Presidential campaign headquarters offer yard signs and more
Signs for both Republican and Democratic tickets have popped up around Memphis in the run-up to Election Day. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)
Yard signs are the currency of presidential campaigns that have otherwise been missing-in-action in Memphis and surrounding Shelby County in this campaign season.
That’s the national campaigns of Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.
The local campaigns have headquarters in Cooper-Young and Cordova where the choice is between signs of 18-by-24 inches or 4-by-4 feet.
And while the two national campaigns are the draw, you can also get signs for some of the down-ballot local races at the Trump and Harris HQs.
They are also a way into political involvement at the local level as Harris and Trump are focused exclusively and in-person on “battleground” states where the results are too close to call.
“Definitely signs are our No. 1 donation for – no ifs ands or buts about it,” said Patti Possel, who runs the local Trump-Vance headquarters in the Trinity Commons shopping center in Cordova. “But this election cycle what has changed is people don’t just want the 18-by-24 standard yard sign. They want the 4-by-4 sign. … We’ve done countless yard signs.”
In Cooper-Young, Alex Hensley is taking walk-ins who want a Harris-Walz sign then and there as well as those who have ordered yard signs from the national campaign and are directed to the location from there.
And some are repeat “customers.” Customers is in quotation marks because the signs are technically not being sold but are being given for donations.
“More than anything I’ve heard about signs being stolen out of their yards,” Hensley said when asked if some who come in for yard signs are apprehensive about how their neighbors may react.
“I’m not going to try to talk anyone into that,” she said. “There are plenty of ways to get involved. They can phone bank. They can text. They can canvass. That is what I would direct them to, not necessarily trying to get them to have a yard sign in their yard.”
Possel says her duties are also about counseling those new to political involvement at any level, even something as simple as a yard sign or the mechanics of voting.
“A lot of people say, ‘My elderly parent is starting to fail physically. Mentally they are still sound. How do we get absentee ballots?’” she said.
“The biggest shock is the demographic shift. We’re out in Cordova and (see) a lot of people coming in who we think are traditionally Republican,” Possel said. But “they are coming in saying, ‘I’ve been a Democrat all my life. Tell me how to be a Republican.’”
Hensley is seeing the same thing with Harris-Walz supporters from the predominantly Republican suburbs.
“I think I’ve seen more suburban Democrats owning that they are Democrats and getting involved,” she said. “I think there is definitely more of a shift despite where they might be. There’s just been a different kind of courage in the last few years. I think that just goes to show what’s at stake in this election.”
Possel says she’s seen Trump-Vance supporters from Midtown.
“I know for this election cycle they won’t necessarily put a sign in their yard. But they are putting them in their windows,” she said of how she counsels the doubtful on the finer points of campaign signs. “People in Midtown have come in and said, ‘Normally I’m afraid to put a sign out. But I’m not afraid. I’m not going to be in the closet this time.’”
The local Trump headquarters also has lifesize cutouts of Trump including a “dancing Trump” that Possel also talks about putting in windows instead of in the front yard.
Harris cutouts have shown up at some Democratic gatherings.
It’s the closest either side locally has gotten to an in-person appearance by the candidates at the top of the Nov. 5 ballot.
There is also a Trump action figure on a key chain.
“You push the button and he says, ‘Make America Great Again’ and it turns into a flashlight. Those flew off the shelves,” Possel said.
The headquarters is just part of what Possel and Hensley do for their respective causes.
Possel was part of the Republican response to Democrats massing at the New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Germantown on the last Saturday of early voting.
Possel showed up with a roll of Trump stickers and has recruited those new to politics to come and work a shift at the headquarters.
The local GOP has had a storefront for years during campaign seasons at different spots in the same shopping center.
Democrats opened up their storefront later. Hensley is part of a group of activists who have assembled a much more aggressive Democratic get-out-the-vote effort after state Democratic party leaders ousted Shelby County Democratic Party chairwoman Lexie Carter in September.
Carter was replaced by a set of four co-chairs of the local party.
Topics
2024 elections Patti Possel Alex Hensley 2024 Presidential ElectionBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for more than 40 years.
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