I've got a fat stack of post cards to send out, but the instructions say to wait until October 24th. Should I really wait that long? It seems close to election day, and DeJoy is still in charges of the USPS.
Also I noticed RMG skewing the polls again at 538. Why do they even use them?
Are you doing Postcards to Swing States? They have a YouTube where they explain their strategy and why you shouldn’t mail early. If it’s not them maybe you can find out your group’s strategy.
They are for Arizona, and the letter I got with them said don't mail them until October 24th to make sure they have maximum effect on getting voters to the polls.
Following the directions is important. They have a plan for three postcards to arrive sequentially to each voter for maximum effect. If people disregard the mailing times, it doesn't work the way it's supposed to (which is the way proven by research to be the most effective at motivating voters).
Hi Chris. I am an Arizonan and we embraced vote by mail more than 20 years ago. 90 % to 95% of AZ voters vote early by mail to at early voting centers. Mail In ballots will be in the mail Oct 9th. I led a grassroots effort to leave 40,000 voters in AZCD06 and we mailed our postcards on September 30 so they would arrive just before mail in ballots. Oct 24th seems too late to me because about 75% of the votes will have already been cast by the time postcards mailed on Oct 24th reach voters in Arizona.
I agree! Thank you for all of your work Janet. I live in AZ too and Monday is the last day to register to vote as well, in my LD we are canvassing this weekend to GOTV for State reps Christine Marsh, Kelli Butler and Karen Gresham--and of course Harris/Walz.
They have it figured out. Please stick to the date they’ve given you. They take early voting into consideration. It may be that your postcards are designed to go to the ones who don’t vote early and tend to vote on Election Day. They’ve done studies on this and have a careful plan for when the postcards will be most effective. If people just Mail the cards whenever they feel like, they will not be effective. If I’ve gone to the trouble of writing all these cards, and the expense of the stamps, I want them to have the maximum effect.
I look up when Early Voting begins in each state I’m writing for and mail the postcards assuming it will take at least 7 days for them to get there. I’m currently writing for CA, NY, and OH from Simon’s lists and postcards to voters.org.
Linda, over the last few weeks, you have been freelancing your mail dates based on unreasonable fears of delivery days. Mailing dates have been carefully chosen based on multiple well-designed research experiments. Mailing at the wrong time wastes all impact. Remember that casual voters are the target, not the avid partisans.
If Linda is writing with Postcards to Voters (and I'm not sure about Simon's list), many of them are mail-as-you write. In fact, Postcards to Swing States has announced mail-as-you write persuasion cards about social security. But your point that the GOTV cards for Postcards to Swing States are very careful about optimizing the timing of mailings is right on.
Hi Chris, I too have a 24 October date for the cards I’ve written to North Carolina. Those mailing dates have been carefully considered. If there is reason to change that, I am sure "Postcards to Swing States" will let us know.
Chris, please follow the mailing date instructions you were given. It may be that your set of postcards is meant to be the 2nd or 3rd set of postcard reminders intended for low-propensity Dem voters. If your postcard arrives back-to-back with a first-wave postcard, your postcard will lose its value. Are you with Postcard to Swing States? They have a helpful video explainer on their website.
My batch says explicitly that the ones I’ll be writing will be the THIRD postcard sent to these people this election season. So what they’re wanting is a late reminder arriving right before Election Day. I suggest we trust the people who arranged this.
I am so relieved about the strike. In his intro Lawrence O’Donnell explained this happened through mediation from the Biden administration. This administration must be one of the most efficient ever.
Yes, so relieved ! Our Failed Presidential Candidate (FPC) declared a State of Emergency yesterday in Florida for certain port areas and was deploying National Guard and his fledgling State Guard to “maintain order and resume operations”. No need, FPC ! The Biden Admin is on it !
Neighbor2Neighbor canvassing this morn while getting some exercise 🚴♀️ and canvass driving later this aft. 🚙
Your FPC sounds like a little kid who on clips on Dad's tie and steps into Dad's shoes and pretends to go off to "the office". As for the dock workers, I am so glad they are getting the pay they deserve. It's hard work and they often live in very expensive areas near the water. I'm sure POTUS told the shipping companies that he believed the union had a point, that the shipping companies have been very profitable, and they should settle. God, I love Joe.
In Nebraska the two candidates Tony Vargas& Dan Osborn have shown in their words & deeds that they are working citizens of Nebraska. The common man.
The Orange 🍊 Cult has & is trying to portray these candidates as Democrats, liberals, Bernie Sanders brothers. This election cycle it’s not working.
