Tv legend Oprah Winfrey and United States Vice President Kamala Harris shared the stage on Thursday in a occasion referred to as “Unite for America” to drum up help for Harris’s presidential marketing campaign. Harris is the Democratic Celebration’s presidential candidate for the November election.
This isn’t the primary time the tv persona has voiced help for Harris throughout this election. She made a shock speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference (DNC) final month.
Since rising as her celebration’s frontrunner for the presidential nomination, and particularly since successful that nomination, Harris has secured the endorsements of a whole lot of outstanding People — from Hollywood stars and music icons to her celebration’s stalwarts and Republicans who say they can not vote for his or her celebration’s nominee, ex-President Donald Trump.
Nonetheless, few public figures within the US take pleasure in an aura like Oprah’s. Right here’s extra about her historical past of election endorsements and the way a lot these have influenced outcomes.
What was Oprah’s ‘United for America’?
A copper blazer-clad, bespectacled Oprah hosted the more-than-one-hour talk-show-style occasion.
The occasion occurred in Michigan, a key battleground state on this election. It was livestreamed on the Harris marketing campaign YouTube channel and, as of Friday morning within the US, had already been seen multiple million instances.
Harris walked onto the stage, assembly enthusiastic applause from a studio viewers. The 2 ladies mentioned subjects, together with reproductive well being and Harris’s plans to cut back the price of housing and to decrease taxation.
Massive names within the leisure business — from Jennifer Lopez and Julia Roberts to Chris Rock and Meryl Streep — joined over video-link.
These celebrities add to the star energy across the Harris marketing campaign constructed by celebrities together with Taylor Swift and Charli XCX, after they endorsed the Democrat earlier.
Nonetheless, essentially the most potent endorsement probably comes from Oprah herself.
Why is Oprah’s endorsement vital?
A 2013 examine carried out by economists Craig Garthwaite of Northwestern College and Timothy J Moore from the College of Maryland discovered that Oprah’s endorsement resulted in about a million extra votes for Democrat Barack Obama, who has additionally endorsed Harris, in 2008.
The analysis discovered that along with votes, her help additionally helped Obama safe extra funding.
Within the election, Obama gained with practically 53 % of the favored vote.
What’s Oprah’s observe document with endorsements?
After her first main endorsement of Obama in 2008, Oprah has sporadically endorsed politicians in presidential or senate races.
In 2016, Oprah expressed her help for Democrat Hilary Clinton towards Republican Donald Trump in a media interview.
Whereas Trump trailed Clinton within the 2016 polls, Trump gained the election. He gained the Electoral Faculty, however misplaced the general well-liked vote.
In October 2020, Democrat Joe Biden acquired a lift from Oprah a month earlier than the election, when she hosted a digital get-out-the-vote occasion.
In 2022, the speak present host endorsed Democrat John Fetterman within the Pennsylvania Senate race towards his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz, who rose to prominence as a star physician by showing on her speak present. Her endorsement took the type of a digital occasion, carried out on Zoom.
Fetterman gained the race.
However the TV diva’s endorsement isn’t any golden ticket. Throughout the identical digital occasion during which she endorsed Fetterman, she briefly expressed help for different Democratic candidates for Senate and governor races. These included: Cheri Beasley for North Carolina, Val Demings for Florida, Mandela Barnes for Wisconsin, Catherine Cortez Masto for Nevada, Beto O’Rourke for Texas and Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams for Georgia.
Out of those, solely Cortez Masto gained — the remainder have been defeated.
Has Oprah supported Trump?
After Oprah endorsed Harris in her DNC shock speech, she acquired backlash from Trump supporters and a letter she wrote to Trump in 2000 resurfaced.
Addressing the Republican nominee, she had written again then, “Too unhealthy we’re not working for workplace,” Axios reported. “What a TEAM!”
In a 2023 CBS interview, Oprah clarified, “I may need thought it again then. I may need thought it 23 years in the past. I’m not pondering it at the moment.”
In 2015, Trump had additionally joked about Oprah working as her vice chairman in an interview with ABC, solely to make clear that he was joking.