Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg

Trump's Failed, Fanatical Presidency Has Left America Less Safe, More Vulnerable. We Must Fight Very Hard Now For A Better Path

Simon Rosenberg — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 14:55:15 GMT

Morning all. First up, Trump has completely melted down over the Senate’s refusal to enable his unprecedented corruption and green light his venal AG choice. This post came a few hours ago:

On Monday we must keep calling and demand the Senate block Todd Blanche. We have to be loud about it, especially Hopium community members in North Carolina and Texas. Keeping calling everyone!

Perhaps our addled, ailing leader was still smarting this morning from this incredible humiliation that happened last night:

On weekends I try to keep things simple here so consider today’s post an early sketch of something we will develop together in the coming weeks.

Before we begin we cannot forget for one moment that politically this has been a very good week for us and a very, very bad one for them.

Subscribe now

I think Democrats should consider using the current negotiations over a temporary budget extension for the coming fiscal year, something we call a Continuing Resolution, to force changes in Trump’s foreign and national security policy. We need to now force him to accept his defeat in his illegal war against Iran and work to forge a new rough regional peace; fully back Europe and Ukraine as Congress has sought to do; and compel him to protect the homeland, as he swore an oath to do. Things are getting sufficiently dangerous that Democrats cannot afford to wait until we gain power in January. We should be engaging, and attempting to shape our foreign policy now. For it is clear Trump is no longer capable - if he ever was - of acting in America’s national interest. His approach has failed, is doing material harm to America and democracy globally, and we must find a new and better way as soon as possible.

Let’s review what we’ve learned in recent days…..

Iran Has Attacked The American Homeland. Trump Is Cheering Them On - The Iranian government has apparently hacked into the critical infrastructure, including drinking systems, of seven American states. Rather than accepting responsibility and coming up with a joint response, yesterday Trump blamed Tim Walz and the government of Minnesota for these attacks, an act that of course will be read in Tehran as a green light to expand and deepen the attacks.

From the NYT:

The New York Times reported Thursday that U.S. and Minnesota state officials believed Iran was likely responsible for the cyberattacks on water systems. The F.B.I. said late Thursday the hackers had targeted water facilities in at least seven states.
Mr. Trump dismissed that assessment in a freewheeling cabinet meeting on Friday, saying: “I don’t think so. I think Minnesota is behind it,” adding, “I think the governor’s behind it. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.”
The president’s baseless claim, contradicted by investigators’ statements that other states had been targeted and their water systems were “degraded” by the attack, appeared aimed at downplaying the threat of the increasingly unpopular war with Iran inside America’s borders. Mr. Trump instead shifted blame to Mr. Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024, and his state government, continuing a pattern of trying to punish Minnesota and its Democratic leadership, particularly over the issue of immigration.

Trump Has Lost The War. Escalation Will Be Disastrous. We Must Negotiate A Rough, Regional Peace - Here’s a front page story in NYT today:

An excerpt:

To America’s allies, President Trump’s war in Iran, now in its sixth month, seems headed for a strategic defeat.
They worry that the inability of the United States to turn military superiority into a sustainably changed Iran has displayed a vulnerability that Russia and China will welcome. In addition, Mr. Trump’s goals remain unmet, and the U.S. military is running short on key armaments that it needs for global reach.
For the moment, Iran is seemingly resolute under a more radical government, its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are degraded but not destroyed, and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively under its control. The war has left both the United States and Israel in weaker positions — and blaming each other for the mess.
Iranian missiles and drones not only restrict traffic through the strait and damage the economic infrastructure of allied energy production, but they also continue to threaten American bases across the Middle East and have killed or injured American service members.
With Mr. Trump’s aims shifting, Washington is losing credibility both militarily and diplomatically, analysts said. Its conduct in the war underscores the impression that the United States is an unpredictable instrument of global disorder, they said.
The war may evolve, but so far the result has been “a strategic loss and an embarrassment,” said Robin Niblett, a former director of Chatham House, a think tank in London. “For U.S. allies and those who rely on the U.S. for security, this is confirmation that you can’t trust the United States.”

In a new post on his terrific Substack, Dr. Phillips O’Brien writes about China’s apparent stepped support for Iran in a new post, Is China Going For The Kill?Some excerpts:

Another reason we might be seeing the death throes of this ludicrous war is that the Chinese, if reports are to be believed, might be going in for the kill. They certainly seem to understand the weakness of the US, the sad state of the US military under Trump, and the (regrettable) resilience of the Iranian state. The upshot is that to a large degree they hold America’s military fate in their hands, and they seem to be about to use that terrible leverage.
……..
Another reason such a move could be devastating is that it would reinforce the reality of US weakness to states in the region. Over the last few months—as China (and Russia) have provided aid to Iran in its campaign which has not only killed and wounded a large number of US soldiers but also regularly resulted in effective attacks on US allies in the Gulf—Trump has tried to pretend this aid was no big deal or even deny that it was happening at all. Just five days ago, he tweeted out the latter, denying that China and Russia were doing anything at all—or in his words not “participating” in helping Iran.
………
I was trying to think about the last time the US was so weak and vulnerable. I settled on 1861, the first year of the US Civil War. At that point, outside powers were willing to directly threaten the US in ways that the Chinese are doing now—and the USA had to take it.

Trump Has Taken Dramatic Steps To Help Putin, Weaken Ukraine/Europe - Despite the clear intent of Congress to put America on the side of Ukraine in the Russian-Ukrainian war in recent days Trump has taken a series of actions that help Putin and weaken Ukraine (more on this in the days ahead):

In this post the Vice President of the United States directly echoes documented Russian disinfo efforts to destabilize Spain and the EU this week, further aligning the US with Russia against Europe in a moment of crisis for the continent:

While Democrats are running on costs, care, and corruption we cannot lose sight of our ultimate goal as a pro-democracy movement - to bring about a new birth of freedom, here and everywhere. It is not only the right thing for proud American patriots to do it is something voters want us focused on.

Trump has proven he in incapable of acting in America’s national interest - only his own. His dereliction of duty, his idiocy/fanaticism/vainglory, and ongoing betrayal of the country is leaving America far less safe. We must act as patriots now and use all the tools we have to force a better path here in the Middle East, in Europe/Ukraine, and here at home too. I think the gravity of what’s happening suggests Democrats cannot wait until next year to forcefully fight for a better path and a more coherent and effective national security strategy. We have tools and we should use them now…..

And Yes, We Have Elections To Go Win, Too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $100,000 By August 10th - Donate Today! | $72,600 raised, $50,000 original goal, $100,000 new stretch goal | Friends we hit our original $50,000 goal in the first 24 hours of this new campaign to get Troy Jackson the resources to staff up, build out his campaign, and beat Susan Collins. Amazing - thank you all!

We aren’t stopping here - this early money really matters, and I want to now try to get to $100,000 by Friday, August 7th. We can do this people, and be sure watch our new interview with Troy.

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,027,500 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $231,400 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

A donation to the Second Wave Fund is split evenly among these twelve, and more as other worthy candidates emerge from their primaries. Our total above includes money we’ve raised for directly for each candidate. You can watch interviews with those who’ve interviewed so far here. We are off to a great start here everyone!

Winning The Senate - $609,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Troy Jackson (ME), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them directly here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia - $28,800 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $30,400 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine - $79,400 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | We set up this fund to help the Maine Dems get through our nominating process. With this community’s strong response we put up almost a third of the resources needed for what became a very successful process to pick a nominee. We had a big return on this investment - thank you all! | Watch our interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson | We are keeping this fund up for we’re behind in Maine and need to keep building our momentum there

Winning Ohio - $185,100 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Our campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton-Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party and its terrific Chair, Kathleen Clyde

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $641,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

A Few More Things To Do

Let’s work to make sure everyone you know is Voting Early this year. Learn more about how we can best protect our elections this November and ensure a peaceful transfer of power in January. Bring our Resolutions Project to your community. Fight for Hopium’s Agenda and let’s also embrace Leader Jeffries’ new agenda, “Fighting For An Affordable America.” Become a paid subscriber to Hopium to help us grow this community of proud, plucky patriots.

Many are asking about the news coming from the DNC these days. Strong recommending reading Chair Ken Martin’s new memo, The DNC Is Building a Democratic Party That Can Win the Moment and Win the Future. While the DNC has done important things under his tenure, including the adoption of a new Presidential primary calendar, I think Chair Martin would be wise now to shake up his team and make big changes there. For things simply must get better at the DNC.

I’ve set up a new page to help us learn more about the Democratic Socialists Of America (DSA). Check it out and let me know what you think, offer other articles or resources you think I should include.

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

This Trump Thing Is Rotten, Everyone Knows It, And People Have Had Enough

Simon Rosenberg — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:15:51 GMT

Morning all. Something significant may be happening to Trump and Trumpism. The rot, the failure, the incompetence, the corruption, the ugliness of it all has just become so overwhelming that it is now OK to talk about it in public. Self-censorship is ebbing. It’s a thing, out there in the world, impacting everything we do. Everyone is now talking about it, trying to make sense of it, and come up with strategies to deal with it. Let’s review headline from across legacy media this morning. It’s as if they are reporting on a natural disaster, but that disaster is the Trump Presidency and Greater MAGA:

Tankers Are Being Blown Out of the Water. See How Mideast Strikes Are Piling Up (WSJ)

The Rising Number of Uninsured Patients Starts to Hit Hospitals (WSJ)

Airports, nursing homes and schools brace for disruption without Haitian workers (Washington Post)

Medicare drug coverage costs expected to rise as federal subsidies end (CBS)

US economy slowed more than expected as the Iran war took hold (ABC News)

The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling (Reuters)

Israel rejects Gaza plan that Trump unveils with fanfare, as Hamas says it has accepted the plan (JTA)

State Department map of Africa mislabels every country at AIDS conference (NBC News)

Trump defends DOJ weaponization fund and attacks Cornyn, further imperiling Blanche nomination (CNN)

Explosive diarrhea parasite cases rise by thousands, now in 45 states (USA Today)

US measles cases reach 35-year high, for second record-breaking year in a row (ABC News)

Trump’s poll numbers just took another turn for the worse (Washington Post)

The MAGA Media Machine Is Fracturing (NYT)

A GOP backlash brews in South Carolina over Trump’s support for Lindsey Graham’s sister (Washington Post)

‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation (WSJ, incredible account of Trump’s unprecedented corruption)

Infantino increasingly embattled after senior adviser resigns over World Cup sell-off plans (The Guardian)

It’s like everywhere, all at once, everyone is waking up to what a corrupt fuck up he is. And people have had enough.

We’ve seen it in the polling this week. Trump hit new bottoms in poll after poll. Here’s my updated poll chart:

Trump went from -23 to -25 in FiftyPlusOne’s tracker this week. This is big movement in just one week of new data:

Yesterday Fox News released polls showing Cooper up 9 in NC and Talarico up 3 in Texas, 51%-48%. Just wow. Democrats have not won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. Here’s our updated round up of recent Senate polling. It’s bad out there for the Rs right now, really bad:

I think of all the signs of rot and failure out there the most significant may be what happened to the generic ballot data this past week. The generic ballot has been bouncing around between +3 and +6 Dem for months now. This past week we got this data below, suggesting that as that GOP operative told Politico last week that bottom may actually be falling out right now for the Rs:

Two good related reads this morning:

G. Elliott Morris explains why at this point even if Trump can somehow get gas prices down against it’s unlikely to improve his standing (as we’ve already seen in recent months)
Paul Krugman explains why Wall Street now understands that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is an un-serious, Trumpian hack - The Bond Market Doesn’t Like Bullshit

You can feel “the fed up with the bullshit” sentiment in three new ads. The first is from Governor Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania:

The next is from Paige Cognetti in PA-8:

The third ad is from Sherrod Brown in Ohio:

Look at what’s happened to the image of Trump’s buddies in big tech. There may actually be something out there more unpopular than Trump:

People have had enough.

I dive even deeper into our current moment in my weekly talk and analysis, Trump’s Regime Has Failed, His Standing Continues To Erode, And We Are Getting Stronger.

And yes, as they stumble and fall, we are getting stronger, which is why my friends it is…..

Time To Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $100,000 By August 10th - Donate Today! | $67,600 raised, $50,000 original goal, $100,000 new stretch goal | Friends we hit our original $50,000 goal in the first 24 hours of this new campaign to get Troy Jackson the resources to staff up, build out his campaign, and beat Susan Collins. Amazing - thank you all!

We aren’t stopping here - this early money really matters, and I want to now try to get to $100,000 by Friday, August 7th. We can do this people, and be sure watch our new interview with Troy.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The Senate - $598,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), Troy Jackson (ME), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them directly here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia - $27,800 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $29,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine - $79,200 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | We set up this fund to help the Maine Dems get through our nominating process. With this community’s strong response we put up almost a third of the resources needed for what became a very successful process to pick a nominee. We had a big return on this investment - thank you all! | Watch our interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson | We are keeping this fund up for we behind in Maine and need to keep building our momentum there

Winning Ohio - $184,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton-Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party and its terrific Chair, Kathleen Clyde

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $640,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

A Few More Things To Do

Let’s work to make sure everyone you know is Voting Early this year; learn more about how we can best protect our elections this November and ensure a peaceful transfer of power in January; bring our Resolutions Project to your community; fight for Hopium’s Agenda today and everyday; become a paid subscriber to Hopium to help us grow this community of proud, plucky patriots.

