The Trump Swag Merchants Cashing In on the Election Trail
Over the last year, Nakai Ogletree has been to more than 200 political rallies. Sometimes more than one in a day.
The 41-year-old from Cleveland has been interviewed by Ukrainian television, shooed off grounds by “a knucklehead cop” in New Hampshire, and witnessed face-offs between Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter activists. He’s probably seen more of the front lines of this election than any Americans who aren’t reporters or political operatives.
And he’s made a lot of money off it: thousands per rally. “The best part is that I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to spend it.”
Ogletree is a merch dealer, one of a loose-knit circuit of mostly black, independent vendors who have spent the 2016 election crisscrossing the country, following the major party candidates from event to event, hawking T-shirts, pins, hats to their supporters. Of the 200-plus rallies he’s attended, only about 40 have been gatherings for Sanders or Clinton. The lopsided ratio is partly because Trump has been the rallyingest presidential candidate in recent memory (“He's been flooding the market,” says Liberty Sibon George, another vendor), but also partly because the Republican nominee’s followers are a far better customer base.
“At one Trump rally, I make probably $3,000, $4,000,” Ogletree says. “I’ve been to many Hillary rallies and made, like, $60. The whole rally. I’m talking with, like, 3,000 people.”
Three Fridays before the election, Ogletree is standing in a Pennsylvania field about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia, manning a T-shirt table with his buddy Hollis outside the Newtown Athletic Club, where Trump is delivering his second speech of the day. About 4,000 people turned out and Ogletree’s sales were strong. “I’ve probably got about $2,000 on me. He’s probably got $2,000 because we’ve been going real hard. Today we aren’t staying at a hotel, so we just spent $65 on gas, and that’s it. It’s sweet!” (In truth, the two face the unexpected expense when Ogletree’s starter fails and strands them on the road that night: $383, plus $50 to State Farm roadside assistance, $75 for towing, then $20 for a ride to AutoZone to buy a replacement starter.)
Vendors mostly have their merch printed at small local shops. Their slogans aren’t vetted by committee or ruled by decorum: some are aggressive (“Bomb the Hell Out of Isis”) crass (“Trump 2016/Finally Someone With Balls”) or misogynistic (“Trump That Bitch”). "The more outrageous it is, the more it sells," George says.
By this time, after hundreds of rallies, they mostly all know each other, too. Sometimes, they'll hit fast food joints after events and swap tips. "It's an underground network," said George. "A network of a business that's not really supposed to be there; none of it's official. But it's gotta be there. If it's not there, they come looking for it. The candidates love us being there."
Most of them work other venues as well, selling bootleg T-shirts outside concerts and professional sporting events. For Ogletree, this was a sideline hustle to full-time employment as a shipping manager, but when the election season started in earnest and he saw how lucrative political rallies could be, he quit his day job to hit the road. Now he makes a living by selling Make America Great Again hats for $15 a piece and “Trump Pence 2016” shirts for $20.
Although he’s been living in the belly of the election beast, Ogletree hadn’t chosen a candidate until recently. As a constituent of Ohio, a battleground state whose electoral significance is second only to Florida, his pick matters. “I’m pretty sure I’m voting for Trump,” he says. “When I tell people that—they’re mad at me.”
This surprised him, too. Ogletree is a lifelong Democrat whose mother raised him never to vote for a Republican. (His father was a Republican.) But he finds Hillary unconvincing—“I feel like she’s got a bag of tricks,” he says—and Donald, well, as Ogletree puts it, “He’s got some issues.” But what finally swayed him was the contrast of atmospheres among the candidates’ most loyal supporters. “At Trump rallies, people are real cordial. People walk up, smile, say, ‘How you doing?’” he says. “At Hillary and Bernie rallies, everybody was bitching. It wasn’t a positive vibe.”
Plus, he says, Clinton supporters were cheap. “At a Hillary rally, people look at the table and are like, ‘$20! What the hell you thinking? I work 40 hours a week!’” He eventually quit attending those rallies. Financially, he says, “It just wasn’t worth it.”
George said he hasn’t made much money off Clinton either, because her events are smaller: “Hillary’s meeting people at Denny’s, Trump’s meeting people in airplane hangars,” he said. Like Ogletree, George has a left-tilting background—he was active in the Occupy movement. But his economic experience over the past year has informed his vote: “We’re not going to vote for Hillary if she can’t bring us $50 at a rally,” he said. “Trump's stimulatin’.”
George is a veteran dealer of twenty years, and he’s worked more than one presidential campaign. He remembers feeling uncomfortable at Romney rallies because of their lack of diversity: “There really weren’t any people of color there at all,” he says. “It got to the point where, being a minority vendor, it would make you feel awkward in the crowd. I got the cold shoulder. You can see that as maybe what that party represents.”
In contrast, George said, Trump crowds are much more diverse. “Five to ten percent is more people than zero,” he said. And they’re enthusiastic: Trump fans “will chase you down for a shirt,” he added.
Like every other sentient being on earth, Ogletree is ready for the election to end. The money’s been terrific, but the whiplashing itinerary is exhausting. It’ll be nice to be home for a change. “Count my money, put it in a safe—that’s all I do,” he says, laughing. He would like to splurge on something nice, though, something for his backyard. “Maybe one of those big, giant zebras I see at Sam’s Club.”
George says the campaign season has been a big boost for business. "All of us eat well, we make good money," he says. "We're the last pure element of the American dream."