LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The Democratic Party found itself in a sticky situation when President Biden decided to drop out of the 2024 race, leaving Vice President Kamala Harris to step up faster than you can say “infrastructure week.”

With the addition of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, the scramble to replace thousands of outdated Biden/Harris yard signs – and “Harris for President” signs with fresh Harris/ Walz ones was on.

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In the interim, many Democrats across Michigan and the rest of the country have gotten creative, folding their Biden/Harris signs in half to only show the Harris name, using duct tape to remove Biden’s name, crafting their own homemade signs and hitting up Etsy and other websites to buy Harris signs while they wait for the “official” ones to hit their local Democratic Party offices.

Move over, Swifties…Harris/Walz Yard signs are the new hot ticket in town.

The new “official” Harris/Walz signs from the national campaign appear to be a popular (but scarce) commodity in the state with the demand for the new Harris/Walz yard signs so high, it’s making Swift concert tickets look easy to get according to the many Michigan Democratic Party offices that we contacted.

Kalamazoo County’s Democratic Chair Justin Mendoza tells Michigan News Source, “We’ve gone through nearly 2,000 yard signs in Kalamazoo County alone.” And don’t even ask about the neighboring counties – they’re practically begging for shipments like it’s the day before Black Friday.

Mendoza says they are awaiting at least two more separate orders of signs, one expected by September 10th from the Harris campaign that will say “Harris Walz” and have a disclaimer at the bottom “Paid for by Harris for President.” Another 1,300 signs are expected to come into their county party office by September 18th from the 4th Congressional District Political Action Committee (PAC) after it the shipment was delayed by the manufacturer. Mendoza says that he’s expecting about 30,000 Harris Walz signs to come into the state by September 10th, just in time for the Harris/Trump debate.

However, the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party isn’t just offering the normal boring candidates’s political sign from the national party or the district’s PAC. As reported by MLive, they have their own signs being printed that say, “Welcome to Kamala-zoo” that are a hit. The first batch of signs were available on Monday, August 26th and sold out within 24 hours so another batch was ordered. There is also additional swag with the phrasing including bumper stickers, t-shirts and coffee mugs.

Saginaw County says Harris/Walz signs are flying off the shelves as demand surges.

Aileen Pettinger, Chair of the Saginaw County Democratic Party (SCDP), told Michigan News Source that their first shipment of 400 Harris/Walz signs were gone in three days and they are awaiting a second shipment of about 1,000 signs which were supposed to come in on September 10th but were delayed. She said their friends at the Bay County Democratic Party had ordered 1,000 signs which were gone in one week. Pettinger added, “We are getting approximately 20 Facebook posts or messages/day requesting signs. We have received approximately 10 emails/day requesting signs. Our SCDP office receives approximately 20 calls/texts and 30 walk-in requests/day.”

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Pettinger continued to say, “While waiting for Harris signs, many of us cut the top of the Biden/Harris yard sign off and taped it smoothly so it just said Harris. Others put lime green duct tape over the Biden part and put the word “BRAT’ to go with the Kamala/BRAT theme. Democrats get creative!!”

When British pop singer Charli xcx went on the social media platform X to say, “kamala IS brat” it was high praise. The name, also used for the singer’s album, explained by the Guardian is “not just a name, but a lifestyle, one inspired by noughties excess and rave culture” and the Harris campaign quickly capitalized on it. Charli explained on TikTok that brat is “just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it.”

Ottawa County.

Larry Jackson, the Chair of the Ottawa County Democratic Party, told Michigan News Source that they have given out between 1,000 and 1,500 signs, both from the national campaign and from the Congressional District 4 PAC. The District PAC’s signs are different than the official campaign signs and say “Harris/Walz – We’re Not Going Back.” Jackson says that the district has probably given out between 5,000 and 6,000 signs since the changeover on the Democratic presidential ticket. He added that about 10 or 15 people continue to email or call every day to get Harris signs.

Calhoun County.

Linda Pell, Chair of Calhoun County Democratic Party said they get about 15-20 requests for Harris signs daily and depleted their initial stock of signs. She also said, “We still get requests for Biden Harris signs – they are a piece of history and many of our voters want to show appreciation for what President Biden and Vice President Harris continue to accomplish while also embracing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as candidates.”

Kent County

Matthew Morey, Office Manager and Communications Committee Co-Chair with the Kent County Democratic Party told Michigan News Source, “We have seen a veritable tsunami of requests for Harris/Walz yard signs in recent weeks! We do not currently have any yard signs because every time we get a new shipment we are cleaned out within 4 or 5 days. Every day we have dozens of people from across West Michigan calling and coming into the office wanting to pick up yard signs. The foot traffic has increased so dramatically that we’ve had to triple our office volunteer staff to manage the increased flow of people.”

He continued to say, “We are expecting to get more yard signs around the debate, but with demand being so incredibly high I’m sure the printers are working ’round the clock, so it’s hard to pinpoint the exact date they’ll arrive.”

From treasure to trash. What happened to the Biden/Harris signs?

So what happened to all of the Biden/Harris signs? Many of the Democratic Party Chairs in Michigan say that a lot of people are holding on to them as collectibles. Others have “edited” them for the new presidential race and current circumstances as Pettinger described.

Still others have “recycled” the Biden/Harris signs after getting the new ones. Mendoza says that if people didn’t throw them out, they probably kept them as mementos explaining, “a surprising number of folks collect political campaign memorabilia.” However, the signs in the Kalamazoo office were “recycled” and the metal stakes used for the first few batches of the “Harris for President” signs which went out before Walz was announced as her VP candidate.

What about the Trump signs?

Meanwhile, Trump supporters are making good use of their older 2020 campaign signs as well, recycling them for the 2024 race. It’s hard to miss the well-worn signs, flags and banners peppering the Michigan landscape along with the new 2024 Trump/Vance signs.

The new Trump/Vance signs look a lot like the 2020 Trump/Pence signs, reports Fast Company who says, “The logo truly hasn’t changed much. In fact, it’s basically identical to the Trump-Pence logo of the last Presidential cycle, with the exception of two letters (and a number). The 2024 campaign only had to swap out the ‘P and E’ from “Pence,” replacing them with a ‘V and A’ to spell ‘Vance’ – and add the numeral ‘4’ as an update to ‘2020.’”

New signs, old signs, signs now and signs later.

For now, it’s a game of wait-and-see for the Democrats as they try to keep up with demand and pray those new yard sign shipment delays don’t turn into full-blown yard sign droughts. After all, there’s nothing worse than a political campaign without the yard clutter to prove it.