Viral Harris-Walz camo hat injects Midwest glam into US campaign

If campaign hat sales are any predictor of electoral results, the Harris-Walz ticket is in great shape, as their camouflage cap with orange lettering goes viral.

The Unionwear textile factory in New Jersey says demand has soared for the baseball hats emblazoned with the names of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the Democrats vying for the White House.

Over nearly a quarter-century in the campaign merchandise business, "we've never seen hats sell this fast," said Unionwear president Mitch Cahn in an interview with AFP, as some 100 workers cut, assembled, sewed, embroidered and packaged the nearly 4,000 hats that leave the factory each day.

"I think that people haven't really been excited about the presidential candidates for a long time," Cahn said. "For 12 years, really, since Barack Obama, we haven't seen this kind of excitement about a candidate."

Prior to Harris's entry into the presidential race, Cahn said Biden-linked campaign sales were "anemic."

But "all of a sudden we started seeing tens of thousands of hats being sold, and we thought that was a lot. And then when Tim Walz wore one of our hats on television the night after he was selected as the vice presidential nominee, sales just went through the roof."

Factory workers have been laboring 60 hours a week, including Saturdays, to accommodate the avalanche of orders.

The company has had to purchase more sewing machines and build up the supply chain to get more camo-print fabric made.

In less than a month Unionwear has sold more than 100,000 hats; in just one week, the factory moved more Harris caps than it expected to sell in a full year when Biden was running.

Cahn noted that demand among women is especially high. Camouflage has folksy appeal and is traditionally popular among hunters, but it's also trending  -- mostly ironically -- among Gen-Z twenty-somethings.

In part, the virality of the camo hat can be attributed to Chappell Roan, the wildly popular singer who sells a camo hat with orange lettering that reads "Midwest Princess."

Memes of that hat juxtaposed with a Harris-Walz cap proliferated online -- both Walz and the popstar are Midwestern -- and were shared by Roan herself.

Then an official campaign version dropped: "You asked, we answered," read the product summary from the Harris campaign, calling the $40 head-topper "the most iconic political hat in America."

It was seen as another example of Harris and her camp responding to the social media zeitgeist: earlier this summer, the Democratic hopeful embraced "brat" green and the online codes associated with another popstar, Charli XCX.

The Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which wrapped Thursday, stoked "Kamalamania" further and along with it demand for merch.

And if she wins the election in November, Unionwear expects another spike in sales, this time for inauguration swag, as happened in 2009 when Barack Obama emerged the victor, Cahn said.

"I think that merchandise sales reflects the popularity of the candidate and also how much the voters connect with the candidate," he said.

Harris is connecting to voters, Cahn continued -- "and they're proud to wear her name on their heads."

- Made in the USA -

In an era of globalization and free trade agreements, it's not simple to manufacture textiles in the US; Cahn's factory is a rare one that does.

Among its clients is the US military, which by law must prioritize domestic products and thus sources uniforms from Unionwear.

The company's garment workers are unionized, and the "Made in USA" label is key to their brand -- and coveted by campaigns that want to appeal to union workers and advocate for bringing manufacturing jobs back stateside.

"It does not look good if the candidate is saying these things and selling merchandise that's made in Mexico or China," Cahn said.

And when it comes to the red MAGA -- Make America Great Again -- caps that signify support for Harris's rival Donald Trump?

Cahn said most of those are manufactured in China, with only the embroidery done stateside.

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