A majority of Republican voters are rejecting right-wing conspiracy theories spread online that superstar Taylor Swift may be plotting to help President Joe Biden win reelection.
High-profile conservatives have raised conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift, suggesting the Super Bowl may have been rigged for the Kansas City Chiefs to win, as Swift's boyfriend Travis Kelce plays for the team. According to the conspiracy, the "Cruel Summer" singer would use this victory to endorse Biden to help his reelection campaign as polls show him struggling to gain traction over former President Donald Trump.
While there is no evidence to back up these claims, they have been floated by several high-profile Republicans.
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, for instance, wrote in a post to X (formerly Twitter) in January that he wondered "who's going to win the Super Bowl" and "if there's a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall." Fox News host Jesse Watters, meanwhile, questioned whether Swift was part of a "psyop" for combatting online misinformation allegedly floated by the Pentagon.
However, most Republicans aren't buying that theory, according to a new poll published by Monmouth University on Wednesday.
The poll asked respondents, "Do you think that a covert government effort for Taylor Swift to help Joe Biden win the presidential election actually exists, or not?"
Only 32 percent of Republicans said they believe the conspiracy theory to be true, according to the poll. Meanwhile, another 11 percent of Republican respondents said they are not sure if the conspiracy exists, and 57 percent outright rejected it.
Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, told Newsweek on Wednesday that Republicans who have already heard of the theory were more likely to believe it.
He said that 42 percent of those who heard of it prior to the survey believed it, while that number was 17 percent for Republicans for whom this was new information.
"There is a question about what conservative media outlets do with the story. If they bang the drum on this, even with a wink and a nod, will more Republicans start to believe it? In any event, it says something about the fragile state of our political culture that more than 4 in 10 Republicans who have been exposed to a wild conspiracy actually believe it," Murray said.
Newsweek reached out to a representative for Swift for comment via email.
Among respondents, 73 percent said the conspiracy does not exist, 18 percent said they believe it does and 9 percent said they remain unsure about it, according to the poll.
The poll surveyed 902 adults from February 8 to 12. The poll had a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points overall and 8.1 percentage points among Republicans.
Swift has not endorsed Biden's 2024 presidential run, though she did endorse him in 2020, saying in an interview with V Magazine that she believed the U.S. needed a president who "recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
