The 45th president of the United States of America believes he can take Taylor Swift in a fight. At least, that’s according to Rolling Stone, which reports that Trump believes he is “more popular” than the Eras Tour singer-songwriter.
Ask any Swiftie, or anyone familiar with Swift’s loyal fanbase, and they’ll tell you that Trump is delusional. He simply can’t hold a candle to the love around Taylor Swift. Seriously, her influence is so politically coveted that even Joe Biden’s campaign considers her endorsement an invaluable asset for his reelection.
But anecdotes are anecdotes. What does the data say about Donald Trump’s popularity against Taylor Swift? Is Trump really a bigger deal than Taylor? To answer that question, we turned to an old friend: Google Trends.
First, a bit about Google Trends
Personally, I love using Google Trends. It’s one of the easiest and most powerful data tools on the web. When it comes to current events, general public interest, and mass curiosity, Google Search data tends to correlate with overall mainstream popularity. It makes sense, right? If you’re thinking a lot about Hazbin Hotel because the series just came out, you’re more likely to search for stuff about the show on Google. But if you haven’t thought about Invader Zim since Enter the Florpus, there’s no way Zim is competing with Hazbin on Google Trends right now.
Don’t take my word for it. U.S. Google Trends data from January 2019 to February 2024 reveals that Zim surpassed Hazbin Hotel when Enter the Florpus came out. That makes sense, as Hazbin’s pilot was still on the way, with only bits of news here and there. But several weeks after the original Hazbin pilot dropped? The show saw its first major spike that year, with Hazbin narrowly outranking Invader Zim in Google Search from January 1, 2020 to December 1, 2023.
Once the full TV series launched earlier this year, Hazbin far outperformed Enter the Florpus in Google Search popularity. The latter looks like a tiny little pebble compared to Hazbin‘s mountainous search queries.
Therefore, we can safely say two things: first, that Invader Zim could never compete in popularity against an upcoming new show like Hazbin Hotel—an obvious claim, but one the data backs up. And second, that Hazbin Hotel was far, far more popular on release than Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus. Oh, the magic of Google Trends.
Donald Trump vs. Taylor Swift on Google, explained
So, how about Donald Trump and Taylor Swift? Here’s where things get interesting. If we look at Google’s full dataset between Trump and Swift in the U.S., we see an interesting story about the relationship between newsworthiness, politics, and popularity.
First, let’s glance at the full timeline before the 2016 presidential election truly began. The real estate mogul only saw two moments where his Google Search results outranked Taylor Swift: during winter 2006-2007, and briefly in April 2011. The 2006 Trump search spike likely pertained to his beef with Rosie O’Donnell, whereas the April 2011 data almost certainly came from growing speculation that Trump would officially run as a GOP candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Otherwise, Swift outranked the man thoroughly throughout 2004 to early 2015.
Then, May 2015 hit, and things started to change. Trump search queries rose across Google at tremendous speed; by July, Trump had already outranked Taylor, and by January 2016, Swift had no chance of competing. If we look at January 1, 2016 through the end of the Trump presidency (let’s say February 1, 2021 for a clean dataset), Taylor never outpaced Trump once. This makes sense. Trump was the president, and every day brought a brand new unbelievable headline. Like covfefe.
If we shift gears toward the Biden years (February 1, 2021 to February 1, 2024), we see a very tough battle between the two figures. Trump continued to outrank Swift until mid-November 2021, when Taylor saw a brief spike thanks to Red (Taylor’s Version). That peak leveled off, and we saw a proper return to form from Trump across the year. Save for a sharp drop in late January to mid-March, Trump continued to outrank Swift until mid-October 2022, where Swift bested Trump for popularity thanks to Midnights. The album’s hype gave Swift the lead until the end of November. Trump then saw an enormous jump over Swift in search during late March and early April 2023. But things started to change in 2023.
Suddenly, Taylor proved dominant. Swift outranked Trump from mid-April 2023 to early June, with a brief June spike for Trump (likely coinciding with his Espionage Act indictment) that quickly ended before July. Swift surpassed Trump again until another summer search jump (this for two grand jury indictments), ending in September, where Swift outranked Trump for the rest of 2023.
If we take a closer look at Google Trends’ data for the current year, we find Trump was in heated competition with Swift across January—the two battling for popularity day by day. That was the case until Swift cleanly surpassed Trump late last month, ironically days before Trump’s comments on his popularity over her surfaced. Now, we’re witnessing the first huge Google Search chasm between Trump and Swift all year, one that might continue to grow as Republicans and Democrats alike speculate on her potential Biden endorsement.
So, Trump or Taylor? Who’s more popular?
What does all this data mean? Let’s look at the averages.
If we take everything in aggregate across Google’s full dataset, Trump was on average more popular than Swift from 2004 to 2024 thanks to his presidential years. This is also true if we look at Trump’s popularity on average after his presidency, from Feb. 1, 2021 to Feb. 1, 2024.
But that picture starts to waver as we recede from his presidency, with Trump’s average just barely beating out Swift’s in Feb. 1, 2022 to Feb. 1, 2024. Swift then overtakes Donald in 2023 to 2024, as well as all of 2024. Even if Trump is catching up a bit, the Era Tours singer reigns supreme this year.
So no, if we look at the past 14 months alone, Taylor Swift is more popular than Donald Trump. In fact, based on the various current events related to this data, I’d go one step further: Donald Trump was newsworthy during his presidency, and his time in office continues to make him just that, but that doesn’t equate to popularity. But Swift’s search results are not just from her celebrity status. She’s well searched because she’s well loved.
If that inference is true, that means Donald Trump was never more popular than Taylor Swift. He’s always ranked below the queen, and likely always will, because Swift is far more beloved than Trump as a singer-songwriter. So there you go. Taylor Swift was always more popular than Donald Trump, and she likely always will be.
(feature image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images and Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images. Remix by Ana Valens)
Published: Feb 2, 2024 01:43 pm