Claim Taylor Swift lost 17 million followers after Harris endorsement is false
She has, in fact, gained hundreds of thousands of followers in the days since the endorsement.
CLAIM
A post on X that was viewed a million times claimed that Taylor Swift lost 17 million Instagram followers after her endorsement of Kamala Harris to become the next U.S. president.
BACKGROUND
A post on X on September 15 claimed that Taylor Swift’s follower count on Instagram dropped from 301 million to 284 million after her recent endorsement of Kamala Harris’s bid for the White House.
The post, which has been viewed 1 million times, was published by an account with the username @PGATUOR. The account describes itself as a satire and parody account and uses branding similar to the PGA Tour, which runs professional golf tours in North America.
The post included a screenshot showing Taylor Swift’s current following of 284 million, along with the caption: “Taylor Swift had 301 Million Instagram followers last week. She endorsed Kamala Harris 5 days ago. She now only has 284 Million followers. She lost 17 Million followers by endorsing Kamala.”
Although the @PGATUOR account claims to be a space for discussion about golf, it has mainly posted pro-Trump commentary in recent times. After the televised debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the account posted that it was supporting former President Trump.
The account has also frequently posted negative comments about Kamala Harris, and it was published after its running commentary of the debate: “Tour Golf will never apologise for being based and patriotic.”
Taylor Swift formally endorsed Kamala Harris on the evening of Tuesday, September 10, with a message on Instagram that referenced Donald Trump’s recent use of AI to imply that the singer had lent him her support (we debunked this on Spotlight here.)
Swift also urged fans to register to vote and included a link to voter registration resources, which resulted in a major spike in traffic to Vote.gov, according to the federal agencies that run it. About 406,000 clicked on the link in the 24 hours after Swift’s post.
METHOD
We analysed Taylor Swift’s Instagram following over the last 30 days to determine if there was any significant change in the statistics.
We could track the main metrics on the popstar’s account using a social media analytics website, Social Blade.
On September 9, before her endorsement, Taylor Swift had 283,601,608 followers. On September 10, she gained 143,391 followers; on September 11, she gained 258,824.
The chart generated by Social Blade shows that her average daily follower count for the last 30 days jumped by almost 10,000 a day, so the boost to her followers around the time of the endorsement — in the hundreds of thousands — is quite significant.
Furthermore, there has been no significant slump in her followers since the endorsement as of September 16. She now has over 284.1 million followers, compared with 283.6 million at the same time last week.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the claim that she lost 17 million followers after endorsing Kamala Harris is false.
RATING
The claim that Taylor Swift lost 17 million followers since endorsing Kamala Harris is false. She has, in fact, gained hundreds of thousands of followers in the days since the endorsement.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: Taylor Swift had 301 Million Instagram followers last week… [Accessed 16 Sep. 2024].
Instagram. (2024). Taylor Swift on Instagram: ‘Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research… [Accessed 16 Sep. 2024].
Astor, M., nytimes.com. (2024). New York Times: Taylor Swift’s Call to Vote Sent Hundreds of Thousands to Registration Tools [Accessed 16 Sep. 2024].
Taylor Swift’s Instagram Monthly Stats (Social Blade Instagram Statistics) Socialblade.com. Available at: https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/taylorswift/monthly (Accessed: 16 September 2024).