To hear political insiders in Hollywood describe it, stars began crawling out of the woodwork to support the Democratic Party after sitting president Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race in late July and handed the 2024 baton to Kamala Harris.
But some strategists and observers say that, so far, the Harris/Tim Walz campaign has been acting strategically in how they’re deploying those celebrities. This week’s Democratic National Convention is one example, says a well-placed bundler. While traditional film and television stars including Kerry Washington, Mindy Kaling, Tony Goldwyn and Ana Navarro have been revealed as hosts, top headliners appear to be familiar political figures: Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Biden. “Their star power is political star power,” this person says. (Of course, if Beyoncé or Taylor Swift show up and endorse the Harris/Walz ticket, as some fans have been wishfully predicting, that may change.)
“The impression that I’m getting is that this is a Charlie XCX strategy,” says University of Saint Mary associate professor Mark Harvey, referring to the Harris/Walz campaign’s embrace of a tweet from the British pop singer. The author of Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-Based Advocacy explains, “It’s like we let the celebrities come out and say organically what they are going to say, and we’ll run with it, but we don’t necessarily need them to stand up on stage with us.”
Overall, political players believe it’s important for the Democrats to be intentional about starry surrogates in a potentially tight presidential race that may come down to voters in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. “You don’t want to overdo the California, you don’t want to overdo the Hollywood when you’re painting a broad brush with the country. But anything that can get earned media in a positive way will be embraced,” says L.A.-area major fundraiser Jon Vein, who recently co-hosted an event with second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
The use of celebrities “has to be balanced, thoughtful and strategic as one part of a larger, well-rounded campaign of diverse and grassroots supporters, voices and surrogates,” adds Matt Kaplan, vice president of government relations at Endeavor.
As a Brentwood resident (neighbors include LeBron James and Gwyneth Paltrow) and the spouse of a former entertainment attorney (Emhoff), Harris is unusually well-connected in Hollywood for a presidential candidate. Her campaign isn’t exactly shying away from those ties: It has hired social impact firm Propper Daley — which has helped John Legend, Washington and Bradley Cooper with advocacy work — to aid eager celebrities in finding the right places to be helpful. It’s using Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as an official campaign anthem (with Bey’s permission) and, as Harvey noted, has changed its background on the social media platform X to lime green in a wink to Charli XCX’s latest album, Brat.
But the campaign is also being curatorial with its celebrity appearances. It’s taken what Kaplan calls a “decentralized” approach for some of its star surrogates, “allowing them to speak in their own voice and authentically and organically to the communities they have a sphere of influence with,” rather than solely in traditional forums like at a major rally or the DNC. One example of this approach may be the appearance of Jane Fonda, Shonda Rhimes and Barbra Streisand at the virtual rallies like “Elders for Kamala,” “CT Women for Harris” and “Jewish Women for Kamala”: Those targeted appearances made news and also placed celebrities in specific settings where they may have sway.
Still, it remains unclear how useful star endorsements are overall to political candidates. Earlier this year, when Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee, a poll in USA Today suggested that former political figures like the Obamas were more likely to influence voters than red carpet fixtures such as Beyoncé and Swift. According to Harvey, celebrities can be quite effective when it comes to advocating on behalf of particular political issues, such as abortion or criminal justice reform, but “they’re usually not very good when it comes to advocating on behalf of a candidate. There’s very little evidence that suggests that they’re going to make a difference at all.” That’s in part because researchers can’t really delineate the impact of an endorsement versus other major factors, like the state of the economy or party identification, he says. One notable exception was Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of then-Senator Barack Obama in 2007, which one study has estimated led to more than one million votes for Obama in the primary.
That said, there is evidence that celebrities can be helpful in boosting civic engagement. A recent study from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School found “huge returns” when celebrities were promoting voter registration, says author Ashley Spillane, a former fellow of the Ash Center. After Swift posted an Instagram story calling for her followers to register to vote in 2018, Vote.org reported gaining 250,000 new registrants in 72 hours. When Ariana Grande added voter registration booths to her Sweetener tour in 2019, more than 33,000 new voter registrants resulted.
“There has long been a critique of celebrity engagement that I think this report really debunks because we now have data that shows that it’s powerful and impactful,” says Spillane, who is also the president of social impact consulting firm Impactual.
Ultimately, strategists say, for a celebrity political engagement to work, it has to project authenticity — that the work the star is doing is in line with their established brand and seems to be a genuine effort. At this year’s DNC, the Harris-Walz campaign appears to be tapping stars with an established track record, who can potentially project that political credibility. Thursday night’s host Washington has previously stumped for Democratic candidates and participated in get-out-the-vote campaigns, while Monday night performer James Taylor publicly backed Obama and Biden during their presidential runs.
“The times that these engagements tend to go wrong is when someone is handed a very bland or straightforward script to read from, and it just doesn’t feel like the celebrity’s voice,” says Spillane.
Adds Natalie Tran, an executive at CAA and co-founder of iamavoter, “I do think that audiences, regardless of the campaign, are allergic to things that are not authentic or they can see right through.” Tran adds, addressing how much Democrats should court Hollywood, “It is going to have to be a delicate balance.”
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