Kamala Harris’s Presidential Marketing Strategy in 2024

TY - CHAP

T1 - Kamala Harris’s Presidential Marketing Strategy in 2024

AU - Lees-Marshment, Jennifer

N1 - © 2025 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

PY - 2025/11/15

Y1 - 2025/11/15

N2 - This chapter explores the challenges and limitations of Kamala Harris’s political marketing strategy in the 2024 presidential election. It highlights the challenges posed by the nature of the market environment in which her presidential bid was forged, including the impact of being vice-president to an unpopular president and the short time she had to develop and communicate her political product after becoming the nominee. But it also reveals significant problems in Harris’ strategy. The first rule of political marketing is to listen and show you listen to voters; the second is to focus on offering policies that respond to them. Harris failed to acknowledge voter dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency and differentiate herself from Biden. And she was unable to offer a product with specific policies that responded clearly and strongly enough to voters’ top concerns on the economy, cost of living and immigration. Too much focus was put on highlighting Trump’s weaknesses in an election which was more about product than personality because of a rise in significant concerns that affects people’s daily lives in terms of putting a roof over their head and paying for food.

AB - This chapter explores the challenges and limitations of Kamala Harris’s political marketing strategy in the 2024 presidential election. It highlights the challenges posed by the nature of the market environment in which her presidential bid was forged, including the impact of being vice-president to an unpopular president and the short time she had to develop and communicate her political product after becoming the nominee. But it also reveals significant problems in Harris’ strategy. The first rule of political marketing is to listen and show you listen to voters; the second is to focus on offering policies that respond to them. Harris failed to acknowledge voter dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency and differentiate herself from Biden. And she was unable to offer a product with specific policies that responded clearly and strongly enough to voters’ top concerns on the economy, cost of living and immigration. Too much focus was put on highlighting Trump’s weaknesses in an election which was more about product than personality because of a rise in significant concerns that affects people’s daily lives in terms of putting a roof over their head and paying for food.

KW - Elections

KW - Politics

KW - Political Marketing

KW - Political Strategy

KW - Market-orientation

KW - US Politics

KW - Kamala Harris

KW - President

KW - Democracy

UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-98561-4

UR - https://link.springer.com/series/14601

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-98561-4_6

DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-98561-4_6

M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)

SN - 9783031985607

T3 - Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management

SP - 85

EP - 103

BT - Political Marketing in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

A2 - Gillies, Jamie

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

ER -