Could pop star Bad Bunny’s endorsement swing the US election?

Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, has a huge voice and a ton of influence — especially among Latinos and young voters. Photo / Getty Images

The stars of Democratic politics were aligning behind Kamala Harris. Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and assorted liberal luminaries had sung her praises at the Democratic convention. Megawatt endorsements from Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish would soon follow. But there’s another pop star who has not weighed in — and whose endorsement could hold unique power in November.

By late August, political consultant Maria Cardona’s phone was buzzing with texts from people in Latino Democratic circles, asking the same question.

“Where’s Bad Bunny?” Cardona said, summarising the messages. “We have to get Bad Bunny.”

Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican recording artist, is one of the biggest superstars in the world — and the biggest Latino one. What would it mean for him to endorse Harris?

“That would be like a Thanos-level event,” said Kristian Ramos, another Democratic consultant, alluding to the all-powerful Marvel Universe character to underscore the potential power of Bad Bunny co-signing a presidential campaign. Ramos has daydreamed about such a scenario with his political friends. “Like a snap,” he said. “That’s a game-over moment.”

Why? Well, for one, Pennsylvania, perhaps the most important swing state (where many pollsters see a dead heat between Harris and Donald Trump), is home to the third-largest population of Puerto Ricans outside the island — including about 300,000 eligible voters.

“Bad Bunny would give them that green light, right?” says Victor Martinez, a radio host and owner of five Pennsylvania stations who recently appeared in an ad for Harris. “That sense of ‘okay, if he’s for her, then it’s okay for me to be for her as well’.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Benito (@badbunnypr)

Winning over Latino voters is one of the Harris campaign’s hardest challenges. According to a recent New York Times-Siena poll, 55% of Hispanic likely voters would choose Harris over Trump — a smaller share than the 65% of Latino voters who went for Biden four years ago.

“Given the statistics on Puerto Rican and Latino men, young people who are supporting Trump,” a boost from Bad Bunny would be “even more important” to Harris’s electoral prospects than the much-discussed Swift endorsement, says Maria Quinones Ssnchez, a former Philadelphia councilwoman. Fast-growing Latino communities in other battleground states, including Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, are also up for grabs.

For now, Latino Democrats who spoke to the Washington Post said there wasn’t any aggressive, formal effort by Harris campaign officials to court Bad Bunny, though almost all said they wouldn’t be surprised if there was outreach behind the scenes. A spokesperson for the Harris campaign declined to comment. A publicist for Bad Bunny also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, in the past month, three reggaeton artists — all of who, incidentally, have collaborated with Bad Bunny — have lined up behind Trump. Justin Quiles and Anuel AA appeared with him last month at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a place with a small Latino population. (“Do you know who the hell they are?” Trump asked the crowd.) Last week, the Puerto Rican and Dominican artist Nicky Jam travelled to a rally in Las Vegas to do the same. “Do you know Nicky? She’s hot!” Trump enthused. (Nicky Jam is a man.)

In the past month, three reggaeton artists have lined up behind Donald Trump. Photo / Getty Images

The Trump campaign isn’t formally courting Bad Bunny for his endorsement, but a senior campaign adviser said more Hispanic stars would be endorsing in the coming weeks. The endorsements carry their own risks: Nicky Jam brushed off the former President’s mistake, but later took down an Instagram post endorsing Trump after fans flooded his comments with invective and Mana, a popular Mexican rock band, pulled their song with Nicky Jam from Spotify.

Since Anuel’s Trump endorsement, Democratic-allied groups have been discussing how best to secure Bad Bunny’s most-wanted support, according to Cardona, the strategist. But Cardona acknowledged the goal was complicated. “I don’t think it’s outside of the realm of possibility, but it’s not a done deal,” Cardona said.

Bad Bunny is not apolitical, but he speaks out most often on issues relating to his home island.

“I don’t want to get involved in politics,” he told Anthony Caceres, the Puerto Rican comedian turned podcaster known as El Tony, this month. “Politics gets involved in my life. Because it affects Puerto Rico.”

