The store sells coffee mugs, signs, banners, T-shirts and even greeting cards. (Emily Neil/WHYY News)
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Three days before Election Day, Sammi Moeser, of Southampton, sorted through T-shirts at The Trump Store in Bensalem, Bucks County.
Moeser, 34, said she and her mom have been to the store “many times” since their first visit six months ago.
“It’s so nice to come in and see all the other people who are supporting Donald Trump,” she said.
Just a dozen miles away, The Trump Store owner Michael Domanico was setting up the business’s mobile truck at a Trump supporters’ rally in Warminster.
His brick-and-mortar store, which opened in 2020, has seen ups and downs, but this year’s sales have been “very good,” Domanico said.
“I can’t even keep track of it,” he said. “Sometimes the line is out the door, and we’d like to see that, because we had some slow times in between … We kept it going because I knew it would get crazy again. And we’re in that crazy cycle right now. Everybody’s hopped up and pulling for Trump, so it’s been crazy.”
Entrepreneurs like Domanico are part of a booming retail economy nationwide that’s been marketing Trump and MAGA products for years.
Trump merchandise on Amazon outsold Harris merchandise $140 million to $26 million between April and September of this year, according to a survey from e-commerce marketing company Omnisend.
The same survey also found that of approximately 11,000 sellers on Amazon, an overwhelming majority — roughly 9,000 — were focused on selling Trump merchandise. More than half of Americans have bought or plan to purchase election-related merchandise, according to the findings.
The products included in the survey, such as those at The Trump Store in Bensalem, were not official campaign merchandise, and the profit does not directly benefit the candidate or campaign. Trump also offers campaign and MAGA products in for-profit ventures, rather than for campaign fundraising.
Merchandise sales aside, Harris has far outpaced Trump this fall in campaign fundraising.
The “long history” of political merchandise in the United States dates to the 19th century, said Daniel Schlozman, associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. That was the first time most or all white men could vote in elections regardless of class or financial standing.
“As mass politics begins, there’s all sorts of stuff that is designed to get voters excited about the campaign,” Schlozman explained.
The 1840 presidential campaign for William Henry Harrison was a turning point, he said. After an editorialist mocked the 67-year-old Harrison — the oldest candidate ever at that point in time — and suggested he should retire to a log cabin to drink hard cider, the campaign adopted log cabins and cider as symbols. They used the insult as a way to connect Harrison with the average American voter.
“In a sense, The Trump Store is, in that way, a real lineal descendant of what we’ve seen in the 19th century,” Schlozman said. “And so there are a lot of continuities between 1840 and 2024.”
However, Schlozman said, businesses like The Trump Store are centered on consumer preferences, and differ from an organized campaign merchandise “machinery.”
“This is much more a story of individual expression than it is about public persuasion,” he said. “And in fact, some amount of this stuff might not be on message with what the campaign would be saying in its television ads, but is instead meeting voters where they are, their supporters, where they are, to express what they want to say about the campaign.”
James Linn came to the Bensalem store on Saturday from Wilmington, Delaware. He said he isn’t trying to persuade anyone to vote for Trump by wearing Trump merchandise.
“I don’t want to inflict my beliefs on anyone else,” he said. “It’s a free world, you know, decide what you want to do. I am not going to sway anyone’s vote, and you’re not going to sway mine, flat out.”
Domanico also thought the demand for merchandise among Trump supporters comes from wanting to show their support, and a sense of belonging.
“They’re proud to be part of it. It’s almost like [how] everybody wears Eagles shirts,” Domanico said. “You know, they’re fans of the Eagles, so everybody wants to show their support for Trump. I don’t think they’re changing anybody’s mind by wearing it.”
Domanico started selling Trump shirts in 2019 with his company, which mostly sold apparel to car shows and gyms. Demand for Trump gear skyrocketed, and the business grew. In 2020, he opened the business at its current brick-and-mortar location in Bensalem.
“It took a while, because as soon as you say ‘Trump’ people [say], ‘Oh, no, we don’t want any Trump stores in the shopping center. They don’t want problems,” Domanico said. “But I found a landlord in Bensalem that was pro-Trump, and he said, ‘Yeah, come on in.’ So we’ve been there ever since.”
These days, the store sells around 20 different shirts, some of which are designed in house, along with a variety of other products — coffee mugs, magnets, stickers, hats and even pop-up greeting cards — from several different companies and suppliers. While many of the products are pro-Trump slogans, there are some bearing negative messaging, including a sign hanging in the back that reads, “Joe and the h*e gotta go.”
Among the most popular products, Domanico said, are the MAGA hats, especially the “dark MAGA” hat Elon Musk wore at a Trump rally.
“We got 300 of them and they were gone in, like, two days,” he said. “People are still clamoring for them, and I can’t get any more.”
A store volunteer told WHYY News that after the July assassination attempt against Trump, demand for Trump merchandise was so high the line to get in the store sometimes stretched down the block, prompting the store to extend its hours on certain days of the week.
Most customers are from within a 20-mile range, Domanico said, but he’s had customers come to the store from as far away as Ohio and Maine.
“We’ve had one person [who] drove 14 hours to come to our store,” he said. “We gave the guy some free hats and stuff because they drove so far.”
Domanico said he still finds it “amazing” when the approximately 1,000-square-foot store is packed with 30 people.
“It’s amazing to me, still, after five years, how people are so hopped up and they want Trump stuff,” he said.
Several Trump supporters told WHYY News Saturday that they’re “scared” and “nervous” about the election.
Dave Fredericks, 76, was at the Saturday rally where Domanico was selling his merchandise from his mobile store. Fredericks said he and his wife, who live in Upper Bucks County, voted by on-demand mail ballot in Doylestown last week. Although they didn’t have any issues, except having to wait a few hours, the long lines for on-demand mail ballot voting in Bucks County this past week were “troubling,” he said.
Fredericks said he’s found a sense of community at the store and events like Saturday’s rally.
“It’s nice to be able to talk about politics and things like that without somebody trying to take a punch at you or throw stuff at you or call you names,” he said. “It’s great just to be able to talk to people with like views, that care about the country and want to see it prosper, and have someone in a leadership position that’s going to be able to do what he says he’s going to do.”
No matter the results on Nov. 5, Domanico said he will have to reassess the business at some point.
If Trump wins the election, Domanico plans to keep the store open for another year or two.
“Everybody will still be Trump fans, it won’t be anything crazy like it is now, but it’ll still be enough to keep the store going and make a little profit,” he said. “But it’ll wear off after a couple years.”
If Trump loses, Domanico said he plans to stay in business until the lease is up in February and then make a decision.
“It will probably really die down if he loses, because people will be angry, but I don’t know if they’ll be buying MAGA hats and T-shirts and stuff at that time,” he said. “So we’ll see, but I have to make a decision by February.”
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