When Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the nominee for president of the Democratic Party, Unionwear CEO Mitch Cahn was excited.
Not about politics – but product.
Cahn’s Newark-based company is one of the few manufacturers in the country that produces hats with the ‘Made in the USA’ logo that’s a must for a presidential candidate.
Why no MAGA hats?
Mitch Cahn, the CEO of Unionwear in Newark, said his company has made very few Make America Great Hats for Donald Trump. He’s not surprised.
The first time a candidate runs, the want Made in America products. In future elections, the merchandise tends to move away from the campaign to private companies looking to make a buck – and they don’t mind going overseas.
That’s usually good for business every four years. This year, it was different. There were very few orders for Biden (or Trump) hats. Harris changed all that – in a way Cahn could have never imagined.
In the past three months, Cahn and Unionwear have produced more than 300,000 Harris hats. It’s substantially better than he’s ever done in an election cycle – even topping Barack Obama in 2008.
“It’s been incredible,” he said. “This is an exponential increase over anything we could have expected. It means that we’ve had to take all of our business and just focus it on the Harris campaign since the end of July.”
Cahn, speaking at Made in New Jersey Manufacturing Day, said the orders are coming from everywhere.
“It’s a whole bunch of different items for a whole bunch of different customers,” he said.
“They’re just astronomical numbers in the scheme of presidential campaign merchandise.”
Sales are increasing for another reason: Media coverage.
ROI-NJ was the first to profile Cahn’s shop (our story ran on Aug. 6). Since then, virtually every other media outlet in the area – and nationally – has done a similar story.
“Each outlet seems to find a different angle,” he said. “It’s been interesting to follow.”
Each story has the same end result: More business for Cahn. And not just Harris hat business.
“We’ve picked up in all areas as more companies get to know us,” he said. “We’ve already increased our profile with hundreds of thousands of new people seeing our logo or seeing articles about us.”
The big question, of course, is how long will this last.
Through the election on Nov. 5? Sure.
But if Harris wins?
“If Harris wins, there will be a huge push for merchandise for the inauguration,” he said.
“The Obama inauguration was huge, merchandise-wise, because people wanted a slice of history. I think the same thing would happen if Harris wins, and she becomes the first woman president.”
Cahn thinks Harris merchandise will outsell Obama merchandise for one other reason.
“Women wear baseball hats a lot more now than they did in 2008,” he said.
One can only assume this means Cahn is a Harris supporter. He handled the question carefully.
“Our business is nonpartisan, as all businesses should be,” he said. “But as a businessman, our business is rooting for Harris.”
