Vice President Kamala Harris is turning to A-list celebrities as she seeks to recapture the sense of Democratic enthusiasm that marked her early campaign for president.
Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Harris during the Chicago convention, will join her on Thursday for a live-streamed event in the battleground of Michigan as early voting gets underway in a handful of states.
“What is essential to me is getting people motivated to vote – and that’s my intention in hosting this event,” Winfrey said in a statement. “My goal is to get people excited about the privilege and power of the vote.”
Her event comes one week after pop icon Taylor Swift got under Trump’s skin with her own endorsement of Harris, and one day after singer Billie Eilish endorsed her, too.
“We are voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, because they are fighting to protect our reproductive freedom, our planet, and our democracy,” Eilish said in a video statement with her brother, Finneas O’Connell.
Celebrity culture has surrounded Harris’s campaign from the very beginning. Singer-songwriter Charli XCX set off an internet sensation when she called Harris “brat,” the slang title of her new album, on the day she announced her run for president.
A month later, Democrats leaned into the Hollywood support at a Chicago convention attended by stars ranging from Pink to John Legend.
Harris was riding a moment of collective relief among Democrats, who feared President Joe Biden would cost them the election after his disastrous debate performance in June. Biden stepped aside a few weeks later so she could take his place.
Yet the endorsements have grown in importance as the luster of Harris’s candidacy has begun to fade.