Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced a big rebrand last Thursday for her campaign social media accounts, but the details about the bumpy handover of power have critics questioning her leadership.
The account launched with the X account @Headquarters_67, prompting ridicule that it was out of touch for trying to jump on the infamous 6-7 trend popularized in 2024 that was now effectively exhausted.
’Six-seven as the kids used to say,” CNN’s Dana Bash reported on the air, adding that the kids also ‘used to say that’s probably cringe.’
To have cable news, frequently dismissed by digital consultants as out of touch, mock the effort as ‘cringe’ was a crippling blow to the rebrand.
In response, the team changed the handle to @Headquarters68_, before quietly deploying a third reboot to brand it as @HQNewsNow.
‘Smart to make use of that big audience but missed opportunity to call it Headquarters69,’ joked one Democratic consultant to the Daily Mail, referring to a set of numbers frequently used by millennials when they first adopted the internet.
The idea was supposed to be simple.
Former members of the Harris campaign social media team, Director of Digital Rapid Response Parker Butler, Head of TikTok Lauren Kapp, and Head of Rapid Response Video Arlie Shugaar reunited to form Luminary and breathe life into the old campaign machine that had been dormant for over a year.
‘Headquarters’ was promoted as a way to compete with conservative’s ‘permanent organizing infrastructure’ and attract young and Gen-Z voters, the group announced.
Former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris turned over control of her campaign accounts to Headquarters, new digital content group
Investor and Philanthropist George Soros donates to People for the American way who helped launch the new Headquarters digital project
Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, celebrated their mission as ‘leveraging culture to change our politics.’
The vice president had accrued millions of followers on her TikTok and X feeds, which are worth a great deal of money in the influencer market.
Now Harris was named ‘chair emerita’ of the project, a role that was described as ‘honorary.’
The new group, dubbed Luminary Strategies, teamed up with People for the American Way to take control of Harris’ accounts under the new Headquarters umbrella. George Soros’s Open Society Foundation has donated $4.5 million to People for the American way since 2016.
The goal was described as ‘an effort to mobilize pro-justice, pro-fairness, pro-democracy young people against far-right extremism.’
The former vice president’s encouragement video celebrating the rebooted space for people to ‘get basically the latest of what’s going on,’ also drew jeers from digital Republicans.
‘Kamala’s latest rebrand is the gayest thing I’ve seen in 2026. It’s forced, cringe, and completely out of touch,’ Billy McLaughlin, a former White House Director of Digital Content for President Trump told the Daily Mail.
The account handovers to the wealthy political non-profit were not likely cheap, one source familiar with digital strategy estimated, as social media accounts with millions of highly engaged followers typically sell for significant cash on the political market.
Former Director of Digital Rapid Response for Kamala Harris Parker Butler
Digital strategist for Harris celebrated ‘brat summer’ and other viral trends to draw attention to the vice president
‘She absolutely sold her list,’ one political digital source told the Daily Mail, describing the accounts as ‘worth serious money.’
One Democratic digital consultant admitted to the Daily Mail that the handover of the accounts was clumsy, but that it was important to use their resources.
‘We have a lot of catching up to do,’ the consultant admitted.
The team of ex-Harris consultants appeared to use the account to imitate the success of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s more aggressive approach to challenging and mocking President Donald Trump and his allies directly on social media.
But McLaughlin argued that both Democrats were chasing Trump’s success.
‘Everyone is chasing Trump. The president sets the tone, the pace, the platforms, and the message. The rest of them scramble to copy it months later,’ he said.
Headquarters did not respond to a Daily Mail request for comment.
Republicans mocked the new attempt as a failed rebranding effort.
‘Instead of listening to what Americans actually want, her team shoved another consultant-driven digital fantasy down young people’s throats,’ McLaughlin said. ‘This will fail, just like the last one. But, congrats to the D.C. consultant getting rich off the wreckage.’
Luminary is already looking to hire new creators to help generate online content, according to job postings online.
The top requirement for the job is ‘a deep passion for saving democracy and fighting fascism’ and for ‘love for the internet and online culture.’
Since Harris lost the election, alumni of the failed Harris-Walz campaign’s social media team are looking to find their way out of the wilderness and into new paying gigs that will flip politics back to their favor.
But their rebrand of Harris’ social media account left many Democratic strategists with a reminder of the online hangover following ‘Brat Summer’ and the ‘coconut tree’ memes from their failed campaign.
The apparent grift loomed large to professionals in the digital political space playing with billionaire money.
’Instead of pandering to young voters with more ‘slop’ content, Democrats need to do the harder work of investing in long-term, non-stop, youth organizing,’ complained political strategist Kaivan Shroff in an online op-ed on MS Now.
Other Democrats were more generous, welcoming them to their daily online messaging battle with Trump supporters.
‘If it’s just another meme account then it’s really just piling on what’s already out there, which is fine,’ Democratic consultant Mike Nellis told the Daily Mail.
