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Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz speaks at a rally in Philadelphia, PA on August 6, 2024 as he was introduced by Vice President Harris as running mate. File photo: Lev Radin, ShutterStock.com, licensed.BROOKLYN, NY – With the news that current Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 election, you might decide to pull up a web browser and head on over to “HarrisWalz.com” to find out a little more about this duo and their platform. However, if you do, you’ll simply be greeted with a green background with the word “Walz” spelled out in black, low-resolution letters. No campaign material, no policies, no biographies, nothing.
It turns out that HarrisWalz.com has actually been owned since 2020 by Jeremy Green Eche, 36, who bought it at the time for $8.99. And the Brooklyn, NY-based trademark attorney and domain investor made headlines recently when he sold that very same domain for $15,000, an impressive return on his initial investment.
Eche didn’t make the decision to register this particular domain four years ago based on precognition…it’s actually something he does multiple times a year for numerous potential political hopefuls, and occasionally these investments pay serious dividends.
I freely call myself a domain squatter or a cybersquatter,” Eche said. “It’s a pejorative term, but I don’t mind using it because it’s still accurate.”
At the time he purchased HarrisWalz.com, Eche noted that then-Senator Kamala Harris was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, one that she would eventually lose to Joe Biden. But at the time, Eche was speculating on all of her possible running mates, should she clinch the nomination, and then went on a buying spree.
I just tried to grab her name and all the heartland governors I could think of,” he said, and to that end – in addition to HarrisWalz.com – he registered HarrisPritzker.com, HarrisFetterman.com, HarrisWarnock.com, and several others, for a total of 15 domains relating to a Harris presidential run.
Despite her losing the nomination and eventually becoming Biden’s running mate, Eche held onto the Harris domains, renewing them annually in the hopes that one day they may be worth something. He had already enjoyed success in this regard; he had been the owner of ClintonKaine.com in 2016 when Hillary Clinton announced Tim Kaine as her running mate, but her campaign only offered him $2,000 for the domain, which he declined.
However, an anonymous buyer offered to pay Eche $15,000 – which he was quick to accept – and it was eventually revealed that this buyer was a member of the campaign of Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, who used the domain to set up a Clinton-bashing website.
The buyer of HarrisWalz.com was not tied to the Harris campaign, Eche notes; instead, he said they were an anonymous supporter of the current Vice President that secured the domain for its asking price to precent the Trump campaign from nabbing it first.
I definitely did not want to wait, probably in vain, for the Harris campaign to reach out to me and risk not being able to sell it at all,” Eche said.
English (US) ·