“Why should I care about celebrity endorsements,” you say, “even if it’s a celebrity I happen to like?” Good point. You probably shouldn’t. There’s no celebrity bigger than Oprah Winfrey, right? She endorsed Hillary in July 2016. Clinton went on to lose almost every important battleground narrowly. Likewise, there’s no celebrity American athlete bigger than LeBron James. He not only endorsed Clinton, he campaigned for her in the final days of the race in his home state of Ohio. She ended up losing there by eight points.
Not only do celebrity endorsements not matter much, I don’t know that any endorsements matter anymore. Who’s a political or cultural figure who could realistically move votes at this point, especially during a campaign in which views of the president are hyperpolarized and have been for years?
But here’s another fact to bear in mind about America 2020: Everyone’s in their own bubble. You and I follow politics closely hour by hour; some people don’t follow it at all. Fox News is the most widely viewed cable news network in the country; on a good night its top shows draw a little bit more than one percent of the population. How do you reach that other 99 percent? What sort of input on politics is apt to reach someone who’s, say, 20 and doesn’t follow the news closely?
Would The Rock’s endorsement matter to that guy? You and I really aren’t qualified to say. His bubble is so different from ours.
I’ll make three points about the clip below, though. One: Dwayne Johnson’s online audience is enormous even by mega-celebrity standards. He has nearly 200 million followers on Instagram. His endorsement video has more than six million views on IG as I write this while the Twitter version has more than 12 million — in a day. He has unusual cultural reach.
Two: As you’ll see, Biden and Kamala Harris actually made time to participate in this video. This isn’t Johnson just chattering to the camera about whom he’s supporting and why. He got the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominees to sit together for a conversation with him about his endorsement. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a celebrity endorsement like that before, where the ticket itself carves out time for an interview. But clearly someone high up has reason to believe Johnson might have unusual influence on certain voters at the margins this year. You and I might not be taking this seriously but Democrats are.
Three: Johnson isn’t a garden-variety screechy liberal celebrity. LeBron James is an activist off the court; it was no surprise he’d back Clinton. Oprah famously endorsed Barack Obama in 2008; her Clinton endorsement four years ago came as no shock either. Johnson is different in that he’s not a strong partisan, and has said things in the past that suggest he might be a “Schwarzenegger Republican” of sorts. But he’s clearly been souring on Trump, even putting out another highly viewed video this summer a few days after the Lafayette Park fiasco wondering why America didn’t have compassionate leadership at a moment when so many were in the streets protesting George Floyd’s death and police brutality.
Is his support for Biden going to change any votes? Probably not. Is his support for Biden maybe going to convince some typically apolitical voters who otherwise would have stayed home this year to turn out? I wouldn’t rule it out altogether.
I think this is ultimately the right take on both this endorsement and really any sort of unfavorable development for Trump, great or small, from now until Election Day. That includes the tax-return story the Times published last night. It’s not so much that that puts points on the board for Biden, it’s that it pushes Trump further back towards his own end zone needing a touchdown with the clock running down:
For the next 36 days, the operative question isn't "does this matter?" but rather "does this help?" And if the answer to the latter is anything but a consistent and resounding yes, that's a big problem.
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) September 28, 2020
An endorsement for Biden viewed 15+ million times probably doesn’t matter. But it sure doesn’t help either. Here’s the clip.
As a political independent & centrist, I’ve voted for both parties in the past. In this critical presidential election, I’m endorsing @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris.
Progress takes courage, humanity, empathy, strength, KINDNESS & RESPECT.
We must ALL VOTE: https://t.co/rZi1mxh8DC pic.twitter.com/auLbc8xDBv
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) September 27, 2020
