How a meme connecting Tim Walz to Chappell Roan may be responsible for the Harris campaign’s viral merch

To the untrained eye, a freshly listed piece of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign merch seems like, well, just a hat.

But fashion experts and pop culture enthusiasts say there’s deeper meaning behind the now-viral camouflage hat with orange embroidery.

After Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate, Democratic pockets of the internet celebrated the selection, pointing to Walz’s policy track record — along with his dad jokes and Midwest charm. Memes about Walz may have even inspired the first sellout piece of Harris-Walz official merch within hours of its unveiling with an initial batch of 3,000 hats selling out in less than half an hour, according to the campaign. It’s since been relisted for purchase, but is on back-order through October.

It started here: A meme that quickly made the rounds swapped Walz’s face over pop star Chappell Roan’s Midwest Princess album cover, dubbing the Minnesota governor the “Midwest Prince.”

Around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Eric Ziminsky — who worked as a senior designer on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and transition team, according to his LinkedIn — quote tweeted the Walz-Roan meme with a mock-up of a hat design.

“Hear me out,” Ziminsky wrote, attaching a photo of a camo hat with an orange Harris-Walz design meant to parody Roan’s official merch, a camo trucker hat that says “Midwest Princess.” Eight hours later, Harris’ team launched an uncanny real version. By 10:15 p.m., Walz tweeted a photo of himself wearing the hat.

Ziminsky told The Inquirer he was not involved with the creation of the actual merch and was impressed by the speed of Harris’ team.

“I just made [the mock-up] for fun online when the Chappell Roan/Tim Walz memes started coming out,” he said. “The fact they have a camo hat out is a testament to their great design, marketing, and digital platform teams.”

The campaign said the hats were designed by an in-house creative team, with prototypes made by 1:30 p.m. A small batch was printed in Philadelphia in order to get them to Walz and his family.

Following the hat’s drop, comparisons to Roan’s merch immediately rolled in.

It’s, of course, impossible to confirm if the Harris team went with this motif on purpose — a spokesperson did not comment on the record. But even Roan noticed the similarities, asking in a tweet if the hat was real. It wouldn’t be the Harris team’s first attempt to garner relevance through pop culture nods, as we saw with the campaign’s hard lean into Brat culture inspired by Charli XCX’s summer album.

And while Roan isn’t the first artist to sell a camouflage hat, the similarities have drawn a number of jokes from fans who have commented on LGBTQ+ artists reclaiming camo — Boygenius also released a popular camouflage shirt earlier this year with proceeds going to the Tennessee Equality Project.

“How gay do u have to be to see hunting colors and think it’s a Chappell Roan thing?” one tweet with nearly 200,000 views said before adding, “It has recently come to my attention that this may indeed be a Chappell roan thing.”

Still, fashion experts say the hat’s aesthetic could be a stroke of unifying genius — even for consumers who have no idea who Chappell Roan is — since camouflage is usually a styling choice among hunters and outdoor enthusiasts.

Walz describes himself as an avid hunter, even going as far as suggesting in an interview last week with Anderson Cooper that his new vice presidential opponent, JD Vance, can’t “shoot pheasants like I can.”

Walz has often been seen sporting camo hats and was wearing one in a video filmed while Harris called him, asking him to be her running mate.

Another popular meme going around in light of the Harris-Walz announcement is a tweet that calls Walz an “REI hire,” a nod to the popular outdoor supply store.

While the initial batch of hats sold out quickly, the Harris campaign converted the page into a preorder sale Wednesday morning, which continues to be live as of publication time — but with a back-order notice.

The original batch of hats was expected to ship in September, according to the campaign website. The new batch of preorder hats are listed with an anticipated ship date of mid-October.

The American and union-made hats retail for $40 on the Harris campaign website.