Former Rep. Jim Cooper was at a party with his phone on silent when he noticed it suddenly exploding. Was a family member sick? Was the world ending?

Phones weren’t allowed at the venue so he went to a bathroom stall and called his daughter. “Taylor Swift has endorsed you!” she told him.

“I’m not a big smiler, anyway,” he told The Messenger in an interview, recalling the moment in 2018 when he received the enchanted nod from Swift. “But I think my smile might have broken my face.”

The popstar hadn’t ever endorsed a political party – much less a politician – before she made news by throwing her support behind Cooper and Senate candidate Phil Bredesen, both Democrats.

A blonde woman stands in front of a packed stadium — Kevin Winter/Getty Images

That was then. Six years later, Swift’s following has grown exponentially: She has 279 million followers on Instagram. Her latest Eras Tour has become the highest-grossing music tour in history, with Swift earning more than $1 billion in revenue; the movie version is the highest grossing concert film ever. Since she began dating NFL star Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs last fall, NFL viewership has jumped 7%, with an average of 17.9 million viewers, according to Neilsen. And after she encouraged fans to register to vote last fall, the nonpartisan group Vote.org saw a double-digit jump in new registrations.

Now, President Biden is hoping to benefit from Swift’s starpower. While Biden received Swift’s backing during the 2020 election, the president’s allies say the singer’s support could help put them over the top against former President Donald Trump. The endorsement would be especially important to sway younger voters – many of whom are naturally Swifties.

“I’ve always felt that most surrogates don’t move the needle but she would move the needle in a big way,” one prominent donor close to the Biden campaign said.

“She has literally shaken the Earth.” the donor said, referring to the record-breaking seismic activity recorded last summer during her shows in Seattle.

The Biden campaign refused to comment.

After Swift’s post on National Voter Registration Day 2023, “Vote.org helped 41,375 voters register to vote that week, a substantial increase compared to 2022, including a spike in 18-year-olds registering,” a Vote.org spokesperson said.

Eighteen percent of voters say they're "more likely" or "significantly more likely" to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift, according to polling conducted in January for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.

Politicians work hard for any minor endorsement, Cooper said. “You know, if a rotary club endorses you, you're on cloud nine,” he said. “And to have a mega superstar is just, it's extraordinary. It’s like manna from Heaven.”

But those who have been on the other side of a Swift endorsement, including supporters of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, say her support ultimately didn’t make a difference in the outcome.

“Sen. Blackburn won by 11 points – clearly crushing the notion that the endorsement meant anything in the race, ” one former campaign aide said.

Scott Golden, the chair of the Republican Party of Tennessee, who worked to elect Blackburn – the state’s first elected female senator – during the 2018 campaign, echoed that sentiment, saying their victory was larger than expected.

“We were pleased with the ultimate result,” Golden said in an interview. “We didn't worry about all the outside stuff. I'm not sure what impact it had at all.

“There were celebrities on all sides that were endorsing,” he said. “Our job was just to make sure that our vote came out.”

'The single dumbest thing a mega-superstar can do'

Swift’s endorsement itself made its way into the national conversation this week on the heels of the Kansas City Chiefs preparations to head to the Super Bowl and the singer’s appearance on the field alongside Kelce.

On Tuesday, Fox Host Brian Kilmeade – seemingly unaware of Swift’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 – said “it would be the single dumbest thing a mega-superstar can do.”

“Why would you tell half the country you don’t agree with them in this highly polarized time,” Kilmeade added.

A day earlier, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy claimed that the Super Bowl would be somehow rigged in preparation of a Biden endorsement.

“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall,” Ramaswamy wrote in a response to Jack Posobiec, a far-right social media commentator.

Trump also reposted a missive on X from the Loomer Report on Monday which claimed that “the looney woke left has Taylor Swift.”

Fox News host Jesse Watters’ suggestion that Swift could be “a front for a covert political agenda” earlier in January prompted a response from the Pentagon, with a spokesperson saying in a statement, “as for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”

A Biden aide countered the onslaught of GOP criticism, saying it’s, “Unsurprising that the MAGA right is again bullying Americans for having wildly controversial opinions like…LGBTQ Americans deserve equal rights, women should be able to make their own health care decisions, and Americans should vote in our elections.”

‘It’s like a political facelift’

Cooper had no advance notice about Swift’s endorsement back in 2018. He said he never talked to her about it before or afterward.

“The value of her endorsement is literally priceless,” he said. “I was just so grateful for it, I didn’t want to impose on her.”

The nod exceeded, as Swift would put it, his wildest dreams: There was excitement in his campaign for days – more phone calls, more texts.

“It’s like a political facelift,” said Cooper, who is 69. “It gives you a whole new image without any effort on your part.”

Cooper was an incumbent at the time who was likely to win re-election in his central Tennessee district, so there was little risk in endorsing him, he said. He ultimately defeated his GOP rival by more than 35 percentage points in that election. The Bredesen-Blackburn race, however, was a serious race where the outcome was in doubt, he said.

He hoped that her endorsement would “move the needle” for Bredesen,” he said.

“Both of us were older white men, not particularly attractive, and to be endorsed by Taylor, who's this goddess, like, Oh, my God,” he said. “It gives you a whole new dimension.”

Cooper said the endorsement isn’t a “one-for-one transfer,” though. “So many Swifties don’t live in Tennessee, probably a lot of them aren’t registered to vote,” he said.

“It sure helps” to have the endorsement, he said, but it’s hard to know how much. It may have added 5-plus points to Bredesen’s campaign or perhaps, given today’s “political firewalls,” it’s possible nothing could penetrate, he said.

“When it comes to the priceless comment, part of that is because it's literally impossible to value,” he said. “It could be as good as gold. It could be better than gold. It could be better than titanium.”

So why is it priceless?

“Of all the endorsements in the world, who has a greater proven following than she does?” he asked. “The pope might.”

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Could Taylor Swift Make Joe Biden’s Wildest Dreams Come True?