The Osborn campaign believes in their success that they are establishing a network of volunteers to go across Nebraska ( 400 miles) & work for Osborn campaign.
On Tribal, social media Vargas & Osborn are being supported as candidates to vote for as well as Tester in Montana & Brown in Ohio.
This kind of excitement hasn’t happened in Nebraska since Bob Kerry became Governor of Nebraska many, many years ago.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I really like Mark Cuban. He has been a great Harris-Walz surrogate the past 3-4 months. He's been making rounds on many podcasts and TV shows (a lot of right-leaning ones, too). The man knows business and finance inside and out, so right wing hosts who try to BS him on business-related items get a thorough smack down. Love seeing these folks step up. Capitalism is a great thing when it doesn't get corrupted by bozos, con-men, and grifters.
Hoping the Liz Cheney - Vice President event yesterday is a real game changer.”Country Over Party” is an excellent theme. I also hope there will be more of these events, maybe with Retired General Stanley McChrystal please!
Great stuff! Things are about to get noisy and red wavy so keep your head down and keep working. Remember Republicans are going to greatly amplify anything that looks remotely positive for them so don’t get spooked. If we stay focused we’ve got this!
The Target Smart data breakout of vote by gender seems to indicate a higher share of male vs female vote share this cycle v 2022 and 2020, even allowing for the "other" category, which seems to be a new option. If the early vote is more Republican than I was in 2020, that would make sense. I'm not sure what to make of that versus 2022, however.
I am begging all of you not to do this. We have very little data and it is sporadic. Give it time. Do not arm chair this data or you risk confusing people.
Early Vote Update, as of 11:30am: Total Early Votes: 1,331,821 • In-Person Early Votes: 323,002 • Mail Ballots Returned: 1,006,029 • Mail Ballots Requested: 46,577,000.
Longshoremen’s strike ended thanks to pressure and great bridge-building by the Biden Administration! Crime down, drug deaths down, border crossings down. Economy still roaring. Fed rates down. Next on Biden’s pre-election To-Do List: avoiding a full-scale war between Israel and Iran.
VAT and VAN should pick up those who have voted. In Florida, so far our voting is mail-in. I received my mail ballot yesterday.
The primary source for monthly VAT and VAN updates comes from the Florida Department of Elections (FDOE) data disk usually published the 2nd Wednesday of the month. The FDOE disk is a snapshot of voter information as of the last day of each month. It contains current voter registrations, addresses, contact info, status, party affiliation, voting history, etc. for all current voters in Florida for the month prior to the disk issue date. Each voter has an assigned state voter ID that is a permanent identification for that voter in Florida. The FDP Data Team sends the data to the Democratic National Committee in Washington to update VAN for Florida. Updating VAN may take 2-6 weeks from the issue date of the FDOE disk.
This FDOE Data Disk is the source of information used for VAT, but VAT generates unique information from it including changes to a voter’s registration, status, and party affiliation by comparing the most recent data to that of the previous month. VAT also incorporates updated voter contact information like new email addresses and phone numbers and Vote by Mail (VBM) enrollment status from VAN.
Anyone can subscribe to the FDOE monthly disk for free at this website:
It’s far too early to draw clear conclusions from the Early Vote. Besides, as soon as the data reaches "critical mass", Tom Bonier and Simon will be doing so – with "modeled party" and other significant details from Bonier’s TargetSmart.
However, I would like to make a couple of observations about Pennsylvania, where some of the data is rather striking. Democrats have requested 930,000 mail ballots compared to 408,000 for Republicans, and 171,000 for Independents. Most striking is that 7% of Democrats have already returned their mail ballots, while only 4.2% of Republicans have done so (4.1% for independents).
At least in Pennsylvania, Democrats appear to be heeding the advice to "vote as early as possible". This means Democrats account for 72.8% of votes so far, Republicans 19.4% and Indys 7.8%. In other words, early indications are that we appear to be banking an advantage.
Our ballots were held up for a few weeks due to an issue ( I’m guessing from Rs ) in the state Supreme Court. I just got my ballot yesterday. Hoping to get it in a drop box this weekend. So numbers for PA may be lagging from previous years.
I'm not surprised that The Boss is supporting Harris/Walz, but I was really impressed with how thoughtful and compelling his video is. Thanks for sharing that.
