- Kamala Harris appears to have transformed the Biden campaign into a ruthless trolling machine.
- But it's the same digital team and strategy, political sources told BI.
- The same tactics are getting more attention, thanks to who's at the top of the ticket.
Straight out of the gate, Kamala Harris' campaign strategy has felt scrappy and fearless, decked out in Charlie XCX greenery and winking at self-referential memes.
But despite feeling like a huge departure from a more austere operation under Joe Biden, it's actually not, political strategists told Business Insider.
The campaign is now just landing its hits thanks to a younger and more innately online candidate at the top of the ticket.
"It's the same people doing the exact same thing," Democratic strategist Keith Edwards told Business Insider. "The only thing that has changed is the candidate."
In recent days, for instance, Harris has made headlines for trolling Trump about her rally sizes on his digital home turf — Truth Social.
While the crowds are a fresh advantage, the Biden campaign launched a Truth Social account in October 2023.
"It's just that no one noticed," Edwards said.
The Harris campaign told Business Insider the team running all the @KamalaHQ and @BidenHQ accounts has stayed the same.
"Biden was just as confrontational with Donald Trump," another Democratic strategist told BI, speaking on the condition of anonymity. But under Harris, the digs feel more fun.
"I think it's refreshing for Democrats to see someone who's so comfortable in their own skin, and allows that to be put on display," the strategist said.
Surging on social media
Harris is pulling in way more attention — and it's transformed the operation.
@KamalaHQ had 440,000 TikTok followers when Biden dropped out of the race, the Harris campaign said. Its following doubled overnight and now totals 3.6 million.
The campaign has 175 digital staffers, and a team handling rapid response is entirely composed of Gen Zers, the campaign said. Among its many hits, the most-liked and viewed TikTok post to date is a photo carousel set to Chappell Roan's "Feminionmenon."
Under Biden, the campaign's TikTok account similarly leaned into viral trends and riffed on the Charlie XCX aesthetic.
But Harris ascended to the top of the ticket as a much-memed figure — a fact that was also being used to denigrate her. The campaign's savvy lied in incorporating the memes but flipped through a sympathetic lens, Edwards said.
"The fact that all this content exists out there is a net benefit," Edwards said. "It's just that it hadn't been weaponized in a good way yet."
'Biden's just a different messenger'
The snarkiness of the Harris campaign has extended offline, too.
Tim Walz has proven to be a reliable attack dog, hurling JD Vance couch jokes in his first speech as the VP candidate and coining the "weird" insult trope against the Republican ticket.
"I think Biden's just a different messenger," Edwards said. "I don't think Biden saying Trump is weird would be believable for him."
And during the Democratic National Convention next week, The New York Times reports, Harris and Walz will fly over to Milwaukee for a rally at the exact same arena where the Republican National Convention was held.
Trolling Trump on less substantive issues like crowd sizes is so effective because he's "very easily rattled," the Democratic strategist told BI. It causes him to veer off course and focus on issues voters don't care about.
"When provoked, he simply cannot help himself," the strategist said.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Trump's campaign has tried fighting back against Harris' wave of online support, meeting with influencers like Adin Ross and the "Full Send" podcast to boost the ticket's credibility with a younger male audience.
And Trump is back on X — at least somewhat.
Earlier this week, he joined a free-wheeling, two-hour conversation with Elon Musk, during which he mused about nuclear war, criticized Biden's border policy, and fielded a pitch from Musk to join his administration.
Some of Trump's more recent posts, however, have sowed a bit of cringe.
With less than three months left before Election Day, it remains to be seen whether Harris can keep the online momentum going, riding the good vibes to a presidential win.