A recent Monmouth University Polling Institute survey’s question of “Do you think that a covert government effort for Taylor Swift to help Joe Biden win the presidential election actually exists, or not?” 32 percent of self-identified Republican respondents think it’s real compared with 18 percent of independents and 6 percent of Dems – who maybe expressed it out of wishful thinking.
Another 57 percent of Republicans said it doesn’t exist, with the remaining 11 percent saying they don’t know. On an earlier question was whether or not the respondents were even aware of the “psy-op” and only 46 percent of the GOP respondents said yes. Further muddying things is that the sampling period was February 8th to 12th and the Super Bowl was on the 11th, so there’s nothing on our end as to how much, if any, impact the Chiefs’ win over the 49ers had on the answers.
The best finding however might be the motivated reasoning (though “reasoning” is doing a lot of work there) behind the “psy-op”: On “Do you approve or disapprove of Taylor Swift encouraging her fans to vote in the upcoming presidential election?” 42 percent of Republicans disapprove.