The Harris-Walz campaign’s camo hat went from concept to the top of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s head in about 10 hours.
The Harris-Walz camo hat, which first gained traction on X yesterday, reads “Harris Walz” in hunter’s orange over a Realtree camo pattern commonly worn by hunters. The hat is actually a play on a similar design sold by Gen Z pop star and Midwest native Chappell Roan, which reads “Midwest Princess.”
The callback is spot-on, considering the internet yesterday dubbed Walz a “Midwest Princess” in his own right. Following the campaign’s KamalaHQ account going brat green to reference Charli XCX, this is yet another example of how the Harris-Walz design team is able to move at the speed of culture.
Unsurprisingly, moving fast has proven to be a winning strategy. The campaign’s initial run of 3,000 hats sold out within 30 minutes, according to the campaign. It’s sold nearly $1 million in the Harris-Walz camo hat since launch yesterday, the campaign adds.
Tweeting to the top
The Harris-Walz design team came up with the concept yesterday after seeing a video of Walz wearing a camo hat, according the the Harris Walz campaign. The in-house team designed the hat by around 12:00 pm, and developing prototypes by 1:30 pm, the campaign adds.
Around that same time, Eric Ziminsky, a designer who contributed to President Joe Biden’s campaigns, quote tweeted the hat concept in response to a Photoshopped image of Walz’s face on the cover of Roan’s album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
The post took off. Ziminsky’s post (“hear me out…” he wrote) received more than 27,000 likes—an early signal of how popular the hat would become. It is now available for $40 on the campaign website. Supporters will have to wait a while to get their hands on it: its expected release date is October 7—just in time for hunting season.
Camo as signaler
Campaigns often use branded camo hats to signal their alignment with voters in rural communities where the hats are worn for actual camouflage and not just a fashion statement. Trump’s campaign has sold camo “Make America Great Again” hats since the 2016 campaign. After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he was leaving the Democratic Party to run as an independent, his campaign shop released a camo hat of its own.
The Harris-Walz hat has extra resonance with the Minnesota governor now on the ticket: a gun owner and hunter, Walz once received A ratings from the NRA and he supports universal background checks. The Harris-Walz campaign adds that the camo hat is a style that Walz himself has worn often.
Rapid response merch
The Harris campaign has introduced plenty of new merchandise over the last two weeks, from items showing a vintage photo of a handsome, young second gentleman Doug Emhoff to a “Childless Cat Lady” line referencing Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s comments about people without children.
The speed with which the Harris-Walz campaign took the hat from concept to reality is striking. The team added the hats to the campaign store within five hours, and then capitalized on the moment by printing some hats in Philadelphia so that Walz and his family could wear them, according to the Harris-Walz campaign. (Images of Walz, his daughter Hope, and Bon Iver wearing the hats have already surfaced on TikTok.)
The Trump campaign shop on the other hand is stuck in the past. Trump’s campaign is still selling shirts and bumper stickers with slogans knocking Biden but nothing referencing Harris, and his shop’s latest items are shirts with images from the assassination attempt against him last month. While it’s an image that certainly moves his supporters, it’s also a lifetime ago in this year’s fast-moving campaign.
While merch alone doesn’t win elections, the Harris-Walz camo hat at least shows how nimble Harris’s campaign is. If something goes viral on the internet, not only do they see it, but they’re ready to react.
Aug. 7, 2024: This story has been updated with new information from the Harris-Walz campaign about the origin of the hat design.