Of course, but even at 75 he still sings some of his songs at a hundred miles per hour. More words per minute than just about any other songwriter, except for some rappers. On another note, I have sometimes referred to Leonard Cohen as the "world’s slowest rapper" (he didn’t really sing).
reason for lower support from latinos is univision which is leaning toward trump. there is a lot of misinformation sent to them about biden and harris.
arab americans are evenly split between voting for trump and voting for harris. the ones who support trump are angry about biden/harris gaza policies even though trump plans to ban muslims.
steve doocy from fox news is in florida. race is close between trump and harris 2 point difference. besides abortion rights, what could help democrats win is that legalizing marijuana is on the ballot. passing a law in florida allowing marijuana dispensaries to exist in florida. Bill Mahr once said that if democrats put marijuana on the ballot, they would win every election.
Ross please take this post down. Lots of unhelpful speculation in here. Folks need to stay very grounded and careful about their posts in the home stretch.
Pretty sure it’s just BS propaganda designed to make us worry. Worry less, do more
I'm not Simon but that sounds like misinformation.
Good for you. Get them mailed and then get another bunch! 😁
I've got a fat stack of post cards to send out, but the instructions say to wait until October 24th. Should I really wait that long? It seems close to election day, and DeJoy is still in charges of the USPS.
Also I noticed RMG skewing the polls again at 538. Why do they even use them?
Are you doing Postcards to Swing States? They have a YouTube where they explain their strategy and why you shouldn’t mail early. If it’s not them maybe you can find out your group’s strategy.
They are for Arizona, and the letter I got with them said don't mail them until October 24th to make sure they have maximum effect on getting voters to the polls.
Following the directions is important. They have a plan for three postcards to arrive sequentially to each voter for maximum effect. If people disregard the mailing times, it doesn't work the way it's supposed to (which is the way proven by research to be the most effective at motivating voters).
Hi Chris. I am an Arizonan and we embraced vote by mail more than 20 years ago. 90 % to 95% of AZ voters vote early by mail to at early voting centers. Mail In ballots will be in the mail Oct 9th. I led a grassroots effort to leave 40,000 voters in AZCD06 and we mailed our postcards on September 30 so they would arrive just before mail in ballots. Oct 24th seems too late to me because about 75% of the votes will have already been cast by the time postcards mailed on Oct 24th reach voters in Arizona.
I agree! Thank you for all of your work Janet. I live in AZ too and Monday is the last day to register to vote as well, in my LD we are canvassing this weekend to GOTV for State reps Christine Marsh, Kelli Butler and Karen Gresham--and of course Harris/Walz.
Fantastic!
They have it figured out. Please stick to the date they’ve given you. They take early voting into consideration. It may be that your postcards are designed to go to the ones who don’t vote early and tend to vote on Election Day. They’ve done studies on this and have a careful plan for when the postcards will be most effective. If people just Mail the cards whenever they feel like, they will not be effective. If I’ve gone to the trouble of writing all these cards, and the expense of the stamps, I want them to have the maximum effect.
As for the 538 question - That's just right zone flooding. Don't let junk polls with an agenda fuck with your head!
Thanks to this group I don't.
I look up when Early Voting begins in each state I’m writing for and mail the postcards assuming it will take at least 7 days for them to get there. I’m currently writing for CA, NY, and OH from Simon’s lists and postcards to voters.org.
Linda, over the last few weeks, you have been freelancing your mail dates based on unreasonable fears of delivery days. Mailing dates have been carefully chosen based on multiple well-designed research experiments. Mailing at the wrong time wastes all impact. Remember that casual voters are the target, not the avid partisans.
Please invest a few dollars and get this book that explains GOTV in very granular detail: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780815740636/Get-Out-the-Vote-How-to-Increase-Voter-Turnout-5th-Edition
Also, single piece first class mail delivery (includes stamped postcards): https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2024/0205-average-delivery-time-across-postal-service-network-remains-stable.htm#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20DC%20%E2%80%94%20The%20United%20States,the%20nation%20was%202.8%20days.
If Linda is writing with Postcards to Voters (and I'm not sure about Simon's list), many of them are mail-as-you write. In fact, Postcards to Swing States has announced mail-as-you write persuasion cards about social security. But your point that the GOTV cards for Postcards to Swing States are very careful about optimizing the timing of mailings is right on.
Please follow the instructions you've been given.
Will do!
Hi Chris, I too have a 24 October date for the cards I’ve written to North Carolina. Those mailing dates have been carefully considered. If there is reason to change that, I am sure "Postcards to Swing States" will let us know.
I will mail them on the date they gave me then; thank you!
