Happy Monday all. Feeling the weight of it all this morning. Have so much I want to say, starting with an unending stream of thank yous to all of you for answering the call - powerfully, patriotically, joyfully - when your country needed you most.
I could send dozens of posts over the next few weeks with just the comments and self-reports you’ve shared in recent months from our subscriber chat. Today, I send one from Hopium community member Nancy Bruski:
I’m staying at a hotel in Milwaukee with my oldest friend & canvassing buddy…we’ve worked on elections in WI since 2004 & after 1 terrible mistake in ‘08, when polls showed Hillary ahead by 7 in WI & we thought she had it i the bag, and we went to Cincinnati instead, we swore that as long as we could still walk (both in our 70s!) we’d work on GOTV in our beloved WI, forevermore. We live in Evanston, IL, so working in southern WI is an easy drive. Yesterday we drove up to our usual canvassing spot, Kenosha, in southern WI, only to find literally hundreds of volunteers, mostly from the Chicago area… a great problem to have, but the folks at the launching spot were pretty overwhelmed! We ended up with a strange walk route that took us to a fancy suburb of Kenosha that we didn’t know existed! But we knocked on doors, having to frequently drive in between houses bec the walk route was so spread out, and we talked to some voters. After that experience, we decided Kenosha really didn’t need us, and we learned that Milwaukee Dem offices had literally sent volunteers from IL home to do phonebanking bec they didn’t have any walk routes for them! So we decided to drive an hour north of Milwaukee, to Sheboygan, where we volunteered for my buddy’s son who was the field organizer for Obama there back in ‘08. They were happy to have us, and we had a terrific walk route that was easy to follow, in a working/middle class neighborhood with many addresses not super spread out. So satisfying! We had some great conversations, talked with voters in their 30s to their 80s, and were thrilled to be able to help some folks with figuring out how and where to go vote on Tuesday! It felt wonderful to return to Sheboygan, where longtime volunteers there remembered us from way back in ‘08, and have such a great experience despite kind of windy, damp, intermittently rainy weather. Knocking on doors today reminded both of us of what we love about canvassing…the opportunity to talk with people one would never, ever get to speak with in one’s day to day life. I spoke with men in their 60s and women in their 80s who were united in their determination to vote for Kamala Harris. So exciting, and truly inspiring. The woman in her 80s told me about how as an insomniac from way back, she remembers watching late night black and white tv when only a couple channels offered programming late at night. She told me she used to not infrequently see a young Donald Trump being featured on these talk shows, and she said « he was a creep and a sleaze and a con man back then, and he is now, and I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone can support him! ». What an amazing story. We had a great conversation about just that subject, what might drive average folks to believe in such a lowlife. I’m on a real high right now, excited for Election Day and ushering a new phase for our country, with our first woman president, someone who is intelligent, caring, and will actually work hard to get stuff done for all of us!
Thank you Nancy. Thank you to all of you who have have left it all out there on the playing field this election. It has been a honor of a lifetime to be in this fight, everyday, with all of you. Above you can find a video I made this morning thanking everyone and reflecting on the power of the Democratic grassroots and all that we’ve done together. I hope you will watch as it is a huge Hopium thank you from my house here in DC on this Monday before the Election…….
Now, let’s finish the job these next two days and win this thing for our families, our freedoms, our democracy and our future. Our kids and our grandkids, and the kids and grandkids of the people of the world are counting on us to get this done. Let’s keep working hard all and keep pushing this election towards us in these final critical hours.
We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hopium These Next Few Days - I don’t exactly know what I am going to do with Hopium these next few days. But what is likely is that I will be posting more than once a day, and perhaps even having some hastily thrown together events. I don’t yet know what we are doing Election night. So don’t be surprised if you hear from me a lot over these next few days. Going to surf this final wave as it comes.
And folks, we need to plan on working through Friday, at least. The way the votes are counted, unless we win in a blow out, we may not know the outcome until Friday or Saturday. Pace yourselves. Don’t be surprised if you go to bed tomorrow night not knowing. Or get up Wednesday and still not know. It how our wonderful, complicated and historic democracy works. Prepare. Take care of yourself these next few days. Do more and worry less, but also keep exercising, eating right, etc. Steady yourself. We still have a lot of work to do.
Our Incredible Candidate - here’s her closing ad. It is great. So proud to be on her team. We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 Days Out I Would Much Rather Be Us Than Them - We head into the final days coming off our best week of polling in the general election. The IA Selzer poll and many of the battleground state polls this week showed the upper end of our polling range higher than that at any time since the VP became our candidate. The campaign believes late deciding voters are breaking their way, something we are seeing in some of the public polling too. This means the election is moving towards us now, as we all believed it would. We are seeing that in this late polling, and we are seeing it in the early vote too.
For more on where I see the election right now please review yesterday’s Hopium post.
Using TargetEarly and the 2020 early vote at this time as a benchmark, and with the understanding that due to Republican prioritizing the early vote this time it was universally expected that they would do far better than 2020, a few Monday morning takeaways:
Republicans were performing 8.1 percentage points better than 2020 in the national early vote a few days ago. Today that lead is down to 4.3 points.
In the aggregate vote of the 7 battleground states Dems and Rs are running even, and Ds are currently outpacing the Rs in AZ, GA, MI, NE-2 and WI.
