US presidential election: pop star Taylor Swift endorses Harris

American pop singer Taylor Swift, whose opinion matters to millions of her fans, has made a post on her Instagram after the first televised debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on ABC in which she expressed her support for Harris.

"The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz [Vice President Candidate – ed.] in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them... I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make," Swift wrote on Instagram.

She wrote that she had watched the debate and urged Americans who are not yet aware of the candidates' positions to learn what the candidates were saying about the issues that mattered most to them.

According to CNN, Swift said she could not remain silent about her opinion after an AI-generated video of her allegedly expressing support for Trump was circulated.

The singer ironically signed the post as a "childless cat lady", the phrase used by Trump's vice president candidate to criticise Democrats.

By morning Kyiv time, her post on Instagram had received almost 5 million likes, of which the first 2 million, as journalists write, appeared in the first half hour.

In 2020, Swift expressed her support for Biden and Kamala Harris.

The first polls of viewers of the Harris-Trump TV debate on 10 September show that registered voters who watched the debate believe that Harris performed better by 63% to 37%.