HGTV star Erin Napier has a unique demographic reach as her beloved Home Town series takes place in Laurel, Mississippi. Napier polled her fans before the 2024 presidential election to determine whether they would vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. She got an outpouring of responses, and the outcome was unexpected.
On Friday, November 1, Napier posted on her Instagram Stories, asking her 1.5 million followers which presidential nominee they would vote for. She included three American flag emojis above her poll, which allowed users to pick either “Trump/vance” or “Harris/Walz.” Beneath it, Napier wrote: “A straw poll because I’m genuinely curious.”
The next morning, Napier shared the results. As it turned out, 52% of people voted for Trump and 48% for Harris. Erin concluded, “71,000 total votes, mostly women for those curious.” So, surprisingly enough, it was almost an even split.
Napier also shared her personal thoughts on the election after sharing the poll. She posted another Instagram Story with her views on politics. The mom-of-two with Ben Napier did not share who she was voting for, as when she’s done so in the past it’s led to some touchy situations.
When she simply posted an American flag emoji in 2022, she had to clap back at fans who took this as a political stance. She wrote at the time on X: “if you think loving the USA must be a political affiliation, that says a lot about you and nothing about us. i am so tired of people LOOKING for things to separate us all by. just stop”
Before 2020 presidential election, she also posted on X, “Hating people for who they vote for is like hating people for their unchangeable past life experiences. You have to just accept it and learn to love people even with their differences. People with different beliefs can love each other. Can we please try harder?”
Napier, however, is no stranger to politics. Before her HGTV fame, Ben ran for city council as an Independent in their hometown of Laurel. “If I won it, we wouldn’t have been able to shoot Home Town,” he told CBS News in 2021 (seen above).
“I would have poured myself into that, into being, you know, a representative. But through [the show], we’ve been able to accomplish so much more. Not just in Laurel, but across America. We hear people all the time that are inspired by what has happened in Laurel and they’ve done that in their town.”
However, while he wasn’t able to restore Laurel to its past glory in terms of legislation, he has done so alongside Erin on-screen for the past nine years with Home Town.