Taylor Swift’s decision to jump into politics over the weekend, announcing her support in an Instagram post for two Democrats in Tennessee and urging her 112 million followers to register to vote, appears to have contributed to a flurry of last-minute registrations before deadlines in many states.
In the hours after Swift shared her political views Sunday, the voter registration site Vote.org recorded a flood of requests, both nationwide and in the pop superstar’s adopted home state of Tennessee.
More than 166,000 people across the U.S. submitted new registrations on Vote.org between Sunday and noon Tuesday, with about 42 percent of the registrants falling between ages 18 and 24, officials at the site said.
People have had plenty of reasons to rush to fill out voter applications this week: 18 states have some type of registration deadline Tuesday, including Tennessee. Many other states have deadlines later this week or later in the month, before Election Day in November. Registrations usually surge as deadlines approach.
But the total number of people who have registered since Swift’s post, especially young people, has exceeded the number of new registrations in any similar period since Vote.org launched in 2016, a company spokeswoman said.