A new poll released this week confirms what many Americans already knew – the majority of people do not want to hear their favorite celebrities’ political opinions.
Late last year, Townhall covered how singer Taylor Swift announced on Instagram that she would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris. Swift has over 284 million followers. But, a poll showed that more voters said that her endorsement would turn them away from voting for Harris than support her.
Shortly after this, music producer Pharrell Williams said in an interview that he felt “annoyed” by celebrity endorsements for the 2024 election.
“There are celebrities that I respect that have an opinion, but not all of them. I’m one of them people [who says], ‘What the heck? Shut up. Nobody asked you.’ When people get out there and get self-righteous and they roll up their sleeves and shit, and they are out there walking around with a placard: ‘Shut up!’ So, no, I would rather stay out of the way, and obviously, I’m going to vote how I’m going to vote. I care about my people and I care about the country, but I feel there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and I’m really about the action,” he continued.
The poll by Talker Research found that most Americans fall in line with Williams’ opinion (via the New York Post):
A survey of 2,000 Americans examined the thoughts and opinions on celebrities and politics and found that nearly two thirds (64%) would not want to know their favorite celebrity’s political affiliation.
In fact, only one in four (22%) said they’d be happy to know if their favorite singer or actor voted red or blue.
Conducted by Talker Research, the results also showed how the average American would react after finding out their favorite celebrity did not agree with them politically.
One in six (18%) said they’d stop being a fan, suggesting that respondents would forgo political transparency for art and entertainment.
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Younger Americans like Gen Z (37%) and millennials (30%) said they would want to know their favorite celebrities’ political party affiliation more than Gen X (23%) would and baby boomers (18%).
It doesn’t end there. According to the poll, 57 percent of respondents said they don’t want to know how their colleagues vote either, with 63 percent saying they think it’s rude to ask people who they voted for.
However, fifty percent of Gen Z respondents said they’d prefer to know who their colleagues voted for. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that 41 percent of respondents in this age bracket said that they would stop being a fan of a celebrity with different political opinions from them. Only 20 percent of millennials, 17 percent of Gen X, and 17 percent of baby boomers said the same.
