Taylor Swift-inspired friendship bracelets raised over $1 million for Harris’ campaign after endorsement

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign raised “over $1 million” from sales of a pair of Taylor Swift-inspired friendship bracelets, a campaign merchandise consultant said..

The two-pack of blue Democratic bracelets adorned with beads and reading “Harris-Walz 24” were released alongside the pop star’s endorsement of Harris, immediately following the September 10 presidential debate.

“I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for rights and causes that I believe need a warrior to champion. I believe she is a gifted and determined leader,” Swift wrote alongside an Instagram photo of herself posing with her youngest cat, Benjamin Button. The photo — and its caption “Childless Cat Lady” — was a thinly veiled swipe at former President Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who had made disparaging comments about childless women.

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The pre-ordered bracelets sold out within hours of their release on September 10, but sales have since picked up. “Over 100,000” bracelets have been ordered as of Tuesday, according to the merchandise consultant, an independent contractor hired by the campaign who declined to be named for fear his company would be targeted for working on a partisan story. The bracelet duos sell for $20 on the Harris campaign’s official website and will ship on October 15.

Although Harris’ campaign team said they had no idea Swift was going to be endorsed by the campaign, the merchandise consultant said campaign team members had already brainstormed the idea of ​​launching friendship bracelets and looked at a potential production process. That allowed them to launch the bracelets less than an hour after Swift’s endorsement.

“If you do the work of preparing for everything that might happen during the election campaign, you will have a lot of success,” the commodities consultant said.

The bracelet’s supply chain is entirely based in the United States: the beads come from Ohio and are fired in kilns in New York before being The threads are strung on elastic and wire from Oklahoma and Ohio at a California factory. The entire process has created “several hundred jobs,” according to the consultant.

Swift and her army of Swifties have already made an impact on the campaign.

” LEARN MORE: Harris-Walz campaign claims sold-out friendship bracelets were made just 20 minutes after Taylor Swift endorsed them

Even before Swift endorsed Harris, a coalition of volunteers called Swifties for Kamala had already raised more than $165,000 for Harris’ campaign and tallied more than 100,000 actions taken by Swifties, such as voter registration efforts. — following a virtual launch call with Carole King and several leading politicians in August.

And after Swift posted a link to Vote.gov on her Instagram account with her endorsement, CNN reported that nearly 406,000 people visited the federal government’s voter registration site directly from her social media channels within a 24-hour period. For comparison, a spokesperson for the General Services Administration told CNN that Vote.gov typically gets about 30,000 visits. per day.

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While friendship bracelets have gained new life as Swiftie’s unofficial bat signal during the Eras tour, the campaign consultant cautioned against viewing the viral merch solely through Swift’s lens. Before Swift entered the race for Harris, the Democratic National Convention invited attendees to wear beaded bracelets at a public event in Chicago, while the official Democratic Party store already sold a line of friendship bracelet-themed T-shirts, tote bags, coasters, and mugs.

“We hadn’t really thought of it that way,” the consultant said. “Friendship bracelets are pretty universal… they’re a way to discreetly express an opinion or support.”