Many are asking about the news coming from the DNC these days. Rather than commenting I will let Chair Ken Martin speak for himself through a new memo he just published, The DNC Is Building a Democratic Party That Can Win the Moment and Win the Future. It is well worth your time.

Many in our community have found this essay from Nathan Newman (himself a DSA member), The Sane NYC DSA vs the Crazy National DSA- A Guide for the Perplexed, helpful in coming to a better understanding of the Democratic Socialists of America. I also link to DSA Co-Chair Megan Romer’s appearance on Fox News this week that many of you have shared. It creates even more context.

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Fri, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Members Most Fridays Get Together

Simon Rosenberg — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 22:46:25 GMT

Friends,

Hopium Founding Members will gather as usual tomorrow, July 31st at 1pm ET.

A reminder that these meetings operate under Chatham House rules and are not recorded and shared so as to facilitate an open discussion. AI note takers or recordings of any kind are not permitted.

If you are reading this and not yet a Founding Member you can sign up here or below. It’s a wonderful group - join us!

Meet Troy Jackson, The Man Who Can Beat Susan Collins

Simon Rosenberg — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 21:45:32 GMT

Greetings all. Troy Jackson, the man of the hour, and the next US Senator from Maine, dropped by earlier this afternoon to update us on his campaign to beat Susan Collins. A few highlights:

I will say that I didn't see this coming. I didn't want it this way or anything. Three or four weeks ago, I was fishing with my dad, and then the phone just started blowing up, and it became clear to me that I didn't want to see all that energy — the issues that I care so much about — I didn't want people to feel like they lost the opportunity. So we jumped in, and people have been really responsive. Again, I'm excited about trying to change government fundamentally for the people I care about. And, you know, people have been really responding positively. They want change.
…………
Yeah, I mean, you know, Collins — I've known her my entire life. I mean, as a matter of fact, back in '98, whenever a group of us were trying to get government to stand up for us in the logging community, Collins was two years into being U.S. Senator. She didn't want to actually get involved. She didn't want to go up against the billionaires, the big landowners in Maine. And so, I mean, I've known her for this my entire life.

…………

I'm excited, like talking with Hannah [Pingree], talking with Matt Dunlap, even before this, about trying to help them win, especially in the 2nd Congressional District where I'm from — explaining to people that the people I care about, their hopes and dreams are the same. And so now, obviously, I get a chance to be on the ticket with them. I get a chance to work with them firsthand, have the resources to work with them firsthand and fight for the state of Maine. Fight for the country that the three of us all agree on — as opposed to having Donald Trump and Susan Collins fight for, again, a select few that don't understand what it's like to go without health care, go without prescription drugs. I mean, I know for a fact that we're on the right side of this. We're on the right side of it for the people in the state of Maine.

Despite our struggles in Maine Troy Jackson can beat Susan Collins this November. Kamala Harris won Maine by 7 points in 2024 and the national landscape has moved another 7-10 points towards us. Our gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree led by 14 and 15 points in the last two public polls. The NYT poll of Maine a few weeks ago had the generic ballot +11 Democratic. The first poll with Jackson as our candidate has him up 49%-46%. Susan Collins is more unpopular than she has ever been and will be saddled with her many, many votes for the darkest parts of Trump’s agenda, including providing outrageous amounts of money for ICE without any reforms. It won’t be easy, and we will get outspent, but Troy Jackson can beat Susan Collins this November.

Our community has rallied for Troy and the good people of Maine. Through our Audacious Expansion Fund we’ve become one of the largest funders of the Maine Democratic Party this cycle; we provided the Maine Democratic Party almost a third of the money required to put on their successful nominating process that gave us a consensus nominee; and just in the last few days we’ve rushed $63,000 to Troy’s campaign to help him hire staff, build out his campaign, and get on with the important job of defeating Susan Collins. Today his campaign told us that this plucky community of proud patriots has raised more money for Troy so far than anyone else in the country. Amazing work everyone. Thank you all!

But we cannot stop there. We are shooting to raise Troy $100,000 by next Friday to ensure that can make up for lost ground and stay competitive with Collins’ incredibly well-resourced campaign. Can you donate today to help us get there?

Donate To Help Troy Jackson Win!

Troy began the interview by acknowledging the incredible support he’s received from this community:

Thank you to the whole Hopium Chronicles community for all the support, all the work already. I mean, really, really appreciate it. It’s been really incredible in such a short time.

Here’s a terrific new video Troy’s campaign released today:

Friends, we’ve made big investments in Maine this cycle, and now need to go finish the job by electing Troy Jackson as Maine’s next Senator. Watch our discussion, share it with others, hit like so more will see it, and keep working hard all. For we have a country to save, and great candidates like Troy to elect all over the country, together - Simon

Bio - Troy Jackson, Democratic Nominee for US Senate in Maine

From JacksonForMaine.com:

Mainer by birth. Logger by trade. Senator for the people.

Troy Jackson grew up in Aroostook County, a poor kid in a town full of poor kids. His mom was 16 when he was born. His dad was a logger, like his dad, and his dad before him.

When Troy was in 7th grade, he saw his first strike. His dad and his fellow loggers were standing up to a wealthy landowner who thought he could squeeze them for more. They weren’t asking for any special treatment or a pay raise — they were just asking for basic fairness.

He told them: Do the work for what I’ll pay you today, or I’ll replace you tomorrow.

A few years later Troy became a logger himself. He spent years putting in 80-hour weeks in the woods — running equipment, driving trucks, and cutting wood just to make ends meet.

It wasn’t long until Troy was part of a big labor fight of his own, blocking the border to stand up to billionaire landowners cutting wages. Politicians — including then-first-term Senator Susan Collins — promised to listen, but they left Troy and his fellow loggers high and dry. After that experience, he realized nothing would change for him or anyone else like him unless there was a working class voice in the room when decisions got made. So he ran for the Maine state legislature.

Troy spent twenty years in the legislature, six as Senate President. He got there by earning the trust of his friends and neighbors — regardless of what party they belonged to, they knew Troy would fight for them.

In the legislature, Troy fought hard to successfully lower prescription drug prices, passed universal school meals, protected union jobs, expanded rural health care, delivered property tax relief, safeguarded our environment, and championed and passed some of the strongest reproductive health protections anywhere in the country.

But with the wins, there were real frustrations, too. Time and time again, Troy saw legislation that would be a gamechanger for working families to get watered down, killed, or vetoed. Powerful people marched in and dictated what they would do. It wasn’t so different than what he saw as a kid in the woods with his dad.

Like you, Troy is tired of watching working families get squeezed while the wealthiest keep getting more. He’s running for U.S. Senate to put power back in the hands of the people and fix our broken systems — because working Mainers deserve a fighter in Washington.

Troy earned an Associate's Degree from the University of Maine at Fort Kent in 2000. He lives in Allagash with his partner, Lana. They have two grown sons.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Trump's Regime Has Failed, His Standing Continues To Erode, And We Are Getting Stronger (New Video & Written Analysis)

Simon Rosenberg — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:05:30 GMT

Morning all. Let’s start with some news. GDP growth in the second quarter came in lower than expected at 1.5%. Here’s the trend line of Trump’s second term. It’s not good:

We will have more economic charts tomorrow but the data tells a very clear story - Trump’s policies have slowed overall growth, slowed job growth, increased the deficit, driven inflation and interest rates higher, spiked the uninsured rate by many millions, increased health care costs and made access to care harder for families, harmed farmers and small businesses, and are creating labor shortages throughout the economy.

It’s failure, across the board, from A to Z, top to bottom failure. Trump’s regime has failed the American people. He is a failed leader, which is why we are seeing so much willingness in official DC and around the world to challenge him now……

Let’s review. The Senate has delayed this morning’s committee vote to advance venal Todd Blanche’s confirmation for Attorney General. Senators Cornyn and Tillis are continuing to hold out. This is amazing news all! Keep making your calls, particularly those of you in Texas and North Carolina. The two Senators are asking Trump to choose between enabling his historic corruption or advancing his loyalist and, shocking!, he is choosing corruption and self-enrichment. Much credit to Cornyn and Tillis for holding the line against Trump’s greed and lawlessness.

Senate Republicans also continue to deny Trump his SAVE Act, an end to the filibuster, and the House’s Pentagon funding bill. On Tuesday the Senate passed a Russian sanctions bill, cheered on by Trump’s nemesis Zelenskyy, 86-12 - another incredible repudiation of Trump and his rancid regime. Yesterday the Fed held interest rates steady, refusing to accede to Trump’s demands for cuts. Iran continues to toss him around like a chew toy.

It’s been a bad, bad week for our rapacious and failing leader.

Subscribe now

In my talk last week I argued that as bad as things were for Trump and the Republicans - and they were already bad - the failed war, higher prices, the escalating damage of barbaric health care and food aid cuts, the savage inhumanity of an out of control ICE - were likely to make things worse for them in the coming weeks:

And what polling this past week has shown us is that indeed things are getting worse for Trump and the Rs. Trump has seen erosion in every poll released in recent days and has had without question the worst week of polling of his second term. This data represents staggering levels of rejection, repudiation, and disapproval:

Zelenskyy’s great triumph here this week was a sign of how much weaker Greater MAGA - Trump, Putin, Bibi, Orban/European right - has become. The Senate celebrated a very aggressive sanctions package on Putin with Zelenskyy present, overcoming months of intense opposition from Trump. Netanyahu was - remarkably - upstaged this week by the world’s most important Jewish head of government, the leader of Ukraine. Like Trump, Netanyahu has lost support his electorate and is losing his fall election too:

And so while Trump and Greater MAGA weaken in this closing stretch of the 2026 elections we are becoming stronger. Poll after poll have showed Democrats now more trusted on the issues that matter most to voters. Our Senate polling continues to be encouraging all across the country. Fox News released a new poll of North Carolina this morning showing Roy Cooper ahead by 9, 53%-44%. Here’s a summary of their recent polls, ones that have been widely seen throughout the GOP ecosystem:

Then there’s what’s happened to the generic ballot over this past week. We’ve seen a big jump at the upper end of generic ballot, which has been bouncing around between +3 and +6 Dem. The chart below shows that we’ve gotten eight new generic ballot polls in the past week with us up +7 or more, and +9 on average. It’s incredibly encouraging, and suggests, as that GOP operative told Politico last week, the bottom could be falling out now for the Rs:

Let’s review other ways our party is closing strong in the home stretch.

- The DNC adopted a new 2028 Presidential primary calendar that has broad support and needed legitimacy.

- The Maine Democratic Party successfully managed a process to produce a new Senate nominee under incredibly challenging circumstances, and our new nominee Troy Jackson, leads in early polling.

- Leader Hakeem Jeffries rolled out his closing argument to voters, promising to cut costs, improve health care, and ensure accountability for the lawlessness, corruption and betrayal we’ve seen in Washington. Many have wanted Democrats to make it clear what we were for - and we have - and here at Hopium we’ve lobbied hard to make sure “accountability” was at the very core of our agenda - which it is. So good news all around.

- The Senate Dems announced an aggressive $40m investment into the coordinated campaigns, field operations, and election projection operations in ten battleground states.

- Our candidates are outraising Republican candidates throughout the battleground.

- Barack Obama has returned to the campaign trail, powerfully, starring in this new, inspiring video with Josh Turek:

We discuss this and more in my weekly talk which you can find above. I began my talk last night with my new daily reminder:

There is nothing Trump and MAGA wants more than for us to be fighting with each other and not with him. We have one job now - elect as many of these wonderful candidates running for the House and Senate as we can. It’s where our focus must be. It’s a year of opportunity for us across the country. We must seize it, together.

As I wrote to you yesterday I believe the American people, after we let them down in 2024, have once again put their trust in us to lead. They have not just rejected MAGA. They have placed their faith and hope and trust back in us - the “Establishment” Democratic Party - and are counting on us now to rid the country of this terrible MAGA and lead us to a better day. They’ve given us an opportunity, the opportunity we have all wanted. Now we need to justify their new and fragile faith in us by going out and winning this election, and then fighting with everything we got to deliver for them and hold the betrayers to account when back in power next year….

That’s we talked about last night in our weekly gathering of the proud, plucky patriots of this remarkable community. Hit like so more will see my video and this analysis. Share it with others, and now, my friends, it is that time again…..

Time To Seize The Opportunity We’ve Been Given, Together!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $100,000 By August 10th - Donate Today! | $62,300 raised, $50,000 original goal, $100,000 new stretch goal | Friends we hit our original $50,000 goal in the first 24 hours of this new campaign to get Troy Jackson the resources to staff up, build out his campaign, and beat Susan Collins. Amazing - thank you all!

We aren’t stopping here - this early money really matters, and I want to now try to get to $100,000 by Friday, August 7th. We can do this people!

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,023,800 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $226,400 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

Winning The Senate - $587,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), Troy Jackson (ME), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them directly here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia - $26,200 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $28,400 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine - $79,100 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | We set up this fund to help the Maine Dems get through our nominating process. With this community’s strong response we put up almost a third of the resources needed for what became a very successful process to pick a nominee. We had a big return on this investment - thank you all! | Watch our interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson | We are keeping this fund up for we behind in Maine and need to keep building our momentum there

Winning Ohio - $183,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton-Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party and its terrific Chair, Kathleen Clyde

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $639,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

A Few More Things To Do

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Meet Dr. Richard Pan, Who Is Working Hard To Make Newly Drawn CA-06 Blue This November

Simon Rosenberg — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 20:40:58 GMT

Greetings all. Excited to share with you today a new interview we just completed with Dr. Richard Pan, a very impressive candidate running in the newly drawn CA-06 (be sure to read his bio, below!) CA-06 is one of the new districts the voters of California created when the big redistricting ballot initiative passed last November. Now it is critical we finish the job that we started in the summer of 2025 and help Dr. Pan win this seat for Democrats this November.

