemporary musicians: Ariana Grande, Megan Thee Stallion, Dave Grohl, Cardi B, Kesha, John Legend, P!nk, Maren Morris, Jason Isbell, Adam Met, country stars Mickey Guyton and The Chicks, rappers Common and Lil John.
Legendary musicians: Patti Labelle, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sheila E, Barbra Streisand, James Taylor and Stevie Wonder.
Other entertainment figures: Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, Jimmy Kimmel, Lance Bass, Rosie O’Donnell, Shonda Rhimes.
Sport: Steve Kerr (coach for the Golden State Warriors basketball team), Steph Curry.
Other celebrities supporting Donald Trump
Actors: Roseanne Barr, Stephen Baldwin, Scott Baio, Russell Brand.
Musicians: Kid Rock, Chris Janson, Jason Aldean, Lil Wayne.
Other entertainment stars: reality TV figures Amber Rose and Savannah Chrisley.
Sport: Hulk Hogan, Dana White, Conor McGregor.
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