Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign on Wednesday night said it would start selling Chappell Roan-inspired camouflage hats bearing her name and that of her newly-announced running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Within 30 minutes, as both politicians were speaking at a rally in Philadelphia, the $40 hats that read “HARRIS WALZ” in obnoxiously bright orange went viral and sold out. Teen Vogue reports that the campaign had made just 3,000 hats before they announced the merchandise, which comes out to roughly $120,000 in revenue for the campaign.
The hats are now available for pre-order, with a release date of Oct. 14. or 22 days before Election Day. The Harris-Walz campaign confirmed to Teen Vogue that almost $1 million worth of hats have been sold, adding to its sizable war chest ahead of the Democratic National Convention later this month.
The idea for the camo hat was sparked by a video released by Harris that showed her asking Walz to be her running mate. Walz was dressed casually and had his very own camo hat on his head, which social media goers instantly began comparing to “Good Luck Babe” singer Chappell Roan’s “Midwest Princess” line of hats.
So, the Harris-Walz campaign decided to give them what they wanted.
“For all the midwest princesses out there — you asked, we answered,” Hester Leyser, the director of strategic planning for mobilization for the Democratic National Committee, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter., with a link to the campaign’s storefront.
Roan herself has commented on the hats, asking “is this real,” in a post on X.
It’s one of the clearest examples yet of how the Harris campaign is embracing social media and pop culture to engage younger voters and drum up support.
After singer Charlie XCX said that the vice president “IS brat” — a reference to her song and album of the same name — the campaign embraced the “Brat” aesthetic. And then there’s the coconut memes, a series of never-ending references to a May 2023 speech Harris gave.
“’I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Harris said, quoting her mother. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” she added.
Kamala Harris’s campaign has reportedly made almost $1 million over Chappell Roan-inspired camo hats.
Within 24 hours of Harris’s announcement that Walz would join her on the Democrat’s ticket heading into November, the camping raised $36 million. ActBlue, the fundraising platform preferred by Democrats, has raised more than $52 million since Tuesday morning. In July, the campaign raised $310 million.