Last week, country-turned-pop diva Taylor Swift finally broke her famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) silence on all things political and posted on her Instagram account an endorsement of Tennessee Democrat Senator Phil Bredesen and whatever the opposite of an endorsement is for his challenger, Republican Marsha Blackburn.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BopoXpYnCes/

Following Swift’s post, 65,000 new voters registered in Tennessee in a 24-hour period, just beating the 9 October deadline. That sounds like a big boost to the Democrats, but that’s not the whole story. Consider the Real Clear Politics poll average for the Tennessee race:

On 7 October, when Swift posted her Bredesen endorsement, Blackburn had a 2 per cent lead over the Democrat incumbent (she first opened a lead in the whole campaign on 3 October). On 11 October, which is the last recorded day, Blackburn’s lead is now 5.5 per cent, 49.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent.

There are still a few weeks until the mid-terms so it’s way too early to get excited (“Don’t get cocky,” as Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds constantly reminds us), but this could possibly be the reason why Tay-Tay has until six days ago declined to reveal her political views and express support for/opposition against any particular political figures. If Swift’s endorsement will indeed prove to be a pop kiss of death for Bredesen, we should do everything we can to make sure Swift publicly comes out in support of as many Democrats as possible.

Arthur Chrenkoff blogs at The Daily Chrenk, where this piece also appears.

Illustration: Big Machine.

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