While this is a +5 Dem district (via The Cook Report) like many Democrats emerging from late, competitive primaries Dr. Pan enters the general election with far less money than the experienced MAGA Member of Congress Rep. Kevin Kiley who he is running against. We set up our Second Wave Fund to help candidates like Dr. Pan replenish after late primaries so please consider chipping into our Second Wave Fund today or contributing to Dr. Pan directly here. In a district as Democratic as this one is, with an experienced and capable candidate like Dr. Pan, if we raise the millions we need to communicate we will flip this seat and get that much closer to taking back the House.

Here’s the DCCC’s short pitch graph for Dr. Pan:

Dr. Richard Pan is a pediatrician, educator, and former State Legislator who has spent his career fighting for the health and safety of California families. He’s taken on some of the state’s toughest challenges — expanding access to affordable health care, lowering prescription drug costs, protecting children during public health crises, and supporting first responders and public safety. A proven fighter, Dr. Pan stood up to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and anti-vaccine extremists’ attacks to protect children and public health, and he will take on those same powerful interests in Washington. In a district made bluer by Proposition 50, Dr. Pan is uniquely positioned to take the case to “MAGA champion” Kevin Kiley, as he tries to hide his extreme record from voters. While Kiley chases political opportunism, Dr. Pan is focused on delivering results for Sacramento families.

Here’s some of what Dr. Pan, a former CA State Senator, told us in the interview about why he chose to enter politics:

As a pediatrician, I saw that too many children didn't have health care coverage. Their families couldn't afford it. In fact, started a not-for-profit. We helped 65,000 children get health care coverage. And then the Great Recession hit. That's when I decided that, well, maybe I should get into politics because we need people who make decisions in our government to improve people's lives. And so during the Great Recession, I ran in a safe Republican seat for the state legislature. Most people thought I had no chance of winning. This was 2010, not a great year for Democrats. And I flipped that seat. I took a seat with more Republicans than Democrats and won that seat. In the legislature, I went to work for the people. We worked to actually get four million more Californians health care coverage — in fact, reduced the uninsured rate by two-thirds. When people were struggling with the cost of medications, [we] worked to actually pass a law so that the state could contract to make their own medication, including insulin. So we now have $11 insulin in the state of California.
And when we had a measles outbreak that began in Disneyland back in 2015, I worked to strengthen our vaccination law so that we could be sure our kids are safe at school. We don’t need kids getting sick at school because of preventable disease. In fact, RFK Jr. came to oppose my bill. He even incited his followers to assault me on the street, and they threw blood at me in the Senate chamber. I did not back down. We got those laws passed so that we can keep kids safe at school.

When I finished my term in the state legislature, I went back to teaching at UC Davis, doing community work to, again, improve people’s lives. And then basically what happened was that Donald Trump got elected, and he made RFK Jr. his Secretary of Health and Human Services. And people like my opponent, Kevin Kiley, voted to take health care away from millions of Californians. They upended the vaccination schedule. In fact, we have massive outbreaks of measles and other diseases right now. And that’s when I said to myself, well, you know what — time to get back into the game. So that’s why I’m running for Congress, running against Kevin Kiley in a seat that, while redistricted, is a top pickup opportunity for Democrats.

I am excited to bring someone with a history of fighting RFK Jr and standing up for science to Congress next year!

The new CA-06

Finally, as Dr. Pan says we drew new lines in California last year, and helped lift Democrats up all across the country. Now we need to finish the job:

You know, we put all this effort into passing Prop 50. We need to be sure we follow through so we can flip the House. And that's why I'm running. We want to be sure we flip the House, and we've got to take all those seats that we redistricted to be sure that we can have a Congress that will hold this administration accountable.

Pleased to be able to bring another great candidate to you today, Dr. Richard Pan. Please hit like so more will meet him, share our conversation with others, support him and his fellow Second Wavers, and keep working hard all. We have a country to save, and an elections like this one in CA-06 all across the country to win, together! - Simon

Subscribe now

Biography - Dr. Richard Pan, Our Nominee in CA-06

Dr. Richard Pan is a proud father, small business owner, educator, and public health advocate, who dedicated his life to building healthy communities, no matter how difficult the challenge.

The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Dr. Pan realized the American Dream through hard work and a good public school education. After earning his medical degree and a masters degree in public health, he went on to lead UC Davis’ Pediatric Residency Program.

Dr. Pan founded Communities and Physicians Together, a grassroots program partnering pediatricians with local neighborhoods. He co-founded ‘Healthy Kids Healthy Future,’ ensuring health, dental, and vision coverage for over 65,000 children in the Sacramento region. In partnership with the Sacramento City Unified School District, he collaborated with school nurses and teachers to assist children with special needs, ensuring they could learn in school.

But in 2010, the Great Recession and budget cuts loomed over the programs he built with the community. So Dr. Pan organized a coalition of neighbors, small businesses, unions, and health professionals, and ran for State Assembly where, on a nationally bad night for Democrats, he flipped a seat from Red to Blue.

As a legislator, he worked to restore confidence in California at a time when critics deemed the state “ungovernable” by stabilizing the budget and building reserves to prevent further budget cuts that endangered the health and safety of Sacramento families.

One of his first actions in the Legislature was to keep the City of Sacramento’s fire stations open after the city’s budget deficit threatened to shutter public safety services. Collaborating with firefighters, Dr. Pan helped secure $90 million in new federal funding for California’s emergency responders including millions for Sacramento area neighborhoods. He also authored state laws to ensure health insurance companies could not discriminate against patients with pre-existing conditions and supported reproductive health clinics.

In 2014, Dr. Pan defied the odds again, by defeating career politicians in the most expensive State Senate election in recent history. Then Dr. Pan got to work focused on the fundamentals: health, safety, and making our communities stronger.

Pan authored laws to ban smoking at youth sports and reduce gun violence, expand newborn screening and pregnancy services, fund youth mental health services, control the cost of prescription drugs and health care, and increase child support payments for families.

TIME magazine named Dr. Pan a “hero” for his groundbreaking legislation to increase school vaccination rates to halt the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2015 in the face of vitriolic attacks by RFK Jr. and anti-vaccine extremists. Despite being stalked at his home and business, physically assaulted, and relentless harassment, these personal attacks did not deter Dr. Pan from his commitment to protecting children.

Labor unions, small business groups, and community organizations have all acknowledged Dr. Pan for his leadership, particularly for his role in spearheading numerous significant achievements within the Legislature.

In Congress, Dr. Pan will fight to protect health care; to make food, housing, education and health care more affordable, not less; and to ensure all Americans have equal justice and are treated fairly by our government. He will hold RFK Jr. and President Trump accountable for endangering Americans with disinformation and by dismantling public health agencies including the CDC, FDA and NIH that save American lives. He will demand that science and facts guide federal policies on health care, public health and the environment. Dr. Pan will strive to make the federal government work for the American people.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

The American People Are Putting Their Trust Once Again In Democrats. They Are Giving Us An Opportunity To Lead. We Must Seize It, Together

Simon Rosenberg — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:55:04 GMT

Morning everyone. In my weekly video and political analysis last week, Trump Is A Titanic F*ck Up. Things Are Bad For Him And Republicans Now. They Are Likely To Get Worse, I argued the resumption of the war and higher gas prices would likely end up making things, as bad as they already were for Trump and the Rs, far worse in the closing days of the election. Let’s recall that quote from a Republican political operative in Politico Playbook from a few days ago:

“We’re preparing for the bottom to fall out,” a GOP operative working on midterm races told Playbook.

Well, my friends, data we’ve gotten this past week sure makes it look like things are getting worse for Trump and the Republicans - that the bottom may indeed be falling out. In each of these polls below, all released in recent days, Trump is at the lowest point in his rancid second term:

All these new polls showing downward movement for Trump has driven FiftyPlusOne’s job approval tracker to drop to -24 for the first time time this term. Yes, our rapacious leader keeps crashing through floors and finding new bottoms:

The new CNN poll released this morning has devastating findings for Trump and the Republicans. It appears I’m not the only one who thinks Trump is a titanic f*ck up:

Just read these passages from CNN’s analysis of their poll. They’re incredible:

Trump’s overall approval rating, 34%, matches the career low he last saw at the close of his first term, following the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Half of Americans now strongly disapprove of him, a high across his terms, with a record-low 15% strongly approving.
Within his own party, his approval rating has hit a new low at 78% among Republicans, and just 19% of Republicans say they’re enthusiastic about the rest of his second term, down from 38% last spring.
While his ratings are underwater across a range of issues tested, Trump sees his lowest numbers on a trio of interconnected issues: Just 28% approve of his handling of the situation in Iran, 25% on inflation and 21% on gas prices, with significant pockets of disapproval even among his supporters.
With an increasing majority of Americans anticipating a long-term military conflict, only about one-quarter think Trump has a clear plan for handling the situation, down from 40% at the start of the war. And 62% now say Trump is not an effective world leader, up from 54% who felt that way early in his second term.
Just one-quarter now say the war has been worth the toll in American lives and dollars, with younger Americans particularly skeptical…….
…….Just 39% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, a relative positive at the start of his second term, with 35% approving of his management of the federal government.
Following two recent deadly ICE shootings, Americans say by a 20-point margin that the agency is making cities less, not more, safe. And amid the cyclospora outbreak and a surge in measles cases, they say by a 34-point margin that changes to health agencies like the FDA and CDC are leaving the public less, not more, safe.

Just wow. Wow.

It appears we have a failed Presidency on our hands everyone.

There has been perhaps no greater example of how much the political projects of Trump and Greater MAGA (Trump, Putin, Bibi) are crashing than Zelenskyy’s huge win in the Senate last night, getting an 86-12 vote for an aggressive new round of sanctions on Putin, an event that wildly overshadowed Bibi’s visit to the Capital yesterday:

Yesterday the world saw Zelenskyy triumphant in Washington, DC - not Trump, not Putin, not Bibi. And it was glorious to see.

Subscribe now

Finally, it is critical to note the American people are not just rejecting Trump and the Republicans. What we are seeing in all this new data is that after letting the American people down in 2024 voters are once again placing their trust in us, giving us a shot to lead and find a better path for the country.

Let’s look at the data. In the past week we seen our lead in the generic ballot grow in many polls, regularly landing now in the low 50s. In polling our lead had been consistently between 3 and 6 points. That is no longer true:

Remember what Fox told us about their generic ballot last week:

Notably, 53% is the highest percentage either party has received on the generic House ballot in Fox News polling since 1996

In that poll last week Fox found that Democrats had become more trusted on all the issues that matter in the election, results that are confirmed in these other new polls. This is the American people placing their trust in us, again:

Fox also noted in their analysis that this 9 point lead for Democrats on the economy was our largest lead on this issue in their polling since 2006, twenty years ago.

There is perhaps no greater sign of how the American people are now looking to us to lead, and giving us a shot at governing than the data we are seeing in the Senate races now, even in Trump +10 states. These voters are not just rejecting Republicans. They are embracing our candidates:

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an analysis called

It’s Time To Move On From The “Democrats Suck” Narrative - It’s Wrong, And We Have An Election To Win

In it I argued that the narrative we hear coursing through our discourse about the Democratic Party being failed and unpopular is simply not consistent with where voters are now, or frankly where they’ve been in hundreds of state, local, and special elections throughout the US these past eighteen months. It may have been true at one point, and yes a few incumbents lost their elections, but as this data conclusively shows it is simply no longer true. The American people are putting their trust in the “Establishment” Democratic Party once again. They are now giving us an opportunity to lead and find a better day for this great country.

Here at Hopium let us us commit to seize this opportunity, together. Let’s fight and win these elections my friends, and then work to implement the agenda Leader Jeffries articulated on Sunday - lower costs and create more opportunity; make quality, affordable health care available to the American people; and rigorously hold Trump and his allies to account for their lawlessness, corruption and historic betrayal of the American people……

Paid subscribers will gather tonight at 7pm ET to talk about all this, and yes, it is that time, everyone…..

Time To Seize The Opportunity We’ve Been Given, Together!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $100,000 By August 10th - Donate Today! | $59,400 raised, $50,000 original goal, $100,000 new stretch goal | Friends we hit our original $50,000 goal in the first 24 hours of this new campaign to get Troy Jackson the resources to staff up, build out his campaign, and beat Susan Collins. Amazing - thank you all!

We aren’t stopping here - this early money really matters, and I want to now try to get to $100,000 by Friday, August 7th. Chip in today!

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,021,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $225,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

Winning The Senate - $582,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), Troy Jackson (ME), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia - $25,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $27,300 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine - $74,100 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | We set up this fund to help the Maine Dems get through our nominating process. With this community’s strong response we put up almost a third of the resources needed for what became a very successful process to pick a nominee. We had a big return on this investment - thank you all! | Watch our interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson | We are keeping this fund up for we behind in Maine and need to keep building our momentum there

Winning Ohio - $182,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton-Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party and its terrific Chair, Kathleen Clyde

A Few More Things To Do

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Voters Blame Trump/Rs For Higher Costs, Senate Descends Into Trumpian Chaos, Kaitlin Collins Responds, Stop Todd Blanche!

