There’s Now Actual Polling to Confirm Taylor Swift Is the Most Popular Public Figure in America
AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko
If there was any doubt that Taylor Swift was favored highly among Americans, NBC News has a poll to push doubters over the edge.
In a poll released on Monday, voters from across the political spectrum stated that they had a positive view of the Grammy-winning musician at a solid 40 percent, putting her just a few points above the equally influential Grammy winner Beyoncé (33 percent). Both women had name-recognition in the 90s (Swift at 94 percent, Beyoncé at 92 percent) and low negative ratings (Swift at 16 percent, Beyoncé at 20 percent.
The poll, a joint effort with NBC News’ political unit, Hart Research Associates, and Public Opinion Strategies, was conducted between November 10-14, with 1,000 respondents (48 percent male, 52 percent female).
Both artists had massively successful tours this year — Swift’s Eras and Beyoncé’s Renaissance — but Swift’s tour actually shook the U.S. economy, boosting it by $5.7 billion of consumer spending power, driven mostly by women. (And that’s just in this country.) The 20 cities that hosted the Eras tour reported boosts in their local economies, much of it coming not from locals, but from tourists.
In short, people from all over the country went all over the country to see Taylor Swift.
That phenomenon is something that politicians wish for — but the same NBC News poll showed that (perhaps not surprisingly) politicians fared worse than the pop icons:
Among all of the figures and groups tested in the poll — including President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, new House Speaker Mike Johnson, former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — Swift had the highest net favorability rating.
It could be worth noting that voters who identified as Republicans had less favorable views of Swift; 28 percent of Republicans polled said they viewed Swift negatively, 26 percent viewed her positively. But that said, Swift’s ability to transcend politics (for the most part) could be the shot in the arm Democrats want in 2024.
