President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race has caused a ripple effect in the promotional products industry.

After selling “virtually no Biden merchandise” this year, Unionwear President Mitch Cahn says the Newark, New Jersey-based supplier’s entire inventory was cleaned out on Monday morning by the two companies that primarily handle the Democratic Party’s promotional products.

“We had already written off the 2024 merch business, so this is definitely a shot in the arm,” Cahn says. “We assumed something was going to happen with Biden dropping out, but I didn’t expect it to happen so fast. I guess they’re really preparing for a big merch push for [Vice President Kamala] Harris.”

Shortly after tweeting a signed letter announcing the suspension of his campaign, Biden tweeted his endorsement of Harris, who has launched her own campaign and has secured enough delegates to become the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee, ABC News reported.

  • Non-profit fundraising platform ActBlue announced that grassroots supporters had raised $46.7 million by 9 p.m. EST on Sunday following Harris’ campaign launch.


Promo’s Quick Response

Considering the breakneck pace of the promo industry, it should come as no surprise that distributors began cancelling orders for Biden-Harris merch immediately following Biden’s announcement, according to Cindy Scardino, marketing project manager at Gill Studios – the No. 26 supplier in the PPAI 100.

  • The Kansas-based firm specializes in lawn signs, bumper stickers and other promo products in high demand during election season.


“We haven’t received any Harris-only orders at this time; the news is too fresh in the grand scheme of things of what’s to come in the next three-plus months,” Scardino says. “I imagine once the Democratic Party has a consistent direction, the orders will begin flowing into our union production facility.”

Another Made-in-the-USA and union shop, Unionwear has been manufacturing campaign merchandise for candidates of both parties for more than 30 years. While Biden’s merch sales in 2020 were “fantastic,” Cahn says they were basically nonexistent during this election season. That may have been related to him being (at the time) the incumbent, as former President Barack Obama’s merch sales “went down considerably” from 2008 to 2012, according to Cahn.

RELATED: Create Winning Political Campaigns With Promo

“The political merch business is very heavy with print on demand, which really started growing in the 2020 primaries when there were so many Democratic candidates,” Cahn says. “This year, there has been a lot of blank merchandise in the print on demand business because there really weren’t any primaries. They stocked up in the beginning of the year, and now these guys are sitting on a lot of blank units.”

  • Cahn says this is also the third presidential election in a row where baseball caps are by far the most sought-after item, outpacing T-shirts and bags.


Cahn added there’s a lot of attention being paid to unions this election cycle because there’s a strong possibility that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest and most powerful labor unions in North America, could break from tradition and endorse a Republican candidate.

  • Sean O’Brien, the head of the Teamsters, spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention in a historic first for the labor organization.


“We’ve seen a lot of merch companies saying it has to be union-labeled and union-printed,” Cahn says. “We’ve even had requests from the Republican side for that.”

The Importance Of Recyclable Campaign Merch

What seemed unlikely a few months ago – that Biden would drop out of the race as an incumbent president – has proven the importance of making campaign merch with a sustainability focus. As of Sunday afternoon, a significant amount of Biden presidential signs, bumper stickers and door hangers became useless.

Alex Paschal, president of Warwick Publishing – PPAI 100’s No. 74 supplier – which focuses on recyclable paper products, says that campaign-focused clients are always taking a risk ordering products before the campaign is a sure thing.

“Generally, we encourage our clients: If you’re going to make political stuff before something’s a shoe in, make it recyclable so that even if you do have to dispose of it, it’s not really an environmental problem,” Paschal says.

  • Political yard signs are sometimes made with unrecyclable plastics, which is shortsighted from an environmental standpoint as, even in less unusual circumstances, all campaign promo has a set expiration date before it is time to dispose of it.


As Paschal points out, however, that is only half the battle, and it is irrelevant if the end user does not actually recycle the product. Warwick encourages distributors to reach out to clients and remind them when a product is recyclable or communicating how a product should be disposed of if it’s not recyclable.

“The goal is to have everything 100% recyclable so there’s no waste, but if the guy on the side of the road cleaning up the trash when it’s all done, doesn’t throw it in the recycling bin, it didn’t do any good.”