Caceres had pitched an interview about the star’s career, his rise, and his plans for the future. But about halfway through, the podcaster mentioned Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria. Bad Bunny turned wistful, talking about schools in disrepair, about power failures — and how, after touring the world’s capitals, he noticed that none of them had roads in as much disrepair as San Juan. He agreed with those in the studio that the government was corrupt — said he’d been hearing that for a long time. “To hear it as a kid, to live it as a grown-up. And nothing changes.”

Puerto Rican politics doesn’t align neatly with the Democrat-Republican dichotomy of Washington. But whoever holds power in the White House can change a lot for Puerto Ricans, says Carmen Yulín Cruz, former mayor of San Juan. “We have a saying, ‘When the US gets a cold, Puerto Rico gets pneumonia’.”

That may be why Bad Bunny has taken jabs at Trump in the past: in 2017, he arrived at the Somos Live benefit concert, held to raise money for disaster relief weeks after Hurricane Maria, donning a T-shirt that read: ¿Tu eres twitero o presidente? (“Are you a tweeter or president?”) “The T-shirt speaks for itself,” he told Billboard. In 2020, he released a surprise track titled Compositor del Ano, in which he expressed support for Black Lives Matter and explicitly criticised Trump with vulgarities we can’t print.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Benito (@badbunnypr)

When Bad Bunny has waded into more mainstream politics, he’s focused on the issues. In 2019, he paused a tour to join anti-corruption protests there that led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rossello, a Democrat in national politics. During a 2020 performance on The Tonight Show, he wore a T-shirt that read, in Spanish, “They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt”, to raise awareness about a transgender woman slain in Puerto Rico. One of his music videos from 2022 doubles as a 22-minute documentary on the energy issues and displacement in Puerto Rico.

All things considered, the musician’s politics seems more aligned with Harris than Trump, but the overlap is hardly perfect. Harris may not have awkwardly lobbed paper towels at residents after Hurricane Maria or withheld billions of dollars in relief, as Trump did, but the Vice-President has not articulated her vision for the future of Puerto Rico if she wins, or focused heavily on the island during her time in national politics. During a visit to the island this year, her first as Vice-President, Harris was met with protests from Puerto Ricans criticising her visit as a publicity stunt while the US territory continues to struggle. During her visit, Harris awkwardly clapped along to a group of Puerto Ricans performing a protest song in Spanish whose lyrics questioned her motivation for visiting.

Cruz, the former San Juan mayor, said if she were Bad Bunny, she’d be looking for Harris to make a statement on issues relating to Puerto Rico before he gave his endorsement. “One good thing about Bad Bunny,” Cruz said, “is that he knows exactly where he can assert some influence.”

“To be honest, I don’t think he would” endorse, says Carlos Emmanuel Calderon, a Puerto Rico-based content creator and Bad Bunny mega-fan who met with Harris when she visited the island this year. Almost all of Bad Bunny’s activism, Calderon says, “is Puerto Rican-based and related, and we, unfortunately, as a territory in the United States, can’t vote”.

Luis A. Miranda jnr, chairman of the board at Latino Victory Fund, said the Harris campaign’s energy would be best spent on get-out-the-vote efforts that involve knocking on doors, digital advertising and community support.

“That’s how you win an election,” Miranda said. “Celebrities get you a lot of earned media and you raise money — they don’t win elections.”

Kamala Harris has not articulated her vision for the future of Puerto Rico if she wins, Photo / Getty Images

Perhaps it’s a mix of both. On Saturday, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is hosting a rally in Pennsylvania’s Latino-heavy Lehigh Valley, where he will appear with Puerto Rican actors Liza Colon-Zayas and Anthony Ramos.

In any case, Caceres doesn’t think chasing Bad Bunny’s endorsement would get the Harris campaign far. In an interview with the Post, the podcaster described how he had been caught by surprise when the superstar began pouring his heart out while talking forcefully about the struggle — often painful, sometimes hopeful — of trying to create change through political engagement. He urged young people to vote against the politicians who’d dragged Puerto Rico into this “despingue y crical” (“this s***show”). Tears had welled up in his eyes.

“I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would like for this or that party to go to him,” Caceres said. “He’s someone who acts from the heart.”

Could he be moved to endorse her? Nadie sabe.