How Much Celebrity Endorsements Actually Influence Election Results

In Oprah's lengthy career, she had never once endorsed a political candidate until Obama. In an interview with Larry King, when asked why she had decided to publicly endorse Obama, she said, "He's worth going out on a limb for." King asked her later on if she would contribute financially to his campaign, she replied, "My money isn't going to make a difference to him. I think that my value to him, my support for him is probably worth more than any check that I could write."

Oprah was not wrong about her word being worth more than any check. In the fall of 2006, Obama had just released his book, The Audacity of Hope. After an endorsement by Oprah, the book became a New York Times national best-seller and jumped to number one on Amazon's best seller list. The Oprah Effect was in full force. But not only did Oprah help a little known Illinois senator become a number one best-selling author, according to research conducted by the University of Maryland, by the time the 2008 Democratic primaries were held, her endorsement bought Obama upwards of a million votes, securing him the spot of presidential nominee.

The celebrity study was the first of its kind to actually show a correlation between endorsements and electoral outcome. The authors, Craig Garthwaite and Timothy Moore, used the geographic locations of Oprah's magazine subscribers and book sales from her book club to assess whether or not her endorsement had an impact on Obama's votes. While the result of Oprah's endorsement is unprecedented, it did confirm what some historians already believed—celebrity endorsements can carry some weight.

The now common practice of celebrities publicly and financially backing their politician of choice dates back to the 1920 campaign of 29th president, Warren Harding, who is widely considered one of the most forgettable presidents in United States history. He did, however, get the support of Al Jolson, one of the biggest American stars of the 1920s and the first person to ever speak in a feature film. The Republican nominee, whose political record had been called "faint and colorless" by The New York Times, had Jolson compose and sing a song called "You're the Man for Us". The song was the first of its kind for any American presidential election and soon became Harding's official campaign song.

Since Harding, numerous presidential hopefuls have employed the use of famous faces to boost their votes. Frank Sinatra campaigned for three different presidents: Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and, most famously, John F. Kennedy. Having a brother-in-law in the Rat Pack (his sister was married to actor Peter Lawford), the glamorous Kennedy had the support of other major celebrities and friends of Sinatra, like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Ella Fitzgerald. Not unlike Jolson, Sinatra adapted his song "High Hopes" for Kennedy's campaign trail.

In recent elections, celebrity endorsements have become accepted as a part of the electoral process. But how exactly will celebrities affect the outcome of 2016's results? Despite the hundreds of celebrities who've endorsed candidates, there may not be any "Oprah Effect" for this race.

John Pitney, Professor of Politics at California's Claremont Mckenna College, tells Broadly over email that it might have to do with how familiar we are with both candidates. Unlike Obama in 2006, Clinton and Trump are both well-known figures. "In a general election where both candidates have near-universal name recognition, a celebrity endorsement will make much less difference," he says. "I doubt that many people have thought to themselves, 'I wasn't sure about Donald Trump until I heard that Gary Busey was backing him!'"

According to Pitney, celebrity influence currently has more to do with money than anything. "They can also get some attention for an under-funded or otherwise obscure candidate in a primary contest." This doesn't always translate into more votes, though. Pitney believes that, in most circumstances, celebrity endorsements "do not shift a significant number of votes in general elections for president." And it shows for 2016's race. In a financial breakdown of 2016's election thus far, Bloomberg calculated Hillary Clinton's camp to have raised more than $866.6 million thanks to donors, whereas Donald Trump's camp has raised only $453.1 million in comparison.

What might influence this election more than simply the voting preferences of the rich and famous could be social media. In 2012, analysts saw an unprecedented influence from Facebook. According to ScienceMag, people who had seen Facebook messages alerting them of their friends' voting behavior were 0.39 percent more likely to vote—which translated to over 282,000 votes. This year's first presidential debate in September was also the most tweeted debate ever. A breakdown by MIT's Media Lab concluded that social media is more influential than ever this year, with a mix of candidates, politicians, journalists, and media organizations influencing the most online. Celebrities were viewed as the smallest fraction of the top 150 election influencers.