Simon Rosenberg — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:11:07 GMT

Morning all. Todd Blanche still does not have the votes and we need to keep calling. Here’s Politico this morning:

Sen. John Cornyn said Monday he will not support Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general absent a written modification to the settlement agreement President Donald Trump entered into with his own administration.
Opposition from the Texas Republican could sink Blanche’s nomination in a highly anticipated Judiciary Committee vote scheduled for Thursday.
While Cornyn said he is in talks with Blanche and others at the Justice Department, he has not secured changes he has demanded to the settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS. Those include formally rescinding a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” and restricting the scope of tax audit immunity granted to the president and his family.

Call your Senators, especially Cornyn and Tillis, and call them again! For there is little good will between the White House and Senate Republicans right now. Trump and Thune are back at war, and the Senate is descending into a Trumpian-driven chaos. From The Hill this morning:

President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) clashed on Monday over the idea of canceling the Senate’s August recess to debate the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, Trump’s No. 1 legislative priority.
Thune warned against wasting time on a bill that has already failed multiple times on the Senate floor, while rebuffing Trump’s repeated demands that the Senate abolish the filibuster to pass the election reform bill.
The Republican leader noted that Trump has already heard directly from other GOP senators that there aren’t enough votes to change the Senate’s rules.
“If I thought there was a path to getting a result, I’m all for it. … We voted on it two, three, four, five times already, had it up on the floor for an extended period of time. Show me how this ends. What’s the picture of victory at the end?” Thune said Monday as he walked into the Capitol.
“If we are going to be sitting here in endless quorum calls, I don’t know if that’s in anybody’s best interest,” Thune said, noting that vulnerable GOP incumbents, such as Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Jon Husted (Ohio) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska), need to get back to their home states to campaign ahead of the November election.
Thune’s comments came after Trump demanded that Senate Republicans scrap the five-week August recess to pass a sweeping election reform proposal that would place restrictions on mail-in ballots, and require people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and present photo ID when casting a ballot.
“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s closest Senate allies are further ramping up pressure on Thune by vowing to object to motions to adjourn the Senate for August, which could force Republicans to take tough votes to go on recess.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a leading proponent of the SAVE America Act, spearheaded the pressure campaign on Thune through social media.
“@LeaderJohnThune, I hereby object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August — at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act,” he wrote online.
He warned Thune to “not assume you have my consent” to send senators home for the five-week recess without calling a vote on the matter.

Bibi and Zelenskky are in DC today for Lindsay Graham’s funeral and both will be meeting with Trump. Expect news from both meetings this morning. In a related story the Washington Post is reporting that the Trump/Witkoff/Kushner Board Of Peace plan for Gaza is failing. Shocker!

Subscribe now

Worsening extreme weather in Europe is going to create much more momentum for policies to accelerate the energy transition on a continent already doing everything it can to wean itself from Russian energy dependence. Here’s the UN Climate UN’s climate chief Simon Stiell in The Guardian story:

“The climate alarm is blaring, from every direction. Around the world, climate-driven disasters are reaching nightmare proportions, as the costs of humanity’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas keep spiraling upwards.
These record-breaking wildfires tearing through France, Spain and other parts of Europe, forcing mass evacuations and hammering regional and national economies, follow brutal heatwaves that have dried out landscapes.
With the mercury set to soar again this week, the awful costs of this climate crisis – both human and economic – are now reaching national emergency levels.”

After rancid Trumpian attacks against her CNN’s Kaitlin Collins went on The Daily Show yesterday to talk about it all. It is worth a watch:

Now let’s spend some with new data from the polling consortium Navigator. I thought this was a remarkable visualization of Trump’s decline:

Fully 19% - one in five - of Trump voters regret their vote:

In data that should be scaring the crap out of the GOP voters blame Trump and the Republicans for higher costs and their struggles. In our communications we should be blaming Republicans - not corporations, oligarchs, or price gouging - for a more higher prices and a more challenging economy:

Voters blame the tariffs and the war for their highest costs, as they should for these are the actions that have slowed growth and raised prices in the US:

Here’s how the Washington Post covered Trump’s campaign stop in MI-7 yesterday. He’s no longer getting the benefit of the doubt in legacy media coverage, and cannot wish away their clear failure to deliver for voters:

Our candidate in VA-02, Elaine Luria, has released her first ad of her campaign:

Ohio Gubernational candidate Amy Acton has released the first ad of her general election campaign:

and yes, my friends, it is that time again…..

Time To Go To Work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $100,000 By August 10th - Donate Today! | $55,000 raised, $50,000 original goal, $100,000 new stretch goal | Friends we hit our original $50,000 goal in the first 24 hours of this new campaign to get Troy Jackson the resources to staff up, build out his campaign, and beat Susan Collins. Amazing - thank you all!

We aren’t stopping here - this early money really matters, and I want to now try to get to $100,000 by Friday, August 7th. Chip in today!

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,115,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $223,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

Winning The Senate - $577,600 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), Troy Jackson (ME), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia (New) - $24,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $27,200 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine - $73,900 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | We set up this fund to help the Maine Dems get through our nominating process. With this community’s strong response we put up almost a third of the resources needed for what became a very successful process to pick a nominee. We had a big return on this investment - thank you all! | Watch our interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson | We are keeping this fund up for we behind in Maine and need to keep building our momentum there

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $638,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Subscribe now

Meet Manny Rutinel, Our Terrific Candidate Working To Flip CO-8 Blue

Simon Rosenberg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 21:45:15 GMT

Greetings all. Excited to introduce you today to Manny Rutinel, who just won hard fought Democratic primary in CO-8, one of our very best pick up opportunities in the country. The GOP incumbent Gabe Evans won by less than a point in 2024 in a much more Republican year:

And as you will see from our conversation Manny is a compelling candidate with a powerful story. Here’s the DCCC’s short write up of the race:

Manny Rutinel understands the challenges working Coloradans are facing. As a teen, Manny worked at McDonald’s, tutored kids, and even sold his blood plasma to help pay the bills after the bank foreclosed on his family home. And after putting himself through college, Manny joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and went on to graduate from Yale Law School. Manny is running for Congress to fight for working families, create good jobs, and improve Coloradans’ health care. The son of a single mom who immigrated from Latin America, Manny’s powerful story resonates with CO-08, an R+0, working class, 40% Latino district that is souring on Gabe Evans and Donald Trump.

Here’s a map of his district, which is 40% Latino:

Like other Republicans running for re-election Gabe Evans has voted for the war, for tariffs, for gutting health care, for funding ICE without reform:

People tell me all the time, “Hey, Manny, in the last election cycle I voted for Donald Trump and Gabe Evans. But this next election, I’ll be voting for you, because I know that you understand my struggles, you understand my dreams and my aspirations, and how unaffordable life has become, and how the corruption and cruelty of the Trump administration and Gabe Evans have made that significantly worse.”

There is a lot of buzz about Manny out there on social media:

“We've had a tremendous amount of success — I think we've had over 600,000, maybe 700,000 new followers since the campaign began, over 80 million organic views, over 8 million organic likes. Just getting the message out there. I think folks are really excited. They see someone who understands their struggles. They see someone who's young. They see a Latino, someone who's a fluent Spanish speaker, and they want to be able to elevate that message.”

And despite being a first time candidate he has put together a very impressive campaign:

“Over 80,000 individual donors have chipped in an average of 27 bucks at [MannyForColorado.com] because they know the stakes. They know how important this race is. I’ll tell you, my congressman, Gabe Evans, he’s frankly a lapdog for the Trump administration. Donald Trump says jump, Gabe Evans says how high. That’s the kind of relationship they have. And I think Gabe Evans is maybe just expecting Mike Johnson and Trump’s billionaire donors to pour enough money into this race to be able to keep the seat. But I’ll tell you, whether it’s those 80,000 individual donors, or the 1,000-plus volunteers that are knocking on doors and making phone calls, we’re going to take back the seat.”

You can help Manny flip CO-8 blue by contributing to our Second Wave Fund designed to bolster battleground House candidates who emerged from later primaries or by giving to Manny directly here.

Enjoy meeting another one of the remarkable leaders running to take back power from MAGA this November. Hit like so more people will to get to meet Manny, share our conversation with others, and keep working hard all. For we have a country to save, and elections like this one in CO-8 to win, together! - Simon

Subscribe now

Bio - State Representative Manny Rutinel, Democratic Nominee in CO-08

From his campaign website:

When people hear about my personal story and our campaign’s momentum to take back the House, they tell me I’m Trump’s worst nightmare. This fight is personal for me.

I’m the proud son of an immigrant working-class single mother who had a dream of a better life for her children. Despite America’s promise of opportunity, I grew up filling out food stamp and Medicaid forms to survive—the same programs that Trump is destroying.

During the Great Recession, the bank foreclosed on our home.

With hard work, determination, and the love, support, and grace of my family and community, I found my way. I worked at McDonald’s through high school, and a scar on my arm serves as a testament to the hundreds of times I sold my blood at a plasma center to pay my family’s bills. I started at a community college and then slept on my friend’s couches and floors during my first semester at a public university. I then served as an economist for the US Army Corps of Engineers and became a first responder after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. I graduated from Yale Law School and made a promise to always fight for those who have been left out, left behind, or left without a voice. A promise to ensure that everyone in America truly has a fair chance at success.

Equal opportunity starts right here in our community. We must fight to lower the cost of housing and healthcare, stop ICE from terrorizing our communities, and defend our rights and freedoms from Trump’s cruelty and corruption. I’m going to bring a real voice to our nation’s capital to improve the lives of everyday people so that every Coloradan has an honest opportunity to succeed.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Wed, July 29nd, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

Simon Rosenberg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:30:18 GMT

Friends,

Hopium paid subscribers will gather this Wednesday, July 29th at 7pm ET.

We’ll follow the usual format - I’ll offer up my latest take on things and then open it up for questions until 8pm ET. For those who can’t make it live our discussion will be recorded and released on the Hopium site Thursday morning.

If you are not yet a paid subscriber and want to join us on Wednesday you can sign up here or below.

"Fighting For An Affordable America," Getting Troy Jackson Launched And Ready To Win, "Republicans See ‘Scary’ Lack Of Enthusiasm Among Core Voters"

Simon Rosenberg — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:51:19 GMT

Morning all. When I get up each day there are a few routines I go through to ground and orient myself to get ready to go to work with all of you. One of them is to repeat some version of this:

There is nothing Trump and MAGA wants more than for us to be fighting with each other and not with him. We have one job now - elect as many of these wonderful candidates running for the House and Senate as we can. It’s where our focus must be. It’s a year of opportunity for us across the country. We must seize it, together.

We have important work to do this week all. First is getting Troy Jackson launched and ready to win in Maine. We kicked off a campaign yesterday to rush him $50,000 so he can staff up, build a real general election campaign, and go out and beat Susan Collins. Remarkably, in less than 24 hours we’ve already raised almost $40,000 to that goal. Amazing work all!

If you haven’t chipped in yet you can do so here. We can do this people!

Donate To Troy Jackson Today!

Another way we can help ensure that we win and take power next January is by continuing to fight the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. As of this morning he still does not have the votes so we must keep calling the Senate all! Calls to Cornyn and Tillis remain the most important! Keep making calls everyone!

As we get ready to do our work today we cannot for one minute forget how much harm Trump has done to the country, and the American people, and what a profound and historic failure he has been:

Or how his many manifest failures, soaring unpopularity, and impending election defeat are driving him deeper into madness. Here’s a summary of a Twitter post from Harry Sisson from late yesterday afternoon:

Trump is having a mental health episode on social media right now. He’s been posting nonstop all day:
11:16 AM - AI photo of Kaitlan Collins as Dylan Mulvaney
11:43 AM - AI image attacking Bruce Springsteen
3:22 PM - An AI art installation of Trump throwing a ‘Trump 2028’ hat
3:23 PM - Photo of him standing next to a TV with Biden’s final Oval Office address playing 3:23 PM - AI art of him giving his speech at the WHCD
3:23 PM - AI photo of Chris Christie fighting Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler
3:23 PM - AI image attacking Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert
3:24 PM - Trump 2028 poster that says “give the enemy nightmares.” Nobody is scared of him
3:24 PM - AI image attacking Rosie O’Donnell
3:25 PM - Fake movie poster of him in Star Trek
3:25 PM - Another Trump 2028 poster
3:31 PM - AI poster of the U.S. attacking Kharg Island in Iran
3:31 PM - AI image of him taking over an Iranian oil tanker
3:32 PM - AI image of him taking over an Iranian oil tanker x2
3:33 PM - AI image of him taking over an Iranian oil tanker x3
3:47 PM - Posts an AI image of an Iranian ship being blown up
4:36 PM - AI image of him taking over an Iranian oil tanker x4
4:36 PM - AI image of him taking over an Iranian oil tanker x5
4:37 PM - AI image of him taking over an Iranian oil tanker x6
4:39 PM - AI image of him cosplaying as a Navy Commander
4:39 PM - AI image of him smoking a cigar wearing a Trump 2028 hat
4:40 PM - AI poster of him with founding fathers
4:41 PM - Poster of himself saying “the man who saved America” which couldn’t be further from the truth
4:41 PM - Weird photo of him standing behind a pillar
4:45 PM - AI image of himself saying “Guardians of the world”
4:47 PM - AI image of American jets saying “Guardian Angels of the world”
4:48 PM - Another AI photo of an Iranian ship being blown up
4:49 PM - AI image of himself saying “Guardians of the world” x2
4:52 PM - AI photo of lightning over the Capitol building saying “panic in DC”
4:53 PM - A photo of himself saying “plan trusted”
4:54 PM - AI image of an eagle and a jet saying “America is back” which certainly isn’t true
4:54 PM - AI photo of a beach saying “Trump’s America” which is ironic given that the image is fake lol
4:55 PM - Photo of him giving a speech
4:56 PM - Photo of himself pointing at members of his cabinet 4:57 PM - AI photo of himself and JFK
4:58 PM - Fake photo of himself wearing a pink Trump 2028 hat
4:59 PM - AI photo of a Trump 2028 mug surrounded by crying people
4:59 PM - Photo of him putting on his Trump 2028 hat at the WHCD
5:00 PM - Posts graph downplaying American casualties in Iran
5:01 PM - AI photo of an air filter between the United States and Canada
5:04 PM - Attacks Republican Senator John Thune
5:04 PM - AI image of him as a doctor
5:16 PM - Fake movie poster of him and George Washington in a time travel movie

Perhaps it was this front page story in yesterday’s Washington Post that set him off:

An excerpt: (gift link):

Republican pollsters and political groups are raising the alarm that their party faces a listless and demotivated base ahead of November’s midterm elections.
A raft of discouraging data from polling, door knocking and focus groups is unsettling Republicans as their party heads into a midterm election season that would be challenging no matter what, given President Donald Trump’s low standing in polls and the fact that the party in control in Washington almost always loses seats.
The lack of enthusiasm is reaching deep into Republicans’ loyal base, spreading to the party’s most consistent voters — who have shown up to vote in all of the past four primaries and general elections, according to an analysis done by Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative super PAC affiliated with billionaire Charles Koch. This new issue with the base adds to the party’s more enduring problem of turning out less-frequent voters who support Trump but often skip midterm elections.

