As Harris breaks 24-hour fundraising record, comms & ad pros share campaign predictions

Biden’s 2024 campaign was plagued by PR woes. The biggest stumbling block: his age and mental acuity. Republicans’ ‘Sleepy Joe’ taunts were brought into fresh relief in Biden’s devastating debate performance on June 27, and news about Biden’s Covid diagnosis last week accelerated calls for a withdrawal from the President’s allies.

It’s possible that others could throw their hats into the ring for the Democrats’ nomination – however, the most buzzed-about potential challengers, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, have both ended speculation and said they would endorse Harris. Meanwhile, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, one of the most influential figures in Democratic politics, has also backed Harris. At this stage, it looks like Harris is well-positioned to secure the top name on the ticket – a decision Democrats will finalize virtually before August 7.

Though Harris’ ascension circumvents many of the right’s talking points about Biden – on everything concerning his age and mental faculties to Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and unfounded allegations about the Biden ‘crime family’ – she still faces a monumental set of challenges: bringing together the country’s Democratic base, slowing Trump’s momentum and proving herself to swing voters in key battleground states.

Harris’ memestock to the moon?

So, in the lead-up to November, how will Harris’ campaign look?

The answer is already shaping up on social media – and in many ways, the comms and marketing tactics diverge notably from Biden’s.

Namely, Harris’ team is embracing an influx of viral memes – some of which stem from a 2023 speech excerpt in which she urged young people to consider their culture and ancestry, saying, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

Additional meme fodder has come from Brat, the sixth studio album from British pop singer Charli XCX. Brat – and ‘brat’ culture, which Charli XCX has described as an attitude or demeanor of “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes” – have become the definitive pop culture moment of the summer. On Sunday, following Biden’s endorsement of Harris, Charli XCX posted on X: “kamala IS brat,” ushering in a barrage of new memes. Before the internet knew what had hit it, the Harris campaign’s official account on X was adorned with a Brat-inspired lime green header image, the name “Harris HQ,” and a bio blurb reading: “Providing context,” a reference to the now-ubiquitous ‘coconut tree’ memes.

Some experts believe the youthful, socially adept strategy will play out in Harris’ favor. “Her campaign’s swift adoption of the memes and internet culture that surrounds her is smart – for the first time in a long time, younger voters can feel ‘in’ on the US presidential race in a way they couldn’t do before,” says Becca Hutson, editorial director at The News Movement, a social media-driven news organization. “Harris was always the source of internet conversations and memes, but Harris HQ has harnessed it in a smart way to make her feel ‘everywhere’ all of a sudden. It will introduce her to potential voters who were previously disinterested in politics, and confirm to others that she’s in on the joke.”

Hutson warns that the Harris campaign should nonetheless take a measured approach, and be wary of leaning too heavily into meme culture without honing policy messaging. “Memes and jokes can get you so far, but younger voters will want more than just style over substance. They’ll want policies that matter to them, to be spoken to with respect and real evidence of real change,” she says. “A little harder to do than changing your header on X.”

Beyond the memes, experts in political communications and marketing are somewhat split on what kind of campaign messaging and marketing we can expect to see from Harris – and what it will mean for the 2024 race at large.

The role of women voters and Black voters

Some are extremely bullish on the campaign and its message. “Vice-President Kamala Harris is unifying the Democratic party,” says Tim Lim, a political strategist, PR consultant and partner at creative agency The Hooligans. “Democrats are energized and ready to win,” he says.

Harris will make women’s rights a key component of her campaign messaging, Lim predicts. In her nearly four years at the White House, Harris has headed up the Biden administration’s abortion policy. In the wake of Roe v. Wade’s 2022 reversal, reproductive rights have become a particularly energizing issue for Democrats, and Harris has a record of advocating boldly for increased access to safe abortions. On the campaign trail with Biden in March, Harris became the first Vice-President or President to ever visit an abortion clinic, stopping by a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“I think she reminds suburban women across the country, particularly in those battleground states, of what’s at stake with reproductive rights,” said former New York congressman Steve Israel, who chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015, on a recent episode of the BBC’s Americast podcast.

