Taylor Swift endorses Biden ahead of Harris-Pence debate

“I spoke to @vmagazine about why I’ll be voting for Joe Biden for president. So apt that it’s come out on the night of the VP debate. Gonna be watching and supporting @KamalaHarris by yelling at the tv a lot. And I also have custom cookies,” Swift, 30, said in a tweet on Wednesday.

“The change we need most is to elect 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,” Swift told V Magazine. “Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first. The only way we can begin to make things better is to choose leaders who are willing to face these issues and find ways to work through them.”

“I will proudly vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election. Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs,” Swift said.

It is not the first time that Swift expressed support for the Biden-Harris ticket. When the former vice president announced the California senator as his running mate in August, Swift reacted in a tweet: “YES!”

The international superstar was notoriously silent about her political views for years. But in 2018, she explained that she had changed her mind about keeping her views to herself and announced support for Tennessee Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen that year. Bredesen lost to Republican incumbent Sen. Marsha Blackburn.

A documentary about Swift, Miss Americana, showed her progression toward being outspoken about her political views. In the documentary, she called Blackburn, “Trump in a wig.”

Swift has actively supported gun control and employment protections for gay and transgender people.

Also in August, amid concerns swirling among Democrats about President Trump tampering with the operations of the Post Office, Swift accused Trump of trying to “blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.”

In a Vogue interview earlier this year, Swift explained why she did not actively support Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

“Unfortunately in the 2016 election you had a political opponent who was weaponizing the idea of the celebrity endorsement. He was going around saying, ‘I’m a man of the people. I’m for you. I care about you.‘ I just knew I wasn’t going to help,” Swift said. “The summer before that election, all people were saying was, ‘She’s calculated. She’s manipulative. She’s not what she seems. She’s a snake. She’s a liar.’ These are the same exact insults people were hurling at Hillary. Would I be an endorsement or would I be a liability?”

Swift is one of the few people on Twitter with more followers than the president: 87.2 million to Trump’s 87.1 million.