Vincent Harris (political strategist)

Vincent Harris, CEO of Harris Media at the office.

Vincent Harris is an American conservative political strategist and the CEO of Harris Media, an online communications firm based in Austin, Texas. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Baylor University.

Harris joined Mike Huckabee's 2008 Presidential campaign just a few months after it was announced, working as the campaign's official blogger.^[1][2] The following year, Harris served as Online Director for Bob McDonnell's successful gubernatorial campaign.^[3] McDonnell's online campaign, considered highly successful, was one of the first major Republican campaigns to embrace social media.^[4][5][6]

Harris' work has been featured in publications such as The Weekly Standard,^[7] and the Washington Post.^[8] His commentary on online media has appeared in CNN,^[9] Politico,^[10][11] the Washington Post,^[12] the Richmond Times Dispatch,^[13] the Minneapolis Star Tribune,^[14] the Washington Internet Daily,^[15] and ABC News^[16]

Harris has been active in the 2012 Presidential campaign. He first served as the online strategist for Rick Perry.^[17] After Perry dropped out of the race and endorsed Newt Gingrich, Harris was hired to help the Gingrich campaign's online and social media operations.^[18] In 2012, National Journal named him one of ten Republicans to follow on Twitter.^[19]

Vincent Harris with Mitch McConnell at the Kentucky Derby

In 2012, Harris led the digital operations of Senator Ted Cruz's campaign. This digital campaign contributed in making Cruz the next U.S. Senator from Texas.^[20] The aggressive, grassroots-centric digital approach was unlike anything previously seen in Texas. Read the full 2012 case study on Ted Cruz.

Working alongside Senator Mitch McConnell's 2014 campaign as lead digital director, Harris brought "a new era of social campaigning for Republicans" through social media integration.^[21] Straying from the typical communication plan centered on traditional media, Harris created a brand new, modernized platform skyrocketing the Senator's following. Armed with a social media strategy, McConnell won the 2014 Kentucky Primary Election and will contest the upcoming November elections utilizing the same digital expertise.

Harris was featured in an article courtesy of Bloomberg Politics titled, "The Man Who Invented The Republican Internet".^[22]

Vincent Harris speaking about digital media and politics.

Harris was hired by Senator Rand Paul's political operation, joining Senator Paul's 2016 team as the top digital strategist. Harris will sit at the "top of the leadership team" providing digital strategy expertise pertaining to data collection, website design and social media tactics, to name a few.^[23]

In 2015 Harris was reported to have been hired by the Likud Party campaign.^[24] His recognition as a GOP digital media guru had gone global after being appointed head of the re-election campaign for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.^[25]

“I love Israel, and I am excited to be here to help the Likud and the prime minister use digital media in an effective and forward-looking manner.”

— Vincent Harris, The Hill

The May/June 2015 edition of Politico Magazine profiled Vincent Harris and his firm, which they dubbed "Rand Paul's Digital Army," saying of Harris Media LLC:

Vincent Harris, CEO of Harris Media, at the Austin office

“has amassed a marquee roster of conservative clients, from Sarah Palin to Rand Paul, and established itself as the buzziest GOP firm of the cycle.”

— Tom Bartlett, Politico Magazine

^[26]

Vincent Harris's digital work for Senator Rand Paul contributed to his selection as one of the Washington Examiner's "New Voices for 2015," which they define as, "the intellectuals, policymakers, think tank leaders, campaign operatives, candidates, pols, pundits, wonks and others who are pushing our thinking and testing the limits of political possibility."^[27] His work with Senator Paul was not short of criticism, though. In October 2015, Harris was behind Paul live-streaming an entire day on the campaign trail. By the end of the day, Paul had enough and called it a "dumbass livestream." The comment from Paul brought about a flurry of negative attention to an already slumped campaign. ^[28]

“I wish I knew [why the campaign was live-streaming an entire day]. I’ve been saying, I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this and now we’re doing this.”^[29]

— Rand Paul, The Washington Post

In June 2016, POLITICO reported that Donald Trump's presidential campaign had hired Harris and his team to work for the campaign.^[30] Harris appeared to agree with the claim by tweeting a picture of Trump giving a thumbs up soon after the news broke.^[31] The next day, Breitbart News interviewed Harris and discovered that Harris was only used as a subcontractor through Trump's actual digital firm for a single project.^[32]

Harris is currently attending the University of Texas working towards his PhD.^[33]

References