How Harris’ Campaign Finally Made Biden’s Meme Strategy Work

Joe Biden’s reelection campaign had an ambitious plan to meme the 81-year-old into a second term as president. It hired a team of almost 200 digital staffers—a large number of whom were twentysomethings conversant in modern internet-speak—and operated a range of social media accounts, including a newly created one on TikTok. At the same time, it encouraged hundreds of online content creators to make their own election-related content, trusting they’d reach people the campaign would have trouble winning over itself.

Like the Biden campaign writ large, the plan didn’t work. The president was proving unpopular even among Democrats before he dropped out of the race on July 21. But once Vice President Kamala Harris inherited the operation, the same strategy quickly started looking effective. The Biden campaign’s 30-odd social media accounts were rebranded. Its rapid response TikTok account, now @KamalaHQ, demonstrated it knew what the internet was already talking about with its first post, a screenshot of the British pop star Charli XCX’s tweet declaring, “kamala IS brat.” Within days, the number of followers doubled, surpassing 1 million. (It now has 4.5 million.) “We’re down to sprint, babes,” Lauren Kapp, the 25-year-old campaign staffer in charge of the account, said on her personal TikTok, @polisciprincess, the following weekend.