A New York-based trademark lawyer has made a hobby out of buying up domain names for various hypothetical political candidates. And now for the second time, it has led to a pretty big payday.
Jeremy Green Eche bought the website HarrisWalz.com in 2020 for about US$10, thinking at the time that Harris might score the Democratic presidential nomination, he said.
He had also bought a number of websites with the names of different running mates, including HarrisPritzker.com for the Illinois governor, HarrisFetterman.com for Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, and HarrisWarnock.com for Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.
But when Harris did not win the nomination that year, Eche kept renewing the domain names each year in hopes that one day they would pay off.
And HarrisWalz.com finally did four years later – within hours of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris selecting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate this week, Eche said he sold the domain name for US$15,000.
02:07
US vice-presidential hopeful Tim Walz slammed by Trump supporters for China connection
US vice-presidential hopeful Tim Walz slammed by Trump supporters for China connection
As of Wednesday morning, the HarrisWalz.com website still shows up with a brat green background with an all-lower case “walz” written across it – just as Eche set it up, in a nod to Charli XCX’s brat album, an aesthetic the Harris campaign has jokingly adopted.
The site links to Eche’s online domain name marketplace, where the website is listed as “Out of Stock”.
Eche said the buyer was just a “random unaffiliated American guy” who wants to remain anonymous.
“He is not affiliated with either campaign, but he’s a Harris supporter and he’s buying the domain to protect it,” Eche said. “He called himself a domain protector. So he just wants to avoid having the Trump campaign buy it again like they did with ClintonKaine.com.”
The last time Eche made US$15,000 off one of his political domain names – ClintonKaine.com – the person who bought it turned out to be affiliated with the Trump campaign.
And the Trump campaign used the site to trash-talk then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, complete with a “Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc” logo at the bottom, according to Associated Press.
Eche, who had sold the site through a broker, said he didn’t know who the buyer was until it was too late.
“I’m so jaded from 2016,” Eche said. “It’s hard to express how depressed I got when the Clinton campaign didn’t even want to buy it. I just thought I hit the jackpot and that was it, and then the money would show up and I just wanted to sell it this time to somebody while there was still a lot of hype around it.”
But Eche said that even though he is a Democrat, he does not regret that sale because the Trump campaign could have spent the US$15,000 elsewhere but gave it to him instead.
Eche said he was happy with Harris’ choice of running mate, and although he had hoped the Harris campaign would be the ones to buy the domain name from him, he’s just relieved he sold it.
And Eche already has his sights set on his next big payday. He owns a bunch of different domain names for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who some have speculated may run for president in 2028, as well as several domains connected to Walz, in case the US vice-presidential nominee runs for president in the future.
Eche said he also owns a number of Republican-led domain names, but not as many as Democrats because Republicans are harder to predict. During the 2016 election cycle, Eche estimated that he spent around US$3,000 total buying up domain names, and for the 2024 cycle, around US$500, he said.
“It is really fun to be so personally invested in the Veep stakes and in the primaries,” Eche said. “It’s kind of like when you bet on a sports game and the sports game is just much more fun to watch.”
“It is really weirdly validating to have my stupid little hobby deemed newsworthy twice now,” Eche added. “It’s very validating.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Originally published on Business Insider
