Kamala Harris is ‘brat’, and now her running mate Tim Walz may be up for the title Midwest Princess as pop culture continues to fuse with the US election race.

Shortly after Walz was announced this week as the Vice-President’s running mate, the pair unveiled a camo-patterned hat emblazoned with the pair’s last names as campaign merchandise.

Social media users were quick to point out the similarities between the hat’s camo pattern and bold yellow-orange lettering to the merchandise of queer pop icon, Chappell Roan.

Roan’s website sells a near-identical hat with lettering that spells out ‘Midwest Princess’ for her 2023 breakthrough album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

i’m crying kamala’s campaign released their own midwest princess hat pic.twitter.com/fFZbMQcEDD

— mariana 🇵🇸 (@satelliterrie) August 6, 2024

The Harris-Walz hat was sold out as of Friday AEST, just days after launching.

Roan seemed taken aback by the similarities, reposting images of the hats side-by-side on X (formerly Twitter), and captioning the post “is this real”.

Chappell Roan seemed to poke fun at the hats’ similarities on X. Photo: TND/X

The speculation over the hat design has re-invigorated the Harris-Walz campaign’s Gen Z-powered viral momentum, after Harris was linked to British singer Charli XCX through memes and videos.

When Charli officially gave her backing by declaring on X “kamala IS brat”, the Harris campaign quickly jumped on board by changing the background of their offical X account to match the singer’s low-resolution, lime green Brat album cover.

Questions of design intentions

Despite the similar designs, Harris-Walz campaign officials told CNN the new merchandise was not meant to reference Roan.

Instead, the design was meant to reflect the camo hat Walz has worn frequently during his time as governor, including when he received the call from Harris inviting him to be on her presidential ticket.

However, speculation remains active that the design similarities were intentional.

Kamala is brat and Walz is a Midwest Princess

— Josh Trattner (@JTratts) August 6, 2024

The campaign hat was put on sale mere hours after Eric Ziminsky, self-proclaimed former senior designer for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, released a mock-up of a camo campaign hat based on a viral photo of Walz superimposed on Roan (both hail from the Midwest).

Ziminsky told The Philadelphia Inquirer he was not involved with the creation of the Harris-Walz campaign merch, and was impressed by the speed of the Harris team.

“I just made [the mock-up] for fun online when the Chappell Roan/Tim Walz memes started coming out,” he said.

“The fact they have a camo hat out is a testament to their great design, marketing, and digital platform teams.”

Ziminsky had posted his design at 11:30am on Tuesday; the election campaign team told The Philadelphia Inquirer the hats were designed by an in-house creative team, with prototypes made by 1:30pm the same day.

Even if the similarities were coincidental, the hat will likely appeal to everyone from rural 50-something American hunters to 20-something queer pop fans.

This means Walz, who has already been praised for his ‘big dad energy’, may forevermore be known to today’s young voters as the Democrats’ Midwest Princess.

Roan yet to give stamp of approval

Unlike Charli, Roan may not be pleased about her new connection to the campaign despite her blasé attitude online so far.

In June, she turned down an invitation from the Biden administration to perform at the White House for Pride Month.

While performing dressed as the Statue of Liberty at Governors Ball Music Festival, Roan said she would only accept such an invitation when there was “liberty, freedom and justice for all”.

“That means freedom in trans rights,” she said.

“That means freedom in women’s rights. And it especially means freedom for all oppressed people in occupied territories.”

Despite Roan’s criticism, the Harris campaign used her song Femininomenon for a social media video in July.

Roan has not officially endorsed Harris or any other presidential candidate.