Taylor Swift loses 2 million Spotify listeners after Harris endorsement

Taylor Swift’s streaming stats are poor.

Since supporting Democratic candidate Kamala Harris over Donald Trump for president, Swift has lost more than 2 million Spotify listeners, according to data from Chartmetric, a music streaming analytics company.

Here are the key numbers: When Swift publicly supported Harris in an Instagram post on September 10th, it was 94 million Unique Spotify listeners had streamed at least one of their songs in the last month. A little over two weeks later, on September 27, Swift’s monthly unique listeners had dropped to 91.9 million, according to Chartmetric.

And it’s worth pointing out that Swift was already in a (relative) crisis before she came out against Trump.

For reference, Swift had 95.9 million Spotify listeners in the 28 days — the time frame Chartmetric and Spotify use to measure a month — ending August 27. Their support of the Democratic nomination, minutes after the Trump-Harris presidential debate that ended on September 10, has not helped reverse their recent downward trend.

Chartmetric’s music data is for global users, so it’s unclear how many of those lost listeners came from the US. Spotify had 246 million paying customers and 626 million monthly users worldwide, according to its most recent earnings report.

And as we look at their streaming data, their YouTube stats also brought a cruel end to the summer.

According to Chartmetric data, the number of people watching Swift’s YouTube videos in the U.S. fell by nearly 10% after Harris’ endorsement. (In the month before her endorsement, Swift had 102.4 million people watch her videos on YouTube; that number dropped to 92.5 million monthly viewers as of September 27.) However, the volatility on YouTube is increasing given the recent suspension of Music videos by popular media artists and the fact that YouTube is far from the primary place where people listen to music are worth noting.

In case you missed it, Swift officially endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in an Instagram post on September 10.

“I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she fights for rights and causes and I believe she needs a warrior to stand up for them,” Swift said. “I think she is a level-headed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country when we are led by calm and not chaos.”

Swift’s post – whose comments section was disabled – has been liked 11 million times so far. The “Antihero” singer has 283 million followers on Instagram.

Swift’s recommendation, linked to a voter registration website, resulted in over 338,000 views of the voter registration page.

A few days later, Trump didn’t mince his words in response.

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” the Republican candidate posted on Truth Social.

Swift’s support for Harris and Walz came after she was criticized by the media for her political silence in 2024.

In early September, Glamor wondered whether Taylor Swift would support Kamala Harris for president. Vanity Fair asked the same question in July, immediately after Harris was named President Joe Biden’s successor.

According to Vanity Fair, the world “waited with bated breath to see whether Swift would throw her considerable cultural weight behind Harris, the Democratic Party’s newly appointed great hope.”

Until her Instagram post made it official, Swift’s fans probably had an idea of ​​what direction the pop star would take this election. Swift told her father in her 2020 documentary “Miss Americana” that she regretted not standing up to Trump in 2016.

“I have to be on the right side of history,” Swift said when explaining her decision to become more politically active in the 2018 midterm elections.

In 2024, she has made it clear that she will use her reputation to support the candidates she believes in – even if it undermines her dominance in the streaming space.