Research from independent polling organization KFF published Tuesday suggests that Democratic women voters in the US view Harris as a trustworthy authority on abortion policy. In the new study, 82% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning women voters indicate that they trust Harris to speak about abortion policy. The support spans ethnic and racial groups – 85% of white Democratic women voters, 76% of Black Democratic voters and 72% of Hispanic Democratic women voters view her as a trusted voice on abortion issues.

It’s Black voters in particular who could unlock new levels of success for Harris’ campaign, predicts Michael Worley, a political strategist and the founder of MDW Communications, a political ad agency. “[A] key element of the Harris candidacy is the historic [prospect] of a Black woman becoming president,” he says.

Although turnout among Black voters has declined since the Obama administration, with the right marketing and communications strategy, that could change, he suggests.

And if in turn, Harris can “reinvigorate the Black vote,” Worley says, that will be reflected in the Harris campaign’s media strategy. “You may see a much more competitive advertising landscape in communities of color.” One of the telltale signs, he says, will be the cost of ad inventory on YouTube in zip codes with a high Black population and the cost of connected TV ads that target Black voters.

Ultimately, a surge in voter turnout among Black Americans could have a positive trickle effect for the entire party, Worley says. “Frontline Democratic candidates across the country could benefit. These are Democrats running in places where a 2 to 5% increase among the Democratic base could mean the difference between victory and defeat.”

A message that undercuts trust?

But not all comms experts are rosy on Harris’ odds, in part because her campaign is already facing blowback over how it was launched.

Dustin Siggins, the founder of PR firm Proven Media Solutions, believes that Biden’s decision to drop out is a slap in the face to primary voters who chose him as their candidate. He suggests that the move will only hurt the Democrats’ messaging to the American public.

“Biden’s withdrawal exacerbates the Democratic party’s messaging problems. The party was already struggling due to the concerns over Biden’s cognitive capabilities after the June debate, and the public dysfunction is especially unfavorable compared to the united Republican Party. Party leaders have undermined their pro-democracy narrative by overriding tens of millions of votes which made Biden the party’s nominee,” he says.

It’s a sentiment that’s spread among some Republicans as well as Democrats since Sunday’s announcement, with some going so far as to spread unfounded conspiracy theories that the President’s decision to drop out of the race so close to election day is part of a nefarious plan hatched by the DNC and institutional media organizations to replace him with Harris in a premeditated ‘coup.’

For Harris’ campaign, these talking points may prove a stumbling block in the weeks ahead, suggests Siggins. “Democrats will be very lucky if they can overcome these enormous, self-inflicted messaging problems,” he says.

Then, of course, there are more standard arguments about candidates’ policy records and key economic and social issues that could play out on the debate stage, on the campaign trail and in marketing messages across various media channels as Harris and Trump go head-to-head.

The money question

Some of the sparring, however, may be of secondary importance to the key driver of most political campaigns: funding. And a Harris-led ticket, some strategists predict, will add positive fuel to the fire for the Democrats.

“Kamala Harris’ nomination as our democratic presidential candidate has the potential to reinvigorate the donor base of the party, which had sidelined a substantial amount of resources in the wake of the disastrous June debate performance by President Biden,” says MDW Communications’ Worley.

And Harris’ campaign is already shattering fundraising records. All in all, Harris’ team raised over $81m in the 24 hours following Biden’s endorsement on Sunday, a campaign spokesperson confirmed to the Associated Press.

This fact holds major implications for the media and marketing landscape of the race in the coming months.

For example, renewed donor enthusiasm may very well see Harris spend more on digital and television ads in regions that Biden’s team may otherwise have skipped due to resource constraints, Worley posits. “We may see more spending now in Florida, where it had previously been predicted that the Biden campaign would spend very little.”

In any case, 2024 is set to be a historic year for political advertising across the board. By the end of the election cycle, political ad spend is expected to surpass $10bn, breaking previous records, according to research conducted by AdImpact.

And it’s this kind of movement that’s going to make all the difference in the coming months, media experts say. “What previously felt like a depressing and uninspiring contest,” says The News Movement’s Hutson, “now has real momentum.”

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