You can’t navigate using these stars.
Celebrities are shifting direction and allegiances, moving left and right, adding yet more unexpected twists to an already unprecedented election.
“The campaigns certainly want the [celeb] support because it helps in a broader sense to brand their candidates and highlight strengths or mitigate weaknesses,” said Brett Buerck, CEO of Majority Strategies, a national Republican consulting firm that’s worked on presidential races for more than three decades. “Having the support of younger, more glamorous Hollywood influencers creates an illusion of vitality.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kodak Black, Nicky Jam and Ana Navarro have all recently moved to the left, joining Democratic bigs such as Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, Amber Rose, Zachary Levy and Brittany Mahomes have all shifted to the right, joining Republican stalwarts such as Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Waka Flocka.
Political strategists say celeb support can get help get new voters to the polls, but the effect on the actual outcome of Tuesday’s election may be limited.
“[Most] people who are impressed by these celebrities have already picked a side and put their jersey on for their candidate,” Buerck said. “I see no evidence that Brittany Mahomes will be the tipping point towards saving your version of Democracy.”
Elon Musk
The Tesla, SpaceX and xAI CEO and billionaire has become one of Trump’s biggest and most vocal supporters, donating nearly $120 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC and raffling off $1 million to swing state voters.
All this despite the fact that, as recently as this past March, he said that he wasn’t donating to either presidential candidate.
Plus, he voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, and, in 2022, said that Trump was too old to be president and needed to “sail off into the sunset.”
Musk, who took the stage at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., in October, three months after the first assassination attempt on his life there, implored Americans to register to vote.
Musk, 53, quipped he’s “not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA” on stage to applause from the crowd.
“President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America,” Musk affirmed to the audience.
Amber Rose
In the run-up to the 2016 election, the model, 40, called Trump “such an idiot” in an interview with The Cut.
But on Candace Owens’ podcast earlier this year, Rose announced she was endorsing Trump after being encouraged, by her rapper ex-husband Wiz Khalifa, not to be afraid to be honest about her political leanings.
“I was just like, ‘I feel like I’m living a lie,’ ” she told Owens.
In her speech at the Republican National Convention in July, she claimed the media has lied about Trump and his supporters being racists and bigots and that he was the right person to lead the country.
“Inflation is out of control, and you know in your heart it was not like this under Donald Trump,” she said.
Zachary Levy
The “Shazam!” star previously supported former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 bid.
After RFK dropped out in August and joined Team Trump, Levy followed.
“I stand with Bobby . . . I stand with everyone else who is standing with President Trump,” the actor said at a Trump rally in Michigan on Sept. 28, where he moderated a conversation with Kennedy and former Democratic Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
He acknowledged it was a risky move, saying, “Hollywood is a very, very liberal town, and this very well could constitute career suicide.”
Brittany Mahomes
She and Swift may look cozy at Kansas City Chiefs games, but their politics differ.
In August, the wife of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, liked a Trump Instagram post declaring that the candidate would “keep men out of women’s sports,” and “end inflation.”
Mahomes hadn’t previously been politically vocal, and the move sparked controversy and speculation that she was voting red.
She defended the move on Instagram, writing, “To be a hater as an adult, you have to have the same deep-rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood.” Trump went on to thank her “for so strongly defending me.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The 77-year-old former Republican governor of California announced Wednesday that he was supporting Harris.
“You don’t recognize our country. And you are right to be furious,” he wrote on X.
While he noted that he is worried about the left’s “local policies hurting our cities with increased crime,” he said that, ultimately, he couldn’t endorse Trump.
“He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-America,” he wrote. “I will always be an American before I am a Republican. That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”
Kodak Black
The 27-year-old Haitian rapper grew up in South Florida and had a jail sentence related to a firearm purchase commuted by Trump in 2016. He went on to make numerous appearance at Trump campaign events, including a September rally in New York.
But, when the former presidents made comments about Haitian immigrants eating pet cats and dogs at the debate in September, he lost Kodak.
“Haitians, we came too far, bro,” he said on a livestream soon after. “We came too f–king far homie . . . We ain’t talking no Haitian slander.”
Nicky Jam
A few weeks ago, the 43-year-old Latin musician appeared on stage at a Trump rally in Las Vegas wearing a MAGA hat.
But, this past Wednesday, the reggaetón hitmaker announced that he was withdrawing his support for in the wake of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend.
In a video in Spanish posted to his 44 million followers on Instagram, he said, “I thought [Trump] was the best for the economy in the United States, where a lot of Latinos live,” but “Puerto Rico should be respected.”
Ana Navarro
“The View” co-host, 52, fled communist Nicaragua as a young girl and identified as a Republican for years, but she stopped supporting the party as Trump rose to the power in 2016.
This past August, she served as a host at the Democratic National Convention and shared her story. “I’m a little refugee girl who fled communism . . . found freedom, found opportunity, found a home in America,” she said in a video posted on X. “For me to have the chance to stand on that stage and help my girl, Kamala, make history and become the Democratic nominee, it’s just such a mind-blowing event.”
Read the full article here
