Celebrities in Politics

     This week, former Olympian and reality television star, Caitlyn Jenner, announced that she is going to run for governor of California. This got me thinking about celebrities in politics. I did some research to see, historically, how they fared in elections. Of course, we know how it ended for Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. 

  Arnold Schwarzenegger ran and won the race for governor of California in 2003.

 Cynthia Nixon of "Sex and the City" ran for governor of New York in 2018, but lost to Andrew Cuomo.

 Roseanne Barr ran for president in 2012 and lost.

Al Franken, who was a writer for Saturday Night Live, ran for U.S. Senate in 2008 in Minnesota and won. He also got reelected in 2014.

While these are just a few examples, I was glad to see that in browsing celebrity websites for information, it seems that most celebrities who run do not just win because they are famous already. Although, it doesn't hurt. My worry is that attention from the media raises the familiarity of these celebrities to voters and makes them electable in some way. 

Comments

  1. SoteriaApril 26, 2021 at 5:43 AM

    I like these points and this perspective! I have never really given too much thought towards celebrities in politics and the implications it might have towards elections. I think popularity comes down to what values a certain candidate believes in with the addition of superficial factors (i.e. if they're black or white, female or male, etc.). For example, although Trump was a celebrity, the support that he received was solely because of his message in regard to the "American dream" and his straight-forward, yet crude, approach to politics.

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  2. Steven MooreApril 26, 2021 at 7:57 AM

    Excellent post! I actually posted on this a few weeks ago, I suppose great minds think alike! You found a few candidates I wasn't aware of though. Im curious if you think this is a phenomenon that was more prevalent in the past, or will be in the future? My take away is that as social media becomes more prevalent celebrity politicians will too.

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  3. Madison CummingsApril 26, 2021 at 6:45 PM

    I recently just saw about how Caitlyn Jenner is running for office in California! While it surprised me, it also didn’t due to Kanye West running for office with no political qualifications. As you mentioned, Donald Trump was also a celebrity who won his seat in office. I believe in my lifetime there have been more instances of this than in the past. I was actually worried that Kanye would win just based off of statements from his music supporters.

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