Politico’s lead story this morning echoes the WaPo story. They cannot run from this terrible regime, and are heading into the final months of the election having to defend the indefensible:

Yesterday, campaigning along side Bob Brooks and Governor Josh Shapiro in Bethlehem, PA House Leader Hakeem Jeffries unveiled an early version of his closing argument called “Fighting For An Affordable America.” Here’s a short video clip that does a good job capturing the essence of his closing pitch:

Here are a few more key passages from the speech with links to the related video:

On House Democrats Fighting for an Affordable America: “As House Democrats, we will build an economy that works for everyday Americans and drive down the high cost of living in every possible area, because life is too expensive. That means the grocery store, the gas pump and your housing costs. It also means that you should be able to go see a doctor and get the care that you need whenever illness strikes. MAGA Republicans can find money for Donald Trump’s reckless war of choice in Iran. They can find money for his king-like ballroom. They can find money to unleash ICE brutality on American citizens and law-abiding immigrant families. But when it comes to making your life more affordable, the cookie jar is empty. That will change on day one when you put Democrats in charge of Congress because we are fighting for an Affordable America.” CLIP
On Holding the Crooks Accountable: “We must also deliver accountability in the face of rampant corruption in Washington DC, the likes of which we have never seen in our nation’s 250-year history. So the day the American people put Democrats back in charge of Congress, here is our promise to you: we are going to hold the crooks accountable. Anyone who is stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people or shortchanging the American people is going to be held accountable beginning on Day One. We’re going to crack down on corrupt price gouging. We’re going to clean up the mess at the United States Supreme Court. And we’re going to ban the President, Vice President and Members of Congress from trading stocks.” CLIP

A recording of the entire event and a transcript of Leader Jeffries speech can be found here. Here’s another passage that does a good job outlining the three part message - lowering costs, ensuring care, holding them accountable:

House Democrats are fighting to lower the cost of groceries, gas and housing.
House Democrats are committed to making healthcare affordable, because we believe that access to high-quality healthcare cannot simply be a privilege available only to the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected. Affordable healthcare must be a right available to every single American.
But, you know, here’s the truth. Tackling the affordability crisis alone will not be enough. We must also deliver accountability in the face of rampant corruption in Washington DC, the likes of which we have never seen in our nation’s 250-year history.
So the day the American people put Democrats back in charge of Congress, here is our promise to you: we are going to hold the crooks accountable.
Anyone who is stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people or shortchanging the American people is going to be held accountable beginning on Day One.

Fighting, accountability, making people’s lives better - it’s good stuff everyone.

Here’s a passage from Politico’s coverage of the speech:

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Jeffries offered some more specifics about how he would seek to lower costs as speaker. He listed ending the Trump administration’s tariffs, extending Affordable Care Act tax credits, repealing the Republican’s co-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and ending the war in Iran.

All of this is very consistent with the advice we’ve been offering to the family in recent months, advice you can find in these recent posts:

We can run and win and on this narrative and message. Leader Jeffries has agreed to come talk to the Hopium community about this closing framework and I look forward to having him on soon!

Some of you have asked about stories circulating about the state of the DNC. I will let Chair Ken Martin address the concerns in his own words by sharing a memo he released last week called The DNC Is Building a Democratic Party That Can Win the Moment and Win the Future. I encourage everyone to read it today.

Election Day is now 99 days away. Early voting starts in 7 weeks. We have battleground candidates and state parties all across the country who need our help today - let’s get to work everyone!

Let’s Go Win Some Elections People!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $50,000 This Week - Donate Today! | $39,700 raised, $50,000 goal. Friends, amazingly we start the day having already raised almost $40,000 towards our $50,000 goal. In less than one day! Amazing work everyone!

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $216,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

Winning The Senate - $521,400 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), Troy Jackson, and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia (New) - $24,700 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Maine (New) - $73,800 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | Right now this fund is only supporting the Maine Democratic Party to help them get through this challenging process of selecting a new Senate nominee. Thanks to all of you who have rallied for the Maine Dems in the past few days - it’s a big deal! | Watch our new interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson

Winning Ohio - $181,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton-Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party and its terrific Chair, Kathleen Clyde.

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Rallying For Troy Jackson In Maine, Encouraging Generic Ballots Polls, Big Wins For Katie Phang And The Dem AGs

Simon Rosenberg — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:56:11 GMT

Happy Sunday everyone. The big news today is that we have a new Senate nominee in Maine, and it’s time for us to rally around him! Here’s Troy Jackson’s acceptance speech from yesterday. Let’s watch so we can get to know him a bit better:

Here’s a good Politico story that talks about Troy and where this race is now. Some excerpts:

BANGOR, Maine — Democrats’ new Maine Senate nominee entered the general election with a very different focus than the man he’s replacing — one solely about Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Troy Jackson, a progressive fifth-generation logger from the northern woods of Allagash, spent almost the entirety of his 20-minute nomination acceptance speech on Saturday afternoon hammering Collins, from her 1990s pledge to only serve two terms to her history of voting with President Donald Trump “96 percent of the time.”
“Susan Collins and I both come from Aroostook County. But that is where the similarities end,” Jackson told the crowd of Democrats who voted for him to replace Platner on Saturday morning. “I know now, and I’ll know tomorrow, exactly who I work for. After 30 years in Washington, she definitely seems to have forgotten. For 30 years, she has told us she is concerned. But look, concern is not courage; and what she says in Maine does not erase what she does down in Washington.”
His approach is a welcome change for Democrats in Washington, who had complained that in the early days of Graham Platner’s general election campaign he spent too much time attacking both parties instead of remaining focused on attacking a Republican in a state that Vice President Kamala Harris won handily in 2024……..
…..But as Jackson takes over on the Senate ticket, it’s clear that where Platner relished in taking on his party, Jackson is eager to mend fences and is still at his core a true Democrat. That background as a long-running member of the party is informing his approach to the campaign against the electoral powerhouse that Collins has become.
“We definitely have the right message,” Jackson told reporters after he officially won the nomination. “Senator Collins has nothing. I mean, except going for wealthy people, you know, giving us ICE, doing 96 percent of what Trump wants. People in Maine and people in this country don’t want that.”

Today Hopium is endorsing Troy Jackson in his must-win campaign to beat Susan Collins. As the article details we are way behind in money in Maine and need to rush resources to Jackson to allow him to build out his team and put his campaign together, no easy thing to do this late in the cycle. So I’m setting an ambitious goal - can we raise $50,000 for Troy Jackson in the next seven days? Many of you just stepped for the Maine Democratic Party, raising almost $75,000 in these last three weeks to help them put on what’s been a remarkably successful nominating process. Now we need to go to work for Troy and give him a shot at winning this thing this November!

Donate To Troy Jackson Today!

Troy Jackson can beat Susan Collins this November. Collins is more unpopular than she’s ever been. She’s taken a lot of very bad votes for Trump. Harris won Maine by 7 points, and the national landscape has shifted by at least 8-9 points. Our gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree has led by 15 and 14 points in two recent polls. The NYT poll of Maine from a few weeks ago had the generic ballot +11 for us. In the first poll taken in Maine this week Jackson leads 49%-46%. So this is doable my friends, and now we need to go make it happen.

A reminder of some of encouraging polling data we’ve seen of late. This week Trump had his worst major poll of the cycle, coming in at -30 in the new Pew Research national poll:

We just had the best week of generic ballot polling of the cycle:

As Trump won the popular vote by 1.6 percentage points in 2024, these polls suggest the national battlefield has shift by at least 8.5 points and perhaps by as much as 12.5. A shift of that magnitude would be consistent with the polling we’re seeing throughout the Senate battleground:

So, my friends, we really have a shot at flipping both chambers. That is far more likely today after the great work of the Maine Dems to give us a process that brought us a consensus nominee with legitimacy. It’s time now to rally for Troy Jackson - for we can win this seat but it’s critical we rush him money so he can turn his campaign on and get going!

Subscribe now

Other Things We Are Tracking……

“Employers Fear Labor Shortage As Many Immigrants Lose Protected Status” - NYT (Gift Link):

“For particular places and particular industries, tens of thousands of workers no longer able to legally work is going to be a very big hit,” said Alexander Arnon, the director of policy analysis at the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research organization that has analyzed the economic impacts of T.P.S. workers.
Economists say the loss of those workers could be gradual, as some pursue other potential protections, such as asylum, and others continue working but off the books.
Still, as the clock ticks toward the end of Temporary Protected Status, business organizations, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have mounted a campaign for action on Capitol Hill, joined by a growing number of state and local leaders from both parties.
“Congress can, and should, exercise its plenary authority over immigration policy to prevent significant disruption to America’s work force and avoid an unnecessary humanitarian crisis,” the chamber wrote in a July 10 letter to Senate leadership.

“Republicans head home for the summer after a string of losses in Congress” - The Guardian (Link) - This is a very good overview of the current state of play in Washington. Bottom line - the Republican thing in Washington has become an incredible shitshow.

Republican groups are now spending big money to elect Will Lawrence in MI-7 and Francesco Hong for Wisconsin Governor. These are similar tactics that we’ve seen play out in House primaries across the country this year. Here’s a new ad that Senator Elissa Slotkin has cut for former Navy Seal Matt Maasdam, the candidate Republicans do not want to face in MI-7. Watch and see why:

Our friend Katie Phang keeps kicking ass:

As do the Dem AGs who had a huge, huge win this week:

Yes, my friends, it is that time! Time to thank the Maine Dems for getting us a new nominee in Maine, and time…..

To Go Win Some Elections People!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Special Fund To Rush Troy Jackson $50,000 This Week - Donate Today!

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,009,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $214,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

Winning The Senate - $517,400 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), Troy Jackson, and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia (New) - $24,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $26,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine (New) - $73,700 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | Right now this fund is only supporting the Maine Democratic Party to help them get through this challenging process of selecting a new Senate nominee. It will expand in coming days to include both our gubernatorial candidate, Hannah Pingree, and our eventual Senate nominee too. Thanks to all of you who have rallied for the Maine Dems in the past few days - it’s a big deal! | Watch our new interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson

Current 2026 Election Analysis

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Maine Picks A Senate Nominee Today, The DNC's Early Primary Calendar Is Set, Whitmer Endorses Stevens In Michigan

Simon Rosenberg — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:11:17 GMT

Morning all. We have some news today……

Maine Democrats Have Their Nominating Convention Today - It looks like our friends Charlie Dingman and Devon Murphy-Anderson are on the verge of pulling off something remarkable - creating a successful process to pick a Senate nominee that will be seen as legitimate and fair by all; all done under extraordinary duress, with very little time; and giving us a nominee, Troy Jackson, who leads in early polling and has a real shot at beating Susan Collins.

When Maine announced this rushed and vital process this community rallied, raising 30% of the budget required to pull off this nominating process. These funds allowed the Maine Party to hire people immediately, and helped make this all happen. Really proud of this community, all of you. In a time of crisis Hopium world once again answered the call!

Now reupping the interview I did with Devon 12 days ago, still at the beginning of this process. Watch to hear what has become their successful plan and meet with one of the true rising stars of our party who stepped up big time when we really needed her:

If you want to kick a little money into the Maine Democratic Party today to help them now move on to their next big challenge - beating Susan Collins - you can do so here. For remember everyone - strong state parties matter!

We Have An Early Window Primary Calendar! - Here’s what the DNC adopted yesterday:

A fascinating cross section of America. To use Hopium language the DNC embraces the rainbow! Voting begins in 17 months! Here we go people!

