Behind the scenes of the @KamalaHQ rebrand

About a year ago, I wrote a newsletter issue asking the question “What Happened to @KamalaHQ?” By Election Day 2024, the Harris campaign’s viral TikTok account had become one of the most followed, most viewed, and most engaged political accounts on the entire platform, but after Harris’ loss and the campaign’s dissolution, it became dormant. I reported at the time that Harris was reserving the online assets for a few options: potential future use on a gubernatorial or presidential campaign, or turning them over to an outside progressive organization to manage.

“The @KamalaHQ accounts were among the most visible, successful, and fun parts of the campaign. As the VP and her family consider what’s next, she still has…these amazing assets…in her quiver,” a former Harris advisor told me at the time. 

In other words, her team was in a holding pattern, with ongoing discussions about what to do with the account. 

Well, there’s finally been movement on that front: Today, the @KamalaHQ TikTok account (and other social handles) will be relaunched as “Headquarters” and will be run by former Harris staffers as a high-impact digital project churning out progressive news and political content ahead of the midterms. The effort will be run somewhat independently of Harris, who won’t have editorial control over the accounts’ content, and aims to help uplift other creators across the progressive ecosystem. Logistically, the accounts will be managed by a partnership between longtime progressive organization People for the American Way and Luminary Strategies, and the day-to-day will be overseen by Arlie Shugaar, a former Harris campaign and DNC digital staffer. Harris herself will serve as “chair emerita” of the new effort. 

Something to note: Luminary Strategies is a buzzy new digital firm founded by two other former Harris staffers, Parker Butler and Lauren Kapp, who helped run the @KamalaHQ accounts alongside Shugaar during the campaign. 

In an exclusive interview with me before the accounts’ relaunch, Shugaar outlined her team’s vision for repurposing the accounts. 

“It’s going to be a go-to place for folks to get political news on the platform, really with a Gen Z focus,” Shugaar told me. “The account was uniquely positioned to speak to Gen Z, and we really want to get audiences informed ahead of the midterms.”

Selling, transferring, and rebranding an account of its size isn’t unheard of in the corporate or nonpolitical space, but is much less common in the world of campaigns and politics. Typically, a losing campaign’s social media assets disappear or sit permanently unused after Election Day. 

“The account has just been sitting dormant…the boom and bust of (political campaigns) standing these accounts up during the election cycle, putting all the work into building audience, and then just leaving—that process has to be reevaluated,” says Shugaar. “With @kamalahq, a lot of younger people that didnt often engage with political content saw for the first time a political account that spoke their language. That’s really important and hopefully this will set a new trend for campaigns to follow in the future.”

Unlike previous eras of social media platforms, TikTok is fundamentally an algorithmic feed, which means an account’s total followers matter less than the relevance of its content and its predicted likelihood to be appealing to the masses. So, repurposing an account like @KamalaHQ won’t just automatically rack up millions of views on new videos because of its large following. But its massive size and scale won’t hurt—and may make it more likely that its content will at least have a better chance of popping off. That opportunity is one that Democrats are eager to seize as they compete for attention with a vast online ecosystem of right-wing brands and influencers.

Gabriella Zutrau, a Democratic digital strategist who advised Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, reacted to the news in a way I saw many on the Left discussing. “Choosing to invest in our organic social media, creator engagement, and new media work only during election years means continuing to lose narrative dominance and online real estate while MAGA endlessly funds and expands their new media infrastructure and owned assets, compounding their strength and size year after year,” she said. “I’ll be interested to see how the algorithm responds to the new KamalaHQ—the excitement from fans might just be enough kickstart an engagement firestorm.”