Cerabino: Why Donald Trump has Taylor Swift to fear in Florida

Taylor Swift has a new song coming out that’s named “Florida!!!”

Yes, three exclamation points.

The song is part of Swift’s 11th album, which will be released in April. The song is yet to be unveiled, but Swift released the album cover, which showed “Florida !!!” among the song titles.

Naturally, there’s been a lot of buzz about this. It’s understandable.

While browsing through Taylor Swift’s extensive discography, I’ve discovered she’s typically very conservative in her use of punctuation marks.

There’s the song, “Me!” she did with that guy from Panic! At the Disco” – which is a band with an extraneous exclamation point in the group’s name.

The “Me!” song title just had one exclamation point. Her only other song title with an exclamation point in the title was “Slut!”, which also rated just a single exclamation point.

Say what you will about Swift, but she’s not an abuser of punctuation. This is most evident by her song she does with Ed Sheeran called  “Run.”

“Darling, let’s run,” she sings. “Run from it all.”

Any English language watchdog would grant her use of an exclamation point in that title. And yet, Taylor sidestepped “Run!” for that title, and held herself back to simply “Run.”

So, what are we to make of this excessively punctuated upcoming offering about our state?

Florida!!! It’s a triple “Slut!”

And it’s not that Swift is on some new jag to drop songs with states names in their titles. There’s no “Mississippi!!!” “Utah!!!” or “Vermont!!!! waiting to be unveiled.

And if she were going to write a song about a state, you’d think it might be Pennsylvania or Tennessee, which are states where she grew up.

So, why Florida? Or should I say a triple-exclamation-point Florida.

I think I have the answer.

It must be part of the political plot to steal the election from Donald Trump. And by “steal,” I mean win a fairly conducted election in which Trump comes in second place again.

It’s as obvious as the NFL stage-directing a game-fixing sham season that put Swift and her vaccine-advocating Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend, Travis Kelce, center stage during the Super Bowl, the biggest media event of the year.

And then to have the Chiefs mount multiple comebacks in the game on Sunday to beat the San Francisco 49ers, well, that just seemed all designed to reach the culminating image of Swift and Kelce consummating the deal with a deep kiss on the confetti-strewn field after the game.

Trump seemed to know the importance of this, which is why he made a desperate, and futile, plea before the game to try to win Swift’s affection.

Trump went on social media to remind Swift that he signed a bill when he was president that updated music licensing in the digital age.

“Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor and never will,” Trump posted on the social media site, X. “There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”

Putting aside the Random capitalization of Words, and the creepy ex-boyfriend-stalker vibe of Trump’s post, the idea that Swift owes him for her success is, at best, the ramblings of an elderly man with a poor memory.

Trump’s afraid that Swift won’t just endorse Biden but she’ll single-handedly turn Florida from a Republican safe state to a swing state again.

Political observers have long noted that it’s very hard for Republican presidential candidates to win a sufficient number of Electoral College votes without winning Florida.

The math in Florida has increasingly favored Republicans. It’s no longer a 50-50 state in terms of voter registration. This year, there are 5.1 million registered Republicans to 4.3 million registered Democrats in the state.

But Florida also has 3.5 million registered voters who have no party affiliation, and millions more – particularly young voters – who are eligible to vote but don’t vote at all.

Nearly one in four registered voters in Florida didn’t cast a ballot in the last presidential election.

More: Cerabino: Don't tell Trump, but in Florida, voting by mail was once considered 'phenomenal'

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Who can awaken them?

Taylor Swift has 534 million followers on social media, which includes 279 million on Instagram, 95 million on X, 80 million on Facebook, 56 million YouTube subscribers, and 24 million on TikTok.

She has the ability to reach people in a way that dwarfs nearly anyone else. It’s why Democrats in Florida will be holding voter registration drives the day her new album is released.

Florida!

Swift has also scheduled three concerts in Miami less than a month before the November election.

Florida!!

“It’s so close to the election, and we hope that there’s a message included to encourage folks, especially her fans, to vote,” U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Orlando, and the first Gen Z member of Congress, told Politico. “We need the help.”

Florida!!!

Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the Gannett Newspapers chain.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Is Taylor Swift changing Florida's election against Trump with a song?