Also, if your address list is like mine, only a very tiny portion is in the hurricane-stricken areas in western NC.
Chris, please follow the mailing date instructions you were given. It may be that your set of postcards is meant to be the 2nd or 3rd set of postcard reminders intended for low-propensity Dem voters. If your postcard arrives back-to-back with a first-wave postcard, your postcard will lose its value. Are you with Postcard to Swing States? They have a helpful video explainer on their website.
My batch says explicitly that the ones I’ll be writing will be the THIRD postcard sent to these people this election season. So what they’re wanting is a late reminder arriving right before Election Day. I suggest we trust the people who arranged this.
Average hourly wages had a banger of a month people have more money in their pocket.
I am so relieved about the strike. In his intro Lawrence O’Donnell explained this happened through mediation from the Biden administration. This administration must be one of the most efficient ever.
Ditto here on being relieved!
Yes, so relieved ! Our Failed Presidential Candidate (FPC) declared a State of Emergency yesterday in Florida for certain port areas and was deploying National Guard and his fledgling State Guard to “maintain order and resume operations”. No need, FPC ! The Biden Admin is on it !
Neighbor2Neighbor canvassing this morn while getting some exercise 🚴♀️ and canvass driving later this aft. 🚙
GOTV !!!!
Your FPC sounds like a little kid who on clips on Dad's tie and steps into Dad's shoes and pretends to go off to "the office". As for the dock workers, I am so glad they are getting the pay they deserve. It's hard work and they often live in very expensive areas near the water. I'm sure POTUS told the shipping companies that he believed the union had a point, that the shipping companies have been very profitable, and they should settle. God, I love Joe.
So the FPC in FL finally called on the feds?
Never mind. I see DeSantis declared a state of emergency because of the strike not the hurricane.🙄
A great example of what Simon said in his recent video: don’t get all worked up over every news story that comes along!
Dark Brandon comes through again!! What a great President we have!
You may enjoy Robert Kuttner’s excellent article on how Joe Biden and his team settled the longshoremen’s strike. Really quite fascinating.
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-10-04-bidens-amazing-win-settling-dock-strike/
Thanks!
I've voted already!
.
I just handed my completed mail-in ballot to my postman in Florida. And it was Blue top to bottom!
Yay, thank you! Please get all your networks to do the same and have them get their networks to do the same, LFG!!! :)
In Nebraska the two candidates Tony Vargas& Dan Osborn have shown in their words & deeds that they are working citizens of Nebraska. The common man.
The Orange 🍊 Cult has & is trying to portray these candidates as Democrats, liberals, Bernie Sanders brothers. This election cycle it’s not working.
The Osborn campaign believes in their success that they are establishing a network of volunteers to go across Nebraska ( 400 miles) & work for Osborn campaign.
On Tribal, social media Vargas & Osborn are being supported as candidates to vote for as well as Tester in Montana & Brown in Ohio.
This kind of excitement hasn’t happened in Nebraska since Bob Kerry became Governor of Nebraska many, many years ago.
Love this! https://podcast.bizforharris.org/.
Everyone should listen! Smart and wildly successful business people speak the truth. Take that Musk and Thiel!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I really like Mark Cuban. He has been a great Harris-Walz surrogate the past 3-4 months. He's been making rounds on many podcasts and TV shows (a lot of right-leaning ones, too). The man knows business and finance inside and out, so right wing hosts who try to BS him on business-related items get a thorough smack down. Love seeing these folks step up. Capitalism is a great thing when it doesn't get corrupted by bozos, con-men, and grifters.
Hoping the Liz Cheney - Vice President event yesterday is a real game changer.”Country Over Party” is an excellent theme. I also hope there will be more of these events, maybe with Retired General Stanley McChrystal please!
We got this. Onwards !
Great stuff! Things are about to get noisy and red wavy so keep your head down and keep working. Remember Republicans are going to greatly amplify anything that looks remotely positive for them so don’t get spooked. If we stay focused we’ve got this!
The Target Smart data breakout of vote by gender seems to indicate a higher share of male vs female vote share this cycle v 2022 and 2020, even allowing for the "other" category, which seems to be a new option. If the early vote is more Republican than I was in 2020, that would make sense. I'm not sure what to make of that versus 2022, however.
I am begging all of you not to do this. We have very little data and it is sporadic. Give it time. Do not arm chair this data or you risk confusing people.
Let's just listen to Simon, please. He knows what he's doing.
I'm already confused. Not a numbers person and charts of numbers make my eyes go funny. My general take is that we're in relatively good shape?
