Beyoncé Just Endorsed A Major Candidate In A New Instagram Photo

In light of Tuesday's midterm elections, a handful of celebrities, and otherwise influential people, have taken to social media with messages encouraging their fans to vote. The most recent Election Day post came from Beyoncé, whose election-themed Instagram activity Tuesday, Nov. 6, endorsed Beto O'Rourke, a Democratic congressional candidate from Texas currently running for state senator. (As her fans know, Beyoncé grew up in Houston, so it seems appropriate that she turned her get-out-the-vote efforts to her home state's election.)

UPDATE: O'Rourke responded to Beyoncé's endorsement via Twitter later on Nov. 6. "Thank you, Beyoncé!" the candidate wrote in the tweet, accompanied by one of Beyoncé's photos in which she is wearing an O'Rourke hat.

EARLIER: Captioning the first of three election-centric posts — one video, followed by two photos, in that order — eventually shared to her IG account Tuesday afternoon, the star underscored the importance of exercising your right to vote. Which, as Beyoncé explained in her caption, means exercising your right to have a say in who your government officials are, which issues they take on, and how they might impact you. Starting off the first post's caption, Beyoncé wrote,

"I'm feeling grateful for everyone before me who fought so hard to give us all the right to have a voice. We can't voice our frustrations and complain about what's wrong without voting and exercising our power to make it right."

Continuing, she implored her 119 million IG followers to participate, emphasizing that — when it comes to voting, especially — there's strength in numbers. "We need you," her post's caption went on to say, before adding, "We all need each other, because when we are truly united we are unstoppable." After wishing her fans a "happy voting day," Beyoncé closed her Election Day message with two parting statements, empowering readers to vote for a final time. "Every vote counts Every race matters," the caption finished.

Fans who've already taken a peek at Beyoncé's latest string of Instagram posts know her inspiring caption was released onto social media in conjunction with an equally rousing IG video. (Trailed almost instantaneously by an un-captioned pair of back-to-back photos, extracted from that first video.) The quick video post is, more or less, a running photo montage, which sees Beyoncé sporting different poses at the camera while flaunting a black-and-white baseball cap with "Beto for Senate" printed across the front.

In the photos, Beyoncé's baseball cap features the same logo that appears on several items of official "Beto for Senate" merchandise, which the candidate's supporters can check out via O'Rourke's official website. (And, by proxy, his official web store.) Folks who've been keeping up with news related to the Texas midterm elections lately might remember that LeBron James was seen wearing the same hat during a Lakers game in San Antonio last week. And, even though he's reportedly not voting in the Texas midterm elections himself — since he's from Ohio — the NBA player still voiced his support for O'Rourke on Twitter back in August.

Retweeting a video of O'Rourke, in which the candidate said he didn't think it was disrespectful for NFL players to kneel during the National Anthem, James applauded him, calling the video "A Must Watch!!!" on Twitter. Continuing his re-tweet, James told fans to "Salute @BetoORourke for the candid thoughtful words!"

At this point, whether O'Rourke will beat out Republican incumbent Ted Cruz for a seat on the Texas state senate remains to be seen. And while it seems pretty clear that Beyoncé is rooting for him (and James, too), the musician's Election Day message is still a really critical, really inspiring read, regardless of the election's outcome. Because, no matter who wins, it's most important that voters know it's quite literally their right to participate in the process. So, did everyone vote today?