We will have time to digest and discuss this new calendar. For today let’s celebrate that like with Maine the Democratic Party has produced a process that appears to have buy-in from all involved, giving it the legitimacy required for us pick our nominee and win the Presidency in 2028.

Governor Whitmer Endorses Haley Stevens - Here is a fun clip from a rally Governor Whitmer did last night with Rep. Stevens and Rep. Jim Clyburn:

This endorsement is likely to be very meaningful in this critical battleground Senate race. Here’s a summary of a recent poll showing how popular Whitmer is:

With that as a backdrop, the poll’s findings were particularly positive for Whitmer, who still hasn’t made her post-gubernatorial plans known. Glengariff polled 600 registered voters between April 28 and May 1 this year, and found that Whitmer’s approval rating is at 52.2% among those surveyed.
Only 39% of voters surveyed disapproved of Whitmer’s job performance as governor in the twilight months of her second term.
…….the average net approval rating of governors in their second terms declines by 13 percentage points. Whitmer’s approval rating has increased more than 15 percentage points since the start of her first term………
The Morning Consult survey also found that Whitmer ranks fifth-highest in terms of overall approval rating among the current 27 second-term governors across the nation.

As Shannon Watts posted on Twitter Whitmer is popular, remarkably popular, for she has fought for and delivered for the people of Michigan. Here’s a summary of what she’s done:

Whitmer approved the largest road funding package in Michigan history, building or repairing over 24,000 lane miles of roads and 1,900 bridges
She expanded Michigan’s Earned Income Tax Credit from 6% to 30% of the federal credit, providing larger refunds to hundreds of thousands of lower-income workers.
She made breakfast and lunch free for all public school students, expanded pre-K, increased access to free preschool for 4-year-olds, and expanded free community college.
She expanded collective bargaining rights for unions.
She repealed Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban and signed legislation expanding reproductive health protections.
She expanded the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
She signed universal background checks, safe storage requirements, a red flag law, and expanded restrictions on firearms at polling locations.
She passed one of the nation’s more ambitious state clean-energy packages requiring utilities to reach 100% clean electricity by 2040.
She codified Affordable Care Act protections into Michigan law, including protections for preexisting conditions), ended surprise medical billing, expanded mental health coverage requirements, and erased millions of dollars in medical debt.

Given Whitmer’s remarkable popularity her endorsement feels like a turning point in this race but we will see. Early voting has begun and the primary is a week from Tuesday.

Subscribe now

Our great candidate Rebecca Cooke has released a new ad in WI-3:

The Senate Dem SuperPAC has placed this new brutal ad in North Carolina:

The endangered incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn (IA-3) showed us yesterday why state Senator Sarah Trone Garriott has such a good chance of beating him - here he is knocking the phone out of someone’s hand just trying to ask him a question:

Be sure to review the encouraging new polling we’ve gotten this week here, and catch my weekly video and written analysis that argues that as bad as things are now for Trump and the Rs they are going to worse:

To see one reason why they are going to get worse for Trump watch this short clip from Trump’s horrid, slurry remarks at the White House Correspondence Dinner last night. He repeatedly insults CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and compares her to a celebrity who has transitioned from male to female. He’s a misogynistic pig, and it’s critical we beat his ass this November:

Yes, My Friends, We Need To Beat His Ass!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,006,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $202,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries and need a bit more help. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

Winning The Senate - $511,400 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our five candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these five so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia (New) - $13,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund split a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $26,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine (New) - $68,500 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | Right now this fund is only supporting the Maine Democratic Party to help them get through this challenging process of selecting a new Senate nominee. It will expand in coming days to include both our gubernatorial candidate, Hannah Pingree, and our eventual Senate nominee too. Thanks to all of you who have rallied for the Maine Dems in the past few days - it’s a big deal! | Watch our new interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $637,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

"The Word I Hear A Lot Is Betrayal" - A New Conversation with Denise Powell, Our Great Candidate Running In NE-2

Simon Rosenberg — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:16:12 GMT

Greetings all. Excited to share a new interview I just completed with Denise Powell, our terrific candidate in NE-2, the “blue dot.” Denise prevailed in a hard fought six way primary in May, and as you will see she is a great candidate and is in a very strong position to win in what is rightly called our #1 pick up opportunity this cycle.

NE-02 is the most Democratic seat held by a Republican in the 2026 battleground. Harris won it by 5 points in 2024, Cook has it a +3 Dem district and currently rates it “Lean Democrat.” Rep. Don Bacon, who has held this seat for ten years, is retiring and it will be very difficult for the Rs to hold this seat with the national environment 7+ more Dem than 2024 and with their candidate, Brinker Harding, supporting Trump on the war, tariffs, the health care cuts and more. She also out-raised Harding by almost 2:1 in the second quarter.

You can donate to Denise via our Winning The House - Second Wave Fund or by giving to her directly. Head to her campaign website to learn more or volunteer, and here’s a link to the last time Denise dropped by in the spring.

From our conversation:

Simon Rosenberg:
Last question before you go. Talk about one of the things that's been interesting for us this cycle. We are running in a lot of states and districts that have a heavy Ag component to them. And this has not always been the case, that Ag communities were sort of open to Democrats, but the tariffs, the loss of markets, the cuts to healthcare, the fertilizer increases, diesel going up… it seems like we're hearing from your colleagues that there are places now that are more open to us than in the past. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Denise Powell:
Absolutely, and the word that I hear a lot is betrayal. Because I think these folks, you know, were promised something that this administration didn't deliver. And I have conversations with farmers where I want to talk to them about soybean markets, and sure, they want to tell me that they're selling their crop at a loss, but they also want to tell me that their healthcare costs doubled or tripled. So on top of the fact that they are just, you know, barely breaking even, they're dealing with all the same things that the rest of us are dealing with. Growing costs, the groceries, the gas, and for the farmers, the diesel and the fertilizer really is even more impactful. So, they're underwater right now, and I think we're seeing this all around the country. You know, we're seeing this increase in farmer suicide rates, in bankruptcies, and it's really painful.
And the interesting thing in a state like Nebraska is that, yes, we have a part of the district where we have a lot of farmers and a lot of rural areas, but a lot of people even right here in the more urban part of the district — they're really connected to the agricultural roots of the state. They grew up on family farms, they're going back to visit their grandparents, and so the fact that our farmers are struggling so much right now, it resonates even with folks here in the heart of Omaha. It's going to have a huge economic impact on this state and so many others if we don't do something to solve for it.

Enjoy getting to know (or re-meeting for those who watched our first discussion) Denise Powell, a terrific candidate who has one of the very opportunities to flip a red seat blue this November. Share this interview with others, hit like so more will see it, and keep working hard all. We have a country to save, and elections like this one in the “blue dot” to win, together! - Simon

Bio - Denise Powell, US House Candidate Running In NE-02

Denise Powell is a mom, small business owner, former corporate executive, public school champion and healthcare advocate who knows that a strong work ethic and a love of family and community is the Nebraska way of life. She also knows the Good Life is getting harder to come by. It’s why she left a successful career in corporate America to focus on fighting for what makes Nebraska such a special place to live and raise a family. After Trump’s election in 2016, she founded an organization that has supported hundreds of Nebraskans running for local office, protected our public schools and the families they serve, and helped stop extremists from passing abortion bans in the state.

Denise is running for Congress because while our representatives say they’re fighting for us in Nebraska, they’re voting against us in Washington, DC. Every day, we see more of our friends and neighbors struggling to make ends meet while Donald Trump and MAGA extremists are focused on trade wars that are increasing our cost of living and passing massive tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk. Strong families, strong businesses, strong communities – they ALL require work and investment, but everything we’ve fought for here at home is under threat. From dismantling Medicaid and making it harder for seniors to get the benefits they’ve earned, to dismantling education — from the University of Nebraska to our public schools — to attacking our veterans and ripping away women’s rights, Denise is running to fight for the people of Nebraska. We don’t need lip service from politicians, we need action.

Learn more about Denise here.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Trump Imposes Enormous New Global Tariffs, His Failed War Keeps Failing, And Dems Get A Strong New Wave Of National Polling

Simon Rosenberg — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 15:11:06 GMT

Morning all. Todd Blanche still does not have the votes to be confirmed as Attorney General and we must keep the pressure on. Call your Senators, and call again. Hopium community members in North Carolina and Texas need you today! Call Tillis and Cornyn. They are the swing votes. Thanks to everyone who has called this week but we need to keep working it people!

Subscribe now

Here’s a screen shot of the NYT home page from this morning:

Seven weeks before early voting begins Trump is doing everything he can to raise prices on the American people. Endless, illegal war; higher prices, more for the oligarchs and less for all of us. No one has ever betrayed his promises and the American people more than our rapacious, corrupt, Let Them Eat Cakey leader.

The big argument I’ve been making this week is that as bad as things are for Trump and the Rs right now - and they are bad, look at this new data from highly respected Pew (via FiftyPlusOne):

the ongoing failures and fanaticism of his regime are going to make things worse for them in the coming months. I made this case in my weekly talk/analysis released yesterday, Trump Is A Titanic F*ck Up. Things Are Bad For Him And Republicans Now. They Are Likely To Get Worse, and in a new podcast with Greg Sargent of The New Republic too. Over the past two days we’ve gotten some evidence that in fact the national battlefield may be in the process of deteriorating even further for Republicans. Look at these generic ballot results. For context the averages have been running +4-5 Dem. So this would be significant movement in our direction, and away from them:

Remember what Fox News reported about our strong showing in their poll:

It’s an encouraging end to another tumultuous week in Washington.

Other Things We’re Tracking…….

Troy Jackson’s social media game has been strong this week. Expect him to officially become our Senate nominee in Maine tomorrow:

DNC Chair Ken Martin has published a great recap of his tenure so far - The DNC Is Building a Democratic Party That Can Win the Moment and Win the Future. It’s very much worth a read. An excerpt:

The current DNC has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the 198-year history of the Democratic Party.
Through June 2026, this DNC reported total receipts of more than $207 million. During the comparable 18-month period of the last Trump-era cycle, when Democrats were also out of the White House and rebuilding toward a midterm election, the DNC reported $109 million. That means the current DNC has reported total receipts of nearly $100 million more - roughly 90 percent more - than the most relevant historical comparison.

Our good friend Rob Shapiro has published a compelling essay at The Washington Monthly, A Unified Theory Of Donald Trump’s Presidency. This too is very much worth a read. An excerpt:

The key lies in an American president’s historic prerogative to reach beyond the authority articulated in law and the Constitution—but only under limited and clear circumstances. Under norms that go back centuries and respected by his predecessors, a president can tap his unarticulated powers only when necessity demands it to preserve and protect the people and the nation. Trump’s radical innovation has been to detach the president’s prerogative powers from necessity and overriding national purpose and use them without those constraints.

Bill Scher has a new piece up on the Washington Monthly, The Platner Collapse Is a Cautionary Tale About Polling, about the rise on our side of narrative shaping polling, a tactic used by the Republicans in both 2022 and 2024 to illicitly shape our understanding of the election. As Scher notes we are now seeing this tactic play out in the Michigan Senate. I posted this summary of recent polls in Michigan on Bluesky a few days ago. The polls released by allies of El-Sayed, including his own campaign, have him running 17 points better than on average than the two independent polls we’ve seen:

This week El-Sayed’s SuperPAC released a poll showing him beating Stevens by 16 points. The most recent independent poll in Michigan has Stevens up 7. So where is the Michigan Senate primary? It’s hard to know for as Scher notes with the decline of legacy media we are seeing far fewer independent polls in the battleground, something that will be exploited by self-interested narrative shaping polling in these final months; and this will make it harder for us to understand where these races really are are.

A brief hallway interview with Rep. Haley Stevens this week by the entertainment outlet TMZ has gone wildly viral, reaching many, many millions of views. Watch and see why…..For this is the warrior for working people Haley Stevens that I’ve known and respected for 15 years:

The Economist sat down with Elon Musk this week for a 90 minute on camera interview. Wild clips from the interview are now are coursing throughout the Internet. Watch this one where Musk tries to claim that the vaporizing of USAID caused no harm in the developing world. He is, without question, one of the great villains of our time - a mass murderer, ugly white supremacist, and a pathological liar:

I’ve been encouraging folks here to read a very informative essay about the Democratic Socialists of America, The Sane NYC DSA vs the Crazy National DSA- A Guide for the Perplexed, written by a thoughtful DSA Member, Nathan Newman. If you haven’t read it yet strongly encourage you get to it soon. Here’s a passage from his essay that helps explain why many - including me - are so worried about DSA candidates being able to win in competitive battleground races. For I simply don’t know how any one can defend being associated with these views:

The national DSA office opposed military aid to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion and called for the United States to pull out of NATO. Its platform has in the past called for abolishing USAID, which lands it, awkwardly, on the same side as Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s wrecking ball. And back when Maduro still ran Venezuela, the national organization sent a delegation to Caracas that handed the regime exactly the legitimacy it was looking for- and then in 2024 condemned the Venezuelan opposition and the media for criticizing the validity of the elections.
When Russia was getting ready to invade Ukraine in January 2022, the national DSA International Committee blamed NATO and the US in a statement titled “DSA IC opposes US militarization and interventionism in Ukraine and Eastern Europe and calls for an end to NATO expansionism.” After the Russian invasion, I detailed in this piece why defending Ukraine should be a core commitment of the global left and in a followup piece on why Ukraine was a class war against Putin’s white oligarchic petrocapitalism- issues that national DSA largely ignored. What is striking about the DSA national analysis is how locked into Cold War nostrums on Russia as an opponent of US imperialism, almost as if Putin still embodied some kind of socialist alternative to US hegemony.
Gaza was of course the issue where sectarian politics burst out in national headlines, as a faction of the far left, primarily led by what is known as the ANSWER coalition - itself a front group for the Party of Socialism & Liberation (PSL), would regularly praise Hamas and embarrass the rest of the pro-Palestinian movement. Yet national DSA would continue to cosponsor national marches and national actions with ANSWER.

