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According to one estimate, Amazon sellers made $140 million on Trump merch between April and September of this year.

Trump merch is outselling Harris items on Amazon—but MAGA hats aren’t the top seller

[Photo: Jay L. Clendenin/Getty Images]

BY Chris Morris2 minute read

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris might be in a virtual dead heat when it comes to expected votes for the presidency, but in terms of campaign-themed merch sales on Amazon, the battle is a lot more lopsided.

Trump-branded merchandise has outsold Harris merch by a better than 5-to-1 margin on Amazon, according to estimates from e-commerce marketing platform Omnisend. Those estimates are based on a survey and merchandise data from Jungle Scout. (Amazon declined to comment on the study.) 

Between April and September of this year, Amazon sellers made $140 million on Trump merch, compared to $26 million earned by those selling Harris merchandise, Omnisend says. Trump, of course, had a big head start, considering Harris didn’t enter the presidential race until late July. But even in the months when both were active candidates, Trump merchandise held a dominant lead.

From April to June, sales of Trump merch were fairly slow, totaling just under $37.5 million, according to Omnisend estimates. Those reportedly doubled in July, following the Trump-Biden debate in late June. Trump supporters purchased an estimated $41.63 million worth of merchandise in July alone (and nearly $60 million in the following two months).

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While one might assume Trump-themed hats would be the biggest revenue generator, given the seemingly omnipresent nature of the red MAGA baseball caps in several states, it was Trump flags that brought in the most sales on Amazon. Flags were responsible for just under $41 million in sales, according to estimates, while Trump-branded hats brought in an estimated $22.67 million. Shirts, birthday cards, and mugs rounded out the top five sellers.

Harris merchandise saw a sales peak in August at an estimated $11.52 million, though September’s numbers were close, coming in at $10.43 million.

According to Omnisend, roughly 11,000 sellers on Amazon are currently selling election-themed merchandise. Of those, 9,000 are focused on Trump merch, the company says. There’s a big audience for those products, too. An estimated 58% of Americans have either already bought or plan to purchase merchandise tied to the 2024 election, according to the survey.

Critically, the dollar amounts presented in this study do not include sales by the campaigns themselves (and the money taken in for the Amazon-sold products does not go to either Trump or Harris). Both candidates have their own online stores, selling hats, T-shirts, and more. Those products help fund campaigns and could be favored by some voters.

It’s worth noting that the Harris campaign set a record for the biggest fundraising quarter ever in the three months ending September 30, taking in $1 billion in donations and merchandise sales.

Trump has, in many ways, made a cottage industry out of merchandise bearing his name or face. His campaign’s official store offers a much more extensive catalog of items for backers to purchase, including flags, decals to stick on restaurant bills (touting his promise to end taxes on tips), coffee mugs with his mug shot, and an array of items marketed to specific groups.

The former president has also been hawking $399 Trump-branded gold sneakers, $299 high-tops with an image of him smeared with blood following an assassination attempt, “God Bless the USA” bibles, silver coins with his face on them (which he claims to have designed), diamond-encrusted watches, and his own cryptocurrency exchange.

Most of those products come with the disclaimer that sales proceeds do not directly benefit Trump or his campaign. Rather, apparently he was paid a licensing fee to endorse them, as he once did with sales of everything from bottled water to steaks. 


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Morris is a contributing writer at Fast Company, covering business, technology, and entertainment, helping readers make sense of complex moves in the world of tech and finance and offering behind the scenes looks at everything from theme parks to the video game industry. Chris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience, more than half of which were spent with some of the Internet’s biggest sites, including CNNMoney.com, where he was director of content development, and Yahoo! Finance, where he was managing editor More


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