The unaffiliated category as a percentage of the early vote is rising everywhere. This is not a good development for the Rs as it is widely expected that the unaffiliated category will favor Dems this time, and will be more Dem than 2020. We also expect to do better with Rs than 2020. Taken together that means if we are running even in the 7 battleground states, as we are today, we are actually running ahead of our 2020 vote - a truly remarkable achievement, and a sign of this late break and the power of the Democratic grassroots to keep pushing our performance to the upper end of what’s possible when we go to work.
Even though the national electorate is only 3 points more D than R today, in the various polls of the early vote we are running 20+ points better than Republicans. This is a confirmation that we are picking up a fair number of R and unaffiliated voters in the early vote, and that we are heading into Election Day in better shape in the early vote than 2020, an election we won.
Let’s look at the gains we’ve made in the four sunbelt states since October 23rd. This data compares the GOP lead in the early vote compared to 2020 to their lead/deficit today:
Arizona - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 7.9 percentage points. Today Democrats lead in AZ by 0.7 points.
Georgia - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 2.6 percentage points. Today Democrats lead in GA by 3.1 points.
Nevada - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 13.1 percentage points. Dems have cut this lead to 4.2 points. As Nevada Senator Cortez Masto explained in our recent Closing Strong interview, the unaffiliated vote in NV is going to be larger and more Dem due to the adopting of automatic voter registration in the state. In what is a good sign for us the percentage of the very D unaffiliated vote has risen a lot in recent days. In my view it is likely, given current trends, that we will enter E-D ahead of 2020 in the NV early vote.
North Carolina - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 11.1 percentage points. Dems have cut this lead to 2.2 points. As NC today has a higher share of its early vote coming in as unaffiliated than 2020, it is almost certain we are now outpacing our 2020 early vote in the Tar Heel state.
As we’ve been discussing all week, as PA does not have early in person voting, only mail, there will be far less early vote here than in the other battleground states. Many PA Ds have decided to vote in person rather than by mail to ensure their vote is counted on Election Day. For all these reasons the PA early vote is far less important than in other states, and so that we are off a few points from 2020 isn’t that material. It’s a few points off from a smaller vote. PA is going to be an old fashioned Election Day state in 2024, and far too many are reading far too much into the current PA early vote returns.
The bottom line - if anyone is winning the early vote right now it is us. Our superior campaign has repelled the GOP’s ferocious effort to improve their battleground state early vote performance, an ominous sign for Trumpworld. For what we are seeing now in the early vote is that same Democratic overperformance of expectations that we’ve been seeing through our elections since Dobbs (for on our repeated Dem overperformance see here).
In 2022 Tom Bonier and I believed that we would do better than folks expected because all the indicators of intensity were pointing to us - overperformance in special elections, voter reg turning more Dem, Dems raising more money and finally we outperformed expectations in the early vote. And we did do better than everyone expected.
We are seeing that same Dem heightened intensity that drove our wins in 2022 in this election now. We are raising more money. Voter reg got much better for us after Harris became the candidate. In the limited special and primary elections we had this year saw this repeated Dem overperformance and that MAGA struggle. And now we are seeing Dems outperforming expectations in the early vote. To repeat - it is incredible that Republicans have not been able to make gains in the battleground early vote this year despite their enormous efforts. It is a huge failure by the Trump campaign, and is perhaps a sign of what is to come on Election Day.
We are winning the 2024 election my friends, but have not won it yet. We need to keep working hard and enter Tuesday night with no regrets and having left it all out there on the playing field, together.
Working Hard And Closing Strong In The Home Stretch - 2 days of voting left everyone - let’s keep working it!
My final ask of the election - invest in either Ruben Gallego/Arizona or Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. We need to keep that second pathway to 270 open in case any of the core three - MI, PA, WI - falls. We were tied or ahead in both states this week in most polling and need to close strong. Or just give to any of these worthy candidate or state parties, help us hit our goals, and make sure you wake up on Tuesday with no regrets!!!!!!
Harris-Walz, Our Presidential Checkmate States and Wisconsin - Learn more about our “checkmate” strategy, and support Ruben Gallego and these three front-line state parties:
Harris-Walz, The Mothership - $1,416,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Subscribe to The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel and watch her inspiring rallies live
North Carolina - $1,085,000 raised, $1,110,000 goal (new F—- Trump Stretch Goal) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $680,000 raised, $700,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Wisconsin Dem Party - $138,000 raised, $200,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch Our Recent Closing Strong Interview with the great Ben Wikler
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $319,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb.
Winning The House - Keeping getting very good vibes from our candidates and House Democratic leadership about flipping the House this year. We need to keep working it peeps!
Support All 15 Hopium-Backed Candidates With A Single Donation - $1,862,000 raised, $2,000,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates (for our higher net worth donors note that you can give up to $49,500 split 15 ways for this group). You can donate to any one of our 15 candidates directly here.
Keeping The Senate Blue - this is a brawl my friends, and we just have to keep working it:
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $680,000 raised, $700,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Montana/Jon Tester - $201,000 raised, $200,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $136,000 raised, $150,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Wisconsin Dem Party/Tammy Baldwin - $138,000 raised, $200,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $319,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Growing The Hopium Community - We’ve set some goals for the growth of our community so more of us can be doing more and worrying less in the home stretch:
Hopium Subscribers - 119,490 this morning, 125,000 goal
Paid Subscribers - 13,979 this morning, 14,000 goal
Great work everyone. You can become a paid subscriber and help us hit our goals by clicking on the link below or following this link. The subscription tab includes options for gift and group subscriptions, all 10% off through Election Day!
Keep working hard all. So proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
Share this post