Kamala Harris’ social media strategy in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election was filled with Gen Z dog whistles: viral branding based on pop music, memes, camo hats that were a double entendre. It was an effective way to get attention and news coverage, as well as a mountain of user generated content online. But for months, the accounts have been dormant — until today.
On X, Harris herself announced the rebranding of @KamalaHQ in a video message. The account is now @headquarters_67, “the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub,” as it’s described in a post. Harris describes it as “where you can go online to get basically the latest of what’s going on.”
According to Chaotic Era, a politics and media newsletter, the accounts will share progressive news and politics content with a focus on the midterm elections this fall. Chaotic Era reports that Harris won’t have editorial control over the accounts and will serve as “chair emerita”; Luminary Strategies, a digital agency started by @KamalaHQ alums and the advocacy group People for the American Way, are partnering to run the accounts. The X account for Headquarters includes a link to a Substack newsletter that is empty, at least of this writing. (The Substack choice is an interesting one, given the platform’s history of hosting neo-Nazi newsletters.)
The nature of algorithmic social media means that reaching audiences has never been harder for political campaigns. The Harris campaign managed to capture the (digital) attention of many young voters, and as I wrote shortly after the election, a Harris win felt all but certain for some of them — they were safely in the KamalaHQ algorithm niche.
It’s not yet clear what issues the account will take on, but we already have a taste of the tone. Since Harris’ video message announcement, the Headquarters’ X account has tweeted four times, each time about Donald Trump. In one, it quote retweeted White House communications director Steven Cheung mocking Headquarters with, simply, a photo of his head. In another, it quote retweeted the @TrumpWarRoom account with a photo of the president’s discolored hands. It’s so far light on policy but heavy on internet dunking — appropriate, perhaps, for the times.
