Harris Walz Midwest Princess Camo Hat

About

Harris Walz Midwest Princess Camo Hat refers to a piece of merchandise sold by the 2024 presidential campaign of Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, which some posters online interpreted as a reference to merchandise made by musician Chappell Roan. Others interpreted the hat as a nod to Harris's freshly chosen vice presidential candidate in the upcoming election, Tim Walz, who is a noted outdoorsman and hunter with a passion for hats. The hat rapidly became the campaign's best-selling piece of merchandise, reportedly selling out of stock within a half hour and netting over a million dollars for the campaign in a single day as it garnered media coverage and virality online.

History

Camouflage hats have long been popular with hunters in the United States and elsewhere, associated with outdoors-oriented and pro-gun subcultures.

In 2023, pop singer Chappell Roan released a camouflage hat with "Midwest Princess" written on it in bright-orange text, referencing the title of her 2023 album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess. The hats were widely popular with Roan's fanbase, selling so well that suppliers had to choose a new camo design after the first went out of stock.^[1]

Following the announcement of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Kamala Harris's running mate on August 6th, 2024, users online connected his Midwesterner constituents and supporters to Roan's fans.

For example, on August 6th, X user @dollylorr made a post (seen below) demanding that the Harris campaign "PUT HIM IN THE HAT," at around 9:30 a.m. EST, receiving over 62,000 likes in the course of two days.^[2]

The Harris campaign's official X / Twitter account, @KamalaHQ, then made a post at 7:30 p.m. EST on August 6th and shared a link to the hat in its merchandise store (seen below).^[3] The post accumulated over 5.6 million views and 16,000 likes in two days.

Later on in the evening of August 6th, 2024, reportedly after less than half an hour of the @KamalaHQ X post, the hat's page in the campaign's online store showed that the product was sold out (seen below).^[4] The marketing copy for the hat called it "the most iconic political hat in America."

Dozens of media outlets covered the hat's strong sales in the following hours and days, reporting that it netted over $1 million for the campaign and a long backlog, meaning that it was sold out until mid-October 2024.^[5]

On TikTok, the @kamalahq account made a slideshow post promoting the hat and Walz, which received over 1.4 million views and 214,000 likes in the course of two days (seen below).^[6]

Online Presence

Many commentators on TikTok discussed the hat as it went viral in early August 2024, including TikToker @holdensmith962, who argued on August 7th, 2024, that the hat was not necessarily a Chappell Roan reference, receiving over 284,000 views and 31,000 likes in a day (seen below).^[7]

On August 6th, Chappell Roan herself commented on the hats and a viral tweet drawing a connection between her brand and the campaign, receiving over 87,000 likes in two days for a post on Twitter / X about the hats (seen below).^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References