Pro-Hamas, Pro-Maduro, Pro-Putin, against Ukraine, against NATO, against USAID……these are the positions of the Russian and Iranian governments. They are pro-Ukrainian and Jewish genocide and for the mass killings of millions of the poorest people in the world. They echo Elon Musk’s statements in that interview above, and simply I struggle to see how they are compatible with a movement that describes itself as pro-democracy.

It’s why Newman argues that the more modern, constructive DSA Members like Mayor Mamdani should consider splitting off from the extremist national DSA, and creating something new, without all this extremist baggage. I think this is a very good idea, and something that I hope happens in the coming months.

Subscribe now

Now, my friends, it is that time……

It’s Time Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,003,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $193,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48) (Dr. Shah’s race was called for him overnight - he is now officially the nominee).

Winning The Senate - $510,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our five candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these five so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Iowa - $25,700 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine (New) - $68,100 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | Right now this fund is only supporting the Maine Democratic Party to help them get through this challenging process of selecting a new Senate nominee. It will expand in coming days to include both our gubernatorial candidate, Hannah Pingree, and our eventual Senate nominee too. Thanks to all of you who have rallied for the Maine Dems in the past few days - it’s a big deal! | Watch our new interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and elections to win, together! - Simon

Fri, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Members Most Fridays Get Together

Simon Rosenberg — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:46:09 GMT

Friends,

Hopium Founding Members will gather as usual tomorrow, July 24th, at 1pm ET.

A reminder that these meetings operate under Chatham House rules and are not recorded and shared so as to facilitate an open discussion. AI note takers or recordings of any kind are not permitted.

If you are reading this and not yet a Founding Member you can sign up here or below. It’s a wonderful group - join us!

Trump Is A Titanic F*ck Up. Things Are Bad For Him And Republicans Now. They Are Likely To Get Worse

Simon Rosenberg — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:41:13 GMT

Morning all. Todd Blanche still does not have the votes so we must keep calling the Senate. Call both your Senators today and urge them to oppose him and keep fighting. If you live in North Carolina or Texas your calls to Senators Tillis and Cornyn really matter. Call, call, and keep calling everyone.

Subscribe now

The proud, plucky patriots of this remarkable community gathered last night for our weekly check in on our grand battle against MAGA and for freedom and democracy, here and everywhere. It was a lively affair, as they often are when this community gathers. Here is some of what we talked about:

Greater MAGA Has Been Dramatically Weakened - Orban fell, and now due to their failed wars, Trump, Putin, and Bibi are all dramatically weakened. Here’s Thomas Friedman in the NYT this week in an essay called “Three World Leaders. Three Incredibly Bad Decisions” (gift link):

Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin are drastically different men, but they do have one important thing in common: Each thinks he is the smartest person in any room he enters. Alas, though, because they have all done the dumbest thing you can do as a leader — surround yourself with sycophants — they have all blundered into dead-end wars from which they can extricate themselves today only by eating a banquet of crow.

Ukraine has taken the war to Russia. Netanyahu’s party is now in serious danger of losing the upcoming Israeli election and losing power. Here in the US it’s now clear from weeks of data that the big drop in inflation in June did not lead to any improvement in Trump’s polling, or state polling for the GOP. Here’s new Fox News polling we got last night, which is consistent with all the other data we are seeing - no recovery for Trump, meaning that these negatives may be really baked in:

So Trump and the GOP are in a bad place, and gas prices and overall inflation dropping did not lead to any recovery. Let’s drill down a bit more on the new Fox News data to see how bad this place Rs find themselves in is now….

Democrats lead in the generic ballot 53%-46%, similar to where we were at this time in the blowout 2018 midterm:

From Fox’s write up of the poll:

Notably, 53% is the highest percentage either party has received on the generic House ballot in Fox News polling since 1996.

Boom!

Trump’s ratings on the major issues of the election are abysmal. It’s a failed regime:

Trump received net-negative ratings for handling immigration (42% approve, 57% disapprove), Iran (34-66%), the economy (33-67%), and inflation (27-73%).

Trump’s crash had lead to Democrats opening up sturdy leads on the issues that matter:

Fox reports that our nine point lead on the economy is the largest for us since 2006 in their polling. Encouraging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All this data is from before the full return of the war this week. Oil, gas, and diesel prices are now surging. Bond yields (interest rates) are rising. Our bases in the region are being hit hard and American war causalities are mounting. There is chaos on the Hill as the true cost of Trump’s failed war becomes more apparent.

As bad as things are Republicans right now they are now likely to get worse.

Brent crude has surged from the low $80s a few days ago to $100 a barrel this morning:

Gas prices have jumped almost 40 cents and will keep climbing next week given what is happening with oil prices today:

What is also likely to make things worse is that Trump, rather than letting his tariffs expire tomorrow, is imposing broad new tariffs, which will further fuel inflation. Americans are losing their SNAP benefits at a faster rate than anticipated, doing further harm to families across the US. People are getting gunned down in the streets again, something Trump has encouraged in his public comments and policy actions, meaning we are likely to see more of these tragic incidents. A wildly unpopular Trump will be hosting a two day celebration of his failed regime in September - something every battleground Republican candidate must be dreading. As we discussed yesterday the dangers of AI, not just the benefits, are becoming clearer to a skeptical public who will increasingly reject Trump’s hands off approach. In October, just as early voting kicks off throughout the country, tens of millions of voters will learn of premium increases - some dramatic - in both private and public health care plans.

Politico’s lead story as we went to press this morning

So as bad as all this polling is for Trump and the Republicans right now - and it is bad - things are far more likely to get worse for them than to get better. This is particularly true as parties in power almost always lose ground as we get closer to the election and people start tuning in. Which is why we learned yesterday there are Republican operatives “preparing for the bottom to fall out.”

For as bad as things are now for Trump and the Rs they are likely to get worse.

Maine Dems Give Us A Shot, And 2026 Remains A Year Of Remarkable Opportunity For Democrats - Our friends at the Maine Democratic Party have pulled off a bit of a miracle. The process they put in place to pick a new Senate nominee has worked. A single candidate, Troy Jackson has emerged with legitimacy, and in the very first poll taken of the race he leads Susan Collins 49%-46%. Beating Susan Collins will be tough but given where we were a few weeks ago this is a very encouraging development. Let us all thank Charlie Dingman, Devon Murphy-Anderson, and the whole MDP team for a job well done. Troy Jackson will receive the formal nomination on Saturday, at a state convention partially funded by the members of our hard-working community. We’ve raised about a quarter of the budget this rushed process required and played a meaningful role in our party getting through this challenging period. We now once again are at a place where we have a shot at winning in Maine and flipping the Senate - amazing work all!

Here’s my latest round up of Senate polling. That we have leads in these states Trump won by 10+ points remains remarkable, encouraging, awesome:

Finally, us - As I’ve been writing I think to take advantage of the opportunity we now have Dems would be wise to roll out a short agenda so voters have something vote for, not just against. That agenda should include clear accountability and renewing democracy commitments that we can earn a mandate for in the election, making these efforts more likely to be successful when we are back in power next year.

Character and virtue have emerged as critical assets for us this cycle as we run against the immoral, corrupt party of a villainous Epstein, a rapacious Trump, glutenous oligarchs, and cowardly quislings who betray and abandon the American people 24/7/365.

In the Fox polling Democrats are at 53% in the generic ballot the highest of any party in 30 years of Fox News polling. We also 53% (+11) in a new Emerson poll this morning:

We have sturdy leads against Republicans on the issues that matter in this election. Our candidates are overperforming the partisan lean of battleground states and districts all over the country. Our candidates are raising tons of money from a fired up grassroots. In every poll that tests it we have big leads on intensity. We hit 53% in two right leaning polls in the last 24 hours. The Dems suck and are weak narrative coursing through out family is no longer true (if it ever was given our electoral performances these past 18 months) and it needs to end. Right now, today, Democrats are the strong party on the cusp of winning an election and Republicans are weak, on the verge of getting their ass kicked. Attempts to paint the current moment as otherwise is doing MAGA’s work for them.

We also need to remember that what Trump wants more than anything else is for us to be fighting with each other and not with him. So must keep our focus on Job One - electing these 35-40 intrepid patriots running for the House and Senate in red states and red places. The general election is here. We have great candidates. People will start voting early on September 18th, less than two months away. We need to keep the focus on Trump and the Rs and put everything we got into winning these elections.

And we also need to encourage everyone we know, everyone in our networks, grassroots organizations, local parties, book and post card writing clubs to vote early. Voting early increases our turnout; makes it harder for him to cheat; shows democracy is working; and puts social pressure and creates a permission structure for people to vote. “Hey others are voting I should vote too.”

That’s some of what we talked about last night. Enjoy my talk. Share it with others. Hit like so more will see it. Become a paid subscriber to help fund commentary and analysis like this, and yes, my friends, the time for talking is done - it is time to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friends, our OG Winning The House campaign hit $1m raised this morning! Amazing work all!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Our Winning The House Campaign - $1,000,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund (Newly Expanded) - $188,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries. Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48) (Dr. Shah’s race was called for him overnight - he is now officially the nominee).

Winning The Senate - $505,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our five candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), and Josh Turek (IA). Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these five so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these great candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them here.

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia (New) - $9,300 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund split a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $25,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $635,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. And remember - Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today. We do the work to make it so…..

Last Call - Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

Simon Rosenberg — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 21:55:30 GMT

Friends,

A reminder that Hopium paid subscribers will gather this evening at 7pm ET.

We’ll follow our usual format - I’ll offer up my latest take on things and then open it up for questions until 8pm ET. For those who can’t make it live our discussion will be recorded and released on the Hopium site tomorrow morning.

If you are not yet a paid subscriber and want to join us you can sign up here or below.

Hopium Adds 5 More House Candidates To Our Endorsed List - Pan (CA-6), Rutinel (CO-8), Shah (AZ-1), Villegas (CA-22) and von Wilpert (CA-48)

Simon Rosenberg — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:45:02 GMT

A note - as of press time today the AP has not called AZ-1 for Dr. Amish Shah, though he holds a large lead with very few votes left to count. I also want to acknowledge that the original email post was sent today before the final edits were in place. Everything has been updated now in this on-line version. Sorry about that everyone…….

Greetings all. Today we are adding five more candidates to our Second Wave Fund - Dr. Richard Pan (CA-6), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-1), Marni von Wilpert (CA-48), and Randy Villegas (CA-22). Our Second Wave fund was set up to support candidates who emerged after their primaries, later in the cycle, who need a bit more help than the established candidates we’ve been working hard for since last year.

Here’s how our two House campaigns look now:

Our Winning The House Campaign - $997,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03).

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund - $182,100 raised, $500,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Donate | Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

A donation to either Fund splits the contribution equally among all twelve candidates.

And let’s be clear - this is the general election battlefield. Whether we win the majority, and how large the majority is, will come down to how many of these candidates win their races. As we only need to flip three seats net to regain the House we are in control of our own destiny here - if we rally for these twenty four candidates, help them win, the majority is ours. It will come down to these twenty four races, and perhaps a few more. But this is it peeps! These are the twenty four courageous patriots who are going to win us back the majority!

Now, let’s meet our five new candidates (thanks to the DCCC for the writeups and photos):

Richard Pan (CA-06)

Dr. Richard Pan is a pediatrician, educator, and former State Legislator who has spent his career fighting for the health and safety of California families. He’s taken on some of the state’s toughest challenges — expanding access to affordable health care, lowering prescription drug costs, protecting children during public health crises, and supporting first responders and public safety. A proven fighter, Dr. Pan stood up to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and anti-vaccine extremists’ attacks to protect children and public health, and he will take on those same powerful interests in Washington. In a district made bluer by Proposition 50, Dr. Pan is uniquely positioned to take the case to “MAGA champion” Kevin Kiley, as he tries to hide his extreme record from voters. While Kiley chases political opportunism, Dr. Pan is focused on delivering results for Sacramento families.

Manny Rutinel (CO-08)

Manny Rutinel understands the challenges working Coloradans are facing. As a teen, Manny worked at McDonald’s, tutored kids, and even sold his blood plasma to help pay the bills after the bank foreclosed on his family home. And after putting himself through college, Manny joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and went on to graduate from Yale Law School. Manny is running for Congress to fight for working families, create good jobs, and improve Coloradans’ health care. The son of a single mom who immigrated from Latin America, Manny’s powerful story resonates with CO-08, an R+0, working class, 40% Latino district that is souring on Gabe Evans and Donald Trump.

Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01)

Dr. Shah resoundingly won three straight elections for the Arizona State House of Representatives in 2018, 2020, and 2022. In his five years at the State Legislature, Dr. Shah focused on increasing teacher pay, supporting small businesses, and improving public health and safety. He had more bills signed into law than any Arizona Democrat in the last decade. He is now running for United States Congress in Arizona’s First Congressional District, one of the top pick-up opportunities for Democrats in the entire country.

