Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo and The Avengers take to Instagram to make presidential endorsements
‘Shazam’ star Zachary Levi claims that Trump has assembled a team of political superheroes, but how will the likes of Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson really be voting on November 5?
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Your support makes all the difference.Voters assemble! The United States presidential election is now just a week away, and the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump still looks too close to call.
Yesterday, actor Zachary Levi appeared on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show to weigh in with the political wisdom he’s gained as the star of Shazam and Harold and the Purple Crayon. The 44-year-old told the former Fox News presenter that his vote for Trump will actually be a vote for: “Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk and JD Vance.” Levi went on to describe this line-up as: “this team – this Avengers, this Voltron, whatever you want to call it.”
It’s a bold comparison that Trump fans like to make, even though their candidate once compared himself to the supervillain Thanos, but it seems unlikely to be welcomed by the people who actually play the Avengers. Here’s how the likes of Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Samuel L Jackson will really be casting their vote:
Robert Downey Jr, Iron Man – Democrat
When Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump as President in 2021, the Iron Man star told CNBC that he was pleased to see the return of “principle” to the White House. “We’ve been prone in the West over here to be very personality-based and now we’re going back to principle, and that takes a lot of discipline,” said Downey Jr.
“I was very pleased to see our commander-in-chief say to his entire cabinet: ‘You are all to treat each other with respect from day one, or I’m gonna have a problem with you.’” More recently, Downey Jr took aim at another member of Trump’s so-called Avengers, saying he wishes Elon Musk would “control his behavior a little more.”
Then, with five days to go before the big day, Downey Jr posted a social media video of himself along with Marvel co-stars Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, Danai Gurira and Chris Evans backing Harris-Walz using the hashtag #AssembleForDemocracy:
Chris Evans, Captain America – Democrat
Evans is a lifelong Democrat who has appeared at fundraisers for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In 2020, he founded the political education app A Starting Point with the aim of helping voters understand the issues that affect them. Despite being a critic of Trump, particularly over his blasé reaction to the pandemic, Evans said during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he’d approached the then-president about collaborating but had been rejected twice. “President Trump said no to Captain America, just want to point that out for the record,” Kimmel joked in response.
Scarlett Johansson, Black Widow – Democrat
Last month, Johansson was photographed arriving at a Kamala Harris fundraising event in London, where she appeared alongside the likes of Greta Gerwig, Stella McCartney and Sienna Miller. While promoting her recent rom-com Fly Me To The Moon she didn’t hold back in her criticism of Harris’s opponent, telling Spanish newspaper El Pais: “Trump defies definition. He’s a psychopath, someone who breaks every category you could try to fit him into, because of his extreme positions.”
She added that she is “terrified” he might win, describing his previous term in office as “four years of darkness.”
Mark Ruffalo, Hulk – Democrat
Perhaps the most politically outspoken member of the Avengers cast, Ruffalo has said he is firmly backing Harris despite disagreeing over her foreign policy in Gaza. Speaking at a rally earlier this week, Ruffalo told ITV: “There’s no perfect candidate right now, but we know what Trump will do. He’ll sell out the Arabs.”
He added that he’s voting for Harris because: “Our chances of changing her positions inside the White House, are better than they’ll ever be with Trump.” He also argued that Harris has “created a different kind of language around the Palestinian suffering, different than Biden, and I’m hoping that after this election is over she has great people in the State Department who are very open-minded and who want to see the end of this atrocity.”
Chris Hemsworth, Thor – Non-Voter
As an Australian citizen, Hemsworth doesn’t get a vote in the US presidential election and has largely kept his political opinions to himself. The closest he got to being dragged into an election debate was when his mooted biopic of noted shirt-ripping Trump supporter Hulk Hogan collapsed, and some MAGA supporters speculated that the film’s failure to move forward was a direct result of Hogan threatening to “body slam” Kamala Harris at the Republican National Convention. Producer Joe Russo later confirmed that the film fell apart long before the wrestler’s RNC appearance.
Jeremy Renner, Hawkeye – Unconfirmed
Renner keeps his political cards relatively close to his chest, but has hinted a few times at his support for the Democrats. Back when Barack Obama was president in 2010, Renner told an interviewer that the one politician he’d like to meet would be then-vice-president Joe Biden, adding that wanting to meet Obama was a “given”.
In 2022, he joined Mark Ruffalo in fundraising for political candidates running against insurrectionists, tweeting: “60% of Americans will have election deniers on the ballot this year.”
Samuel L Jackson, Nick Fury – Democrat
The man who assembled the Avengers is a passionate supporter of Kamala Harris, and says they even share a favorite curse word. Appearing at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia last week, Jackson said Harris is “running on a proven track record of fighting for the people, standing up to bullies, protecting the most vulnerable, and taking on the toughest fights.” He then joked that: “We’ve heard her favorite curse word is a favorite of mine, too,” although he held back from actually uttering: “motherf***er”.
He added: “I don’t know about you. But that’s the kind of president I can stand behind, that’s the kind of president I can see leading our country forward.”
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