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By Leonardo Feldman and Jesus Mesa
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In just over 100 days, Kamala Harris' digital team built something Democrats rarely accomplish: a social media operation that outperformed Donald Trump. Messages of hope, joy, and momentum resonated across TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook. By election day, they had amassed 8 million followers—an unprecedented digital footprint for a campaign run on an accelerated timeline.
The digital team that had built this machine sat in silence, watching millions of followers stare at dormant accounts.
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"Coming off November 2024, these accounts were sitting dormant with around 8 million followers collectively," Lauren Kapp, who ran the TikTok account during the campaign, told Newsweek. "The question on everyone's minds was: what is going to happen to these accounts?"
This week, they got their answer: rather than dismantle the operation, Kamala Harris is officially relaunching the campaign accounts as "Headquarters," a permanent digital organizing project designed to operate year-round.
The accounts will serve as what the team calls a "Gen Z–led progressive content hub," covering political news and fact-checking claims, as they try to compete with the meme-fueled strategy the White House has successfully used.
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“This is way bigger than any one election cycle or any one candidate,” said Arlie Shugaar, the video lead on the original Kamala HQ team and director of platforms at People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy organization. “We’re looking forward to covering the news day in and day out and uplifting progressive voices.”
A Problem Democrats Keep Solving Poorly
The decision to keep the accounts alive represents an unusual move in Democratic politics. Historically, campaign digital operations dissolve after Election Day, infrastructure dismantled and teams scattered. The Kamala HQ accounts—which had generated more impressions than both @realDonaldTrump and @TeamTrump combined during the 2024 race—could have followed the same path.
Instead, Harris' team is treating digital organizing as a permanent problem requiring permanent solutions.
"One of my largest takeaways from 2024 was the fact that Democrats have really been struggling with meeting this moment and the attention economy of the current day and age of digital," Kapp, who is managing partner at Luminary Strategies, said. The relaunch of Headquarters, in her view, is a direct response to that recurring failure.
Headquarters operates through a three-way partnership: Harris' own team, People for the American Way (where Harris will officially serve on the board), and Luminary Strategies, Kapp's firm. The project currently has 12 staff members and is actively hiring platform-specific strategists and video editors.
"Our goal is basically to build back the team in the same way that it was built in 2024," Kapp explained. "So to have Twitter strategists, Facebook strategists, Instagram strategists, TikTok strategists."
The Broader Stakes
The relaunch comes as Democrats prepare for the 2026 midterm elections and grapple with losing ground among younger voters. Trump won 43 percent of voters ages 18-24 in 2024, up from 31 percent in 2020, according to CNN exit polling. Recent polling suggests Gen Z sentiment toward Trump has deteriorated since his return to office, creating an opening Democrats hope to exploit.
Harris has not declared plans to run for president in 2028, but the decision to build permanent infrastructure raises inevitable questions about her political future. When asked whether Headquarters signals such intentions, both women deflected.
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"This specifically just shows the Vice President's commitment to Gen. Z," Kapp said. "This really is an investment into Gen. Z and people who are trying to reach young people. But this account is more than any one candidate or campaign."
For Harris' team, the stakes are clear. "After all of the headlines about how we lost the election online in 2024 and we didn't go on enough podcasts, and we didn't do this, and we didn't do that, this is her taking a direct action to try to solve for that," Kapp said. "And while it's not going to solve everything, this is a huge step forward in the right direction."
However, the project faces real challenges. The team attempted to secure the @headquarters handle on X but was unsuccessful. According to a source familiar with the matter, the platform requested a significant sum for the handle, making the acquisition unfeasible.
Also, maintaining engagement during non-election years is typically harder than during campaigns. Content that went viral under the banner of a presidential race may struggle without that same galvanizing moment. Some Democratic strategists have also questioned whether another Gen-Z-focused organization makes sense when other groups already compete for similar funding and audiences.
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