Will Music Win This Election?

In Beats + Bytes by Nue Agency

Well…we’re here. It’s Election Day.

When it comes to curation, I’m a big believer in data + POV + insider information. That’s why Clay Durant and I dedicated this week’s Stat of the Week to covering both music and election details. 

This election will go down as “the creator economy’s election” and there will be lessons learned that ripple through marketing ideology for years. We saw the role the podcast circuit played, something I addressed a few weeks back. And for better or worse, “influencers” were also everywhere in this race: on livestreams, on zoom calls, and dominating social media, with a particularly large presence within the DNC.

That said, music was the unsung hero this election, carrying major marketing weight. VP Harris’ camp chose to lean into music, believing it to be a strategic, competitive advantage over Trump.

We know that music creates exponential awareness in a time where awareness is hard to come by. Case in point: Megan Thee Stallion’s rally performance on July 30 drove a 29% spike in visits to kamalaharris.com, as well as a 20% increase in unique visitors according to data from Similarweb. This surge reflects Megan’s power to attract a young, diverse audience to the campaign. We were also able to find that:

  • During the Democratic National Convention, artists like Lil Jon (Aug. 20) and Pink (Aug. 22) enhanced site visibility. Pink’s performance alone brought 1,112,984 visits and 950,363 visitors, with increases of 101.7% and 96.0% above average, respectively. And DJ Cassidy and Lil Jon’s epic voter roll call cut through the noise and helped the DNC go viral in a positive way.
  • Taylor Swift’s endorsement on September 10 triggered the largest increase, with 1,509,086 visits (a remarkable 173.5% above average) and 1,311,033 unique visitors (up 170.4%).
  • And last night, election eve as they call it, all of the firepower came out in Philadelphia (Lady Gaga, Jazmine Sullivan) and Pittsburgh (Katy Perry, Andra Day) in an attempt to appeal to woman voters in Pennsylvania.

Music contextualizes and humanizes political messaging.

When Kamala told the world she had a glock at the presidential debate, it reverberated across social platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where glock-related rap lyrics—like Fetty Wap’s 679—were used to amplify the message she wanted to convey to the American people.

More recently, when an insulting joke was told at Trump’s MSG rally, there was a quick movement to mobilize Puerto Ricans through powerful messages from superstar musicians, Bad Bunny and JLO.

We know music drives voter awareness and artists can drive hundreds of thousands of new registrations, especially with college students. The DNC did a massive voter registration push at Taylor Swift’s recent Miami concerts, garnering big results.

Music clearance is complicated but essential for navigating content, live events, social media, livestreams, and ads.

The theme song of the campaign was Beyoncé’s Freedom. Not only did the Harris campaign succeed with this anthem, but so did Bey, with our Chartmetric analysis showing a substantial increase in airplay and streams. Since the first political ad featuring Freedom aired on July 21, 2024:

  • Spotify streams for “Freedom” surged nearly 9%, with over 7.2 million additional plays.
  • Shazam counts for the song increased by 12%, totaling more than 77,000 new searches.
  • YouTube views rose by 13%, adding 1.7 million views.
  • Radio airplay grew by 44%, with over 4,300 new spins on U.S. stations.

Musicians are the most powerful creators – more than actors and influencers – because they are real.

Musicians don’t typically do pay-for-play or take on fictional roles. Rather, they are raw, authentic vessels. From Bruce Springsteen’s ads to Eminem campaigning in Detroit and Cardi B this weekend in Wisconsin, these are real people telling true stories. Their involvement in the campaign created big music moments that had attention-grabbing impact. Even Lil Dicky got in on the action in his own, inventive way, making a post this week that was true to his style.

Strategic booking works better than big names.

This was a data-driven ground game. Organizations like iVoted strategically curated entertainment events by booking artists who resonated with specific communities. For example, bringing Tee Grizzley to Philadelphia to connect with potential unregistered voters in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania. The strategic value was clear: these artists had authentic connections to communities with historically lower voter registration rates.

DayBreaker did similar work with their Party To Polls tour featuring strategic, market-based artist choices.

The bottom line is, music is not just a passion point when it comes to consumer spending; it’s doing work in politics, too. In a race that’s too-close-to-call, music might just be the X factor.