Dr. Shah is an emergency room physician who is committed to lowering healthcare costs and standing up to Big Pharma to end the price gouging of essential medications like insulin. He believes that politicians should stay out of personal medical decisions, and he will work tirelessly to ensure that women have the freedom to make choices about their own bodies.

Shah, who has already represented key parts of Arizona’s First Congressional District in Maricopa County as a State Representative, has a track record of being an independent voice working across party lines to put Arizona families first while standing up to extremist attacks on abortion and voting rights. In Congress, he’ll work to lower costs for hardworking Arizonans, protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, fight for abortion rights, and keep families safe.

Amish enjoys playing basketball, flying small airplanes, and embarking on adventurous travel. He speaks conversational Spanish and is fluent in Gujarati. He has three adopted cats named Hillary, Miss Meowerson, and Cousin Oliver.

Randy Villegas (CA-22)

The son of Mexican immigrants, Randy Villegas is a Central Valley native, auto repair shop owner, and educator who has spent his life fighting for his community. He attended Bakersfield public schools and grew up in a working-class family that relied on Medi-Cal and WIC to make ends meet – the same programs now under threat because of David Valadao’s votes to gut health care and SNAP. Through hard work and education, Randy worked his way out of poverty and went on to serve students and families on his local school board. Randy is a working-class leader fighting to ensure Valley families have the representation they deserve – someone who will work to lower costs, increase access to affordable health care and medicine, and ensure government works for working people, not special interests and billionaires. In this increasingly competitive Trump +2 seat, Valadao has made himself more vulnerable by turning his back on the Valley, gutting the very health care programs Randy grew up on, and putting party politics ahead of his constituents.

Marni von Wilpert (CA-48)

Marni von Wilpert is a public servant, former prosecutor, and San Diego City Councilmember who has spent her career taking on powerful interests and winning for working people. The daughter of a U.S. Army veteran, Marni served in the Peace Corps during the AIDS epidemic, went on to found a legal clinic to combat discrimination, and later helped write the PRO Act to strengthen workers’ rights. As a Deputy City Attorney and civil prosecutor, she took on opioid manufacturers and price-gouging corporations ripping off consumers. And after flipping one of San Diego’s most conservative council seats, Marni proved she can build the broad coalition needed to win tough races and deliver results on affordability and public safety. After Proposition 50, this newly competitive district is central to regaining the House majority. Marni is exactly the kind of fighter needed to beat MAGA extremist Jim Desmond, who has done nothing but dismiss rising costs and embrace the worst of Donald Trump and Republicans’ agenda that is increasingly out of step with CA-48 voters.

Thanks for all that you’ve done to help our candidates this cycle succeed. I know many of you are out there working it ever day, and together we’ve raised $4m this cycle for the most important candidates and state parties in the battleground. While we have all worked hard, our most important work lies before us. Let’s get these intrepid twenty-four elected, and Election Night will be a very good one, indeed! - Simon

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Troy Jackson Leads By 3 In New Maine Poll, OpenAI Goes Rogue, Rs “Preparing For The Bottom To Fall Out”

Simon Rosenberg — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:30:56 GMT

Morning all. Got a few things for you today…..

Need To Keep Calling To Block Blanche - Jay Clayton advanced through Committee last night but Todd Blanche does not yet have the votes - so we need to be aggressive today peeps and keep the pressure on. The most important calls are Senator Tillis and Senator Cornyn. Here’s Rick Wilson over at Lincoln Square this morning:

The victims of Jeffrey Epstein have released a letter to the U.S. Senators who will cast the deciding votes on Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve as Donald Trump’s Attorney General.
I have excoriated Todd Blanche as unethical and downright evil for his leadership of the Trump-Epstein cover-up, and I stand by every word. But the letter these women have written is so painful, so passionate, and so morally unanswerable that I am compelled to share it with you in full.

Let’s keep making our calls people, particularly those of you in North Carolina and Texas!

“We’re preparing for the bottom to fall out” - Here’s the lead story in Politico Playbook this morning, the most read political newsletter in Washington:

EPIC FUMBLE: For months, President Donald Trump has insisted he could manage the Iran conflict on his terms: hit hard, force a deal and keep the United States out of another long Middle East war.
Instead the U.S. and Iran are escalating strikes. More U.S. service members are dead. Gas prices are again on the rise. The administration’s diplomatic off-ramp appears to be narrowing. And Republicans working to preserve their congressional majorities are beginning to contemplate a scenario they once viewed as unthinkable: a full-scale war still dominating the political landscape in November.
“We’re preparing for the bottom to fall out,” a GOP operative working on midterm races told Playbook.
The operative said contests in Iowa, Alaska and Ohio — along with House districts Trump carried by double digits in 2024 — are now firmly in play.
“Republicans are running out of runway here to improve their political fortunes before November,” the operative said.
In Iowa, a new battleground for the GOP, Democratic Senate candidate state Rep. Josh Turek has made the war a touchstone of his stump: “Everywhere I’m going — it doesn’t matter, urban or rural areas — people are telling me they’re struggling just to keep food on the table, a roof above their head, and now with this unnecessary war in Iran, we’re looking at being able to afford gas,” he told Playbook.
Battleground GOPers like Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania and Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan have been boxed into a corner, forced to choose between toeing the party line on the war while convincing frustrated voters that position isn’t at odds with the conflict’s downstream impact on prices.

Yesterday’s Hopium post was about how Trump’s failed war had - predictably - turned into a global strategic and domestic political disaster for the Trump and the Republicans. Brent crude is over $93 a barrel this morning, gas prices are over $4 a gallon, diesel is back up over $5 a gallon, and bond yields are spiking again (higher interest rates, enormous new costs to US govt/taxpayers).

The budget process in Washington has completely melted down for the Republicans have no idea how they are going to pay for this unauthorized Mad Kingy war that is now running into the many, many hundreds of billions of dollars without any clear end in sight. In essence where the Rs are now is either spend enormous sums to launch a full ground invasion of Iran without a high likelihood of success or spend enormous sums rebuilding Iran after our full surrender. Either way the cost to US taxpayers is going to run into the many hundred billions, perhaps trillions, and our position here at Hopium is that the only people who should pay for this disastrous and illegal war are the oligarchs who put Trump into power and are slavishly propping him up now.

And let us again remind ourselves that every day Americans are already paying an enormous price for this failed war and the broader failures of the regime - higher prices, disrupted supply chains, higher health care costs and reduced access to care, lost markets, tremendous pressure on small business and farmers. In the midst of this new round of higher costs due to his war Trump is also now madly levying enormous new tariffs, to make the pain of these new higher costs even that more acute.

In my Monday post I showed that the true cost of this failed war to the world has been in the many, many trillions, already; and the harm to our standing in the world from just these first 18 months of Trump is incalculable. It’s another reason why “we’re preparing for the bottom to fall out” is a smart political course for Republicans now.

Subscribe now

G. Elliott Morris has new data this morning to show why Republicans should be so worried about the Novembers elections:

Over the last five election cycles (the extent of my readily available historical data), polls of likely voters have typically leaned more Republican than polls of registered voters or all U.S. adults. That’s because Democrats have typically held an edge with lower-turnout groups, like young Americans and non-white voters, that skew coarser samples to the left. More reliable voters, historically speaking, have been more Republican-leaning than the population as a whole (this was not true in 2024).
But data on likely voter turnout this election cycle points the other direction. According to a new analysis of pooled survey interviews from Strength In Numbers/Verasight polls since January 2026, Americans who say they are most likely to vote in November are actually more pro-Democratic than registered voters.
………..
Our July poll has Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by 7 points among registered voters, 50% to 43%. That 7-point advantage itself would be enough to flip the House majority (Democrats need to win the popular vote by about 3 points to win 218 seats) and to make the Senate majority competitive, and would be a swing of 9 points since the 2024 presidential race (about the same swing as from 2016 to 2018).
But when we filter our polling data to the people who say they’ll definitely or probably vote in November, the Democratic Party’s lead grows to almost 9 points — a boost of about a point and a half on average across polls. The size of the premium bounces around from month to month (see image below), but the direction never changes. In all seven surveys since we started asking the turnout question in January, likely voters have leaned bluer than registered voters, by anywhere from one to two and a half points.

I want to be clear that this +9 with likely voters is far closer to what we are seeing in Senate polls across the battleground that show Democrats competitive in states Trump won by +11 or more. Note we’ve added the promising new UNH poll of Maine that has Troy Jackson ahead of Susan Collins, 49%-46%.

Two months before people start voting the Trumpy Republican thing feels like it is collapsing under the weight of their fanaticism, idiocy, corruption, and fealty to the worst leader America has ever seen. “We’re preparing for the bottom to fall out” is a smart political course for Republicans now. For us, here’s the course I recommended this past weekend:

National Democrats - Schumer, Jeffries, The Governors, The AGs, DNC/State Parties, Marc Elias, other democracy groups - should come together and create a unified front to defend our elections and our democracy. Right now our leaders are working in silos and it just isn’t enough given the gravity of what Trump is attempting. They should speak with one voice to educate and prepare the American people for what is to come, and build an integrated coordinating council or war room to counter it all - for we are stronger together than apart.
As part of that effort Democrats should announce a simple agenda to let voters know what we will do when back in power. We’ve offered some ideas for can be in a national agenda in our evolving Agenda Project. Whatever our leaders come up with it is essential they offer a clearly articulated accountability and renewing democracy agenda as part of this broader agenda. For as Hardy Merriman told us a few months ago the global democracy movement has learned that those parties attempting to enact far reaching accountability and democratic reforms fair far better when they’ve campaigned on the reforms and earned a clear mandate from voters. And we also know from polling that voters want us to be talking about us preserving their rights and freedoms (No Kings) and not just “kitchen table issues” and that there is nothing more intrinsically American than fighting for freedom and democracy.
We also know from polling, lots and lots of polling, that voters believe that our hearts are in right place but question our toughness, and whether we are strong enough to be able to fight and deliver for them. So we should see this fight for our rights and liberties as a real test of our character, resolve, “toughness to govern” and the ability do hard things - one we simply must pass.
For truly beating MAGA, truly creating accountability, truly restoring our democracy, and truly giving the American people a better tomorrow will be the hardest thing our leaders - and all of us - have ever done; there is no easy path ahead; and we need to get on with it now.

OpenAI Model Goes Rogue - In what is a major moment in the evolution of AI the American company OpenAI has acknowledged that in its testing of a new, more advanced model the AI broke out of containment and hacked into another company to solve a problem - all on its own. Here is one cybersecurity expert’s plain language explanation of what happened:

"Our AI model tried really hard to hack out of its sandbox, a computer with no internet access, in order to find the answer to a test problem it had been given. To do this, it found previously unknown software bugs that allowed it to reach an OpenAI computer it wasn't supposed to be able to access. Then it started hacking other computers on OpenAI's networks until it found one that had Internet access.
After gaining Internet access, the AI model thought about where it could find the answers to the test question and figured the AI platform Hugging Face might have the data it was looking for. It then found ways to hack Hugging Face to steal the information it could use to cheat the test. The AI model used several hacking techniques together, including using a stolen password and finding several totally new security bugs in Hugging Face's computers, allowing the AI model to take control of those computers."

We have not spoken much about AI here at Hopium. That’s going to change now as it’s clear that ensuring a safe and peaceful transition into this new age of AI is becoming one of our most important governing challenges, one that cannot be trusted to the failed, corrupt regime temporarily running our country.

Yes, my friends, as they prepare for the bottom to fall out, it is time for us to…..

Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The House and Senate In 2026

Our Winning The House Campaign - $997,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!

Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund - $182,100 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from recent primaries. Our current crew includes Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-35), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).

A donation to the Second Wave Fund is split evenly among these twelves, and more as other worthy candidates emerge from their primaries. Our total above includes money we’ve raised for directly for each candidate. You can watch interviews with those who’ve interviewed so far here. We are off to a great start here everyone!

Expanding The Map - Investing And Winning In Key Battleground And Expansion States

Winning Georgia (New) - $9,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | This new fund split a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with Georgia Dem Chair Charlie Bailey to get a terrific overview of the opportunities we have in Georgia this cycle

Winning Iowa - $25,500 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Our Winning Iowa fund splits a contribution three ways - to Josh Turek for Senate, to our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party | Watch my new interview with the great Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart to get an overview of why this is a year of such opportunity in Iowa

Winning Maine (New) - $67,700 raised, $75,000 goal - Donate | Right now this fund is only supporting the Maine Democratic Party to help them get through this challenging process of selecting a new Senate nominee. It will expand in coming days to include both our gubernatorial candidate, Hannah Pingree, and our eventual Senate nominee too. Thanks to all of you who have rallied for the Maine Dems in the past few days - it’s a big deal! | Watch our new interview with the inspiring Executive Director of the Maine Dems Devon Murphy-Anderson

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $634,700 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five critical battlegrounds | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

Current 2026 Election Analysis

A Few More Things To Do

Let’s work to make sure everyone you know is Voting Early this year, and learn more about how our political battlefield is evolving this cycle; bring our Resolutions Project to your community; and fight for Hopium’s Agenda today and everyday!

Take 10% off a Hopium annual paid subscription in July and help us hit our August 1st goal of 500 new subscribers. We are now at 385 - getting there!

Join Our July Paid Subscriber Drive!

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. And remember - Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today. We do the work to make it so…..