WASHINGTON – The Harris-Walz campaign is using memes, joy and Generation Z slang to connect with and encourage young voters to support their campaign and head to the polls on Nov. 5.
By co-opting branding and phrases from popular summer albums, the Harris-Walz campaign has made in-roads with the youngest voting-eligible generation.
“Kamala being brat, Tim Walz being a midwestern princess, like this is a crazy summer for young people in the political world to kind of find their spaces and places where they want to do it,” said Joshua Harris-Till, former national president for Young Dems. “I’m super excited about how excited young folks are and their desire to hold folks accountable.”
The campaign has utilized the branding of Charli XCX’s album “BRAT” to rebrand the social media pages of the KamalaHQ accounts across social media platforms with a lime green banner reading “kamala hq” in the same font as Charli XCX’s album cover.
Not only has the branding stuck with the social media pages, its stuck to Harris. In a July post on X, Charli XCX wrote “Kamala IS brat.” Since then, the brat label has stuck.
In the minds of many Harris-Walz supporters, Harris embodies brat.
“It being this new it girl thing, and being so adored by a large female population,” said Amanda Coleman, a recent University of Oklahoma advertising graduate, while explaining the meaning of brat. “Like that fits with her campaign as a woman running to be president.”
Forbes contributor, Bryan Robinson, recently wrote that brat is a complimentary term used to describe someone who embodies confident rebellion, playful defiance and boldness.
The Harris-Walz campaign hasn’t just latched onto the brat theme, they’ve also started branding Harris’ runningmate, Tim Walz of Minnesota as a Midwest princess.
“Chappell Roan has an album called ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” Coleman explained. “Tim Walz is from the Midwest. I think it just kind of developed because Brat and Midwest Princess are kind of like the songs or albums of the summer.”
Not only has the Harris-Walz campaign, and their supporters, latched onto the branding of Walz as a midwest princess, their merchandise is reminiscent of Roans’ midwestern princess merchandise.
As reported by NPR, the Harris-Walz campaign recently sold out of, and then restocked, camo trucker hats that said “Harris-Walz” in an orange font. Roan herself sold camo trucker hats which said “Midwest Princess” in an orange font.
One University of Oklahoma Political Science professor said the excitement of young people around the Harris-Walz campaign, largely due to the messaging strategies they’ve utilized, is reminiscent of two memorable campaigns from the 1980s and 1990s.
“You saw this level of excitement around Bill Clinton, you saw it at the college level. You saw people really excited about him,” Professor Melody Rowlett said. “(Ronald) Reagan had a different sort of excitement, but the excitement was more, ‘hey, we feel like he’s speaking to positive energy.”
“With Reagan, it was more this idea of, lets put all this negativity behind us, lets go positive. And Harris-Walz has that too.”
Not only has the pop music related branding excited young voters, the memeification and general strategy of the Harris-Walz campaign is as well.
“Even before Kamala became incorporated with the brat stuff, there was already all of these dances and edits,” Coleman said. “As soon as we got coconut tree and like, as soon as we started to realize she could actually become president, they (the Harris campaign) were so quick with it.”
Coconut tree is a reference to remarks Harris gave during a May 2023 White House ceremony where she said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”
Once the rumors ramped up that Biden might end his reelection bid, Harris supporters on X, and one New York Times opinion columnist, were quick to fall in line by saying they were coconut-pilled.
While the memeification appears to be working on some level, Alex Eschbach, a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma and a Gaylord College adjunct professor, isn’t convinced it’s the sole reason for the enthusiasm among young voters.
“I don’t know if it is a direct contribution, but I think it is certainly one of many factors,” Eschbach said, like we saw with the last presidential election, how Gen Z turned out in record numbers compared to prior generations.” Eschbach said. “I do think that people could see with the Trump administration, not just their rights being taken away, but the rights of their friends and family members.”
In another move to appeal to Gen Z voters, the Democratic Party invited more than 200 social media influencers to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as reported by the Associated Press.
The move by the Democratic Party was similar to a move made by the Republican Party at the Republican National Convention just Milwaukee. Axios reported the Republican Party invited nearly 100 social media influencers in an effort to appeal to conservatives not highly engaged in politics.
Kevin Eagleson is reporting from Gaylord News’ Washington bureau this fall as part of an OU Daily scholarship.
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews.net
