CNN
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The support went around the world on Instagram: Pop superstar Taylor Swift supports Kamala Harris for president. Swift’s post also called on her followers to register to vote.

Swift’s support for Harris and voter registration will likely have some impact, but not as much as some would hope. However, Harris and the Democratic Party are struggling with young voters and voter registration, so they’ll take any help they can get.

Let’s start with what we know about Swift’s post. As of 2 p.m. Wednesday, more than 330,000 people were directed to Vote.gov from Swift’s Instagram, according to the General Services Administration, which runs the site. An examination of Google Trends showed a spike in voter registration searches following Swift’s post, a Washington Post analysis found.

We know there was a surge in registrations when Swift made a similar post urging people to register to vote in 2023. Voter registrations increased 23% that day compared to the same time last year. That’s a total of 35,252 voter registrations nationwide.

These are really not big numbers. Let’s assume that all the people who clicked on Swift’s Vote.gov link registered to vote. That would be about 0.2% of the 2020 voter turnout. Of course, only a portion of those who clicked on the link will actually register and then actually vote.

And the potential Swift lead comes as registered Republicans have narrowed the gap with registered Democrats in several key states in recent years. Take a look at the latest voter registration data reported by government officials in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania – all battleground areas where voters can register by party affiliation.

The Republicans have been able to extend their lead in Arizona and significantly narrow the gap to the Democrats in other states since September 2020 – in Nevada they have gained more than 60,000 active voters and in Pennsylvania almost 400,000.

The surges in voter registration we have seen in the past due to campaigns supporting Swift would not be enough to offset these Republican gains.

Now Swift Harris could be among these already plan to vote. In a Grinnell College/Selzer poll released earlier this year, she had a 52% approval rating among likely voters. Her disapproval rating was just 32%, giving her a net approval rating of +20 points. A Fox News poll last year found the same.

While she is not universally popular, she is far more popular than most politicians. Harris and former President Donald Trump have net popularity ratings closer to 0 and -10, respectively.

Younger “Swifties” could also be of help to Harris.

The vice president is currently struggling relatively with younger voters. A recent average of national polls shows her leading by 15 percentage points among voters under 30. That’s better than President Joe Biden was when he dropped out of the race in July, but not by much. Biden was at 7 percentage points.

Both Harris and Biden have performed worse with young voters this year than they did in September 2020. Back then, Biden had a 25 percentage point lead among young voters. That lead would grow to 29 percentage points by the final polls before the 2020 election.

Swift alone will not be able to close this gap. It is important to remember that she was unable to convert her first major political endorsement (for Democrat Phil Bredesen for the Senate in 2018) into a victory at the ballot box. Bredesen lost by double digits.

But there is no doubt that Swift is an asset to Harris and the Democrats, even if it only plays a marginal role.

We’re talking about an election that’s currently neck and neck nationally and in the swing states. Winning a few voters for the Democrats and Harris might just be enough.