Just give it time. But so far so good.
I think it’s very likely that somewhat more repubs will vote early than in the last election. That means necessarily more men. NO BIG DEAL!
Early Vote Update, as of 11:30am: Total Early Votes: 1,331,821 • In-Person Early Votes: 323,002 • Mail Ballots Returned: 1,006,029 • Mail Ballots Requested: 46,577,000.
Longshoremen’s strike ended thanks to pressure and great bridge-building by the Biden Administration! Crime down, drug deaths down, border crossings down. Economy still roaring. Fed rates down. Next on Biden’s pre-election To-Do List: avoiding a full-scale war between Israel and Iran.
As of noon today, at least 1,358,109 Early Votes had been cast in 23 states. These 19 states have at least 3000 votes:
VA 386,156•
NJ 166,019•*
MI 154,669•
WI 130,636•
MD 112,362•*
MN 107,421
FL 76,587•*
PA 56,995*
IL 47,509
IN 31,577•
NC 16,059•*
VT 15,863
SD 12,498*
TX 11,391•
ID 9,692••
CO 6,480*
ND 4,548
NE 3,584•
ME 3,558
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
* Ten of these 19 states report party registration: CO, FL, ID, MD, ME, NE, NC, NJ, PA, SD.
VAT and VAN should pick up those who have voted. In Florida, so far our voting is mail-in. I received my mail ballot yesterday.
The primary source for monthly VAT and VAN updates comes from the Florida Department of Elections (FDOE) data disk usually published the 2nd Wednesday of the month. The FDOE disk is a snapshot of voter information as of the last day of each month. It contains current voter registrations, addresses, contact info, status, party affiliation, voting history, etc. for all current voters in Florida for the month prior to the disk issue date. Each voter has an assigned state voter ID that is a permanent identification for that voter in Florida. The FDP Data Team sends the data to the Democratic National Committee in Washington to update VAN for Florida. Updating VAN may take 2-6 weeks from the issue date of the FDOE disk.
This FDOE Data Disk is the source of information used for VAT, but VAT generates unique information from it including changes to a voter’s registration, status, and party affiliation by comparing the most recent data to that of the previous month. VAT also incorporates updated voter contact information like new email addresses and phone numbers and Vote by Mail (VBM) enrollment status from VAN.
Anyone can subscribe to the FDOE monthly disk for free at this website:
https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/data-statistics/voter-registration-statistics/voter-extract-disk-request
One of the MD ones is mine!
One of the Idaho ballots is mine!
One of the New Jersey ones is mine 🥥🌴💪
It’s far too early to draw clear conclusions from the Early Vote. Besides, as soon as the data reaches "critical mass", Tom Bonier and Simon will be doing so – with "modeled party" and other significant details from Bonier’s TargetSmart.
However, I would like to make a couple of observations about Pennsylvania, where some of the data is rather striking. Democrats have requested 930,000 mail ballots compared to 408,000 for Republicans, and 171,000 for Independents. Most striking is that 7% of Democrats have already returned their mail ballots, while only 4.2% of Republicans have done so (4.1% for independents).
At least in Pennsylvania, Democrats appear to be heeding the advice to "vote as early as possible". This means Democrats account for 72.8% of votes so far, Republicans 19.4% and Indys 7.8%. In other words, early indications are that we appear to be banking an advantage.
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-pennsylvania/
Yes, and we are more excited to get this across the finish line for Harris-Walz and all our candidates. LFG!!!
Our ballots were held up for a few weeks due to an issue ( I’m guessing from Rs ) in the state Supreme Court. I just got my ballot yesterday. Hoping to get it in a drop box this weekend. So numbers for PA may be lagging from previous years.
That is a great, down to earth endorsement by Bruce Springsteen. Thanks for the link!
I'm not surprised that The Boss is supporting Harris/Walz, but I was really impressed with how thoughtful and compelling his video is. Thanks for sharing that.
Very articulate and clear. Mr Springsteen talks more slowly than he sings.
He's 75, he's allowed. ;)
Of course, but even at 75 he still sings some of his songs at a hundred miles per hour. More words per minute than just about any other songwriter, except for some rappers. On another note, I have sometimes referred to Leonard Cohen as the "world’s slowest rapper" (he didn’t really sing).
Music uses a different part of the brain. That is why it can be effective therapy for assorted patients, such as stroke victims.
He's a thoughtful man. His memoir is exceptional.
Heard him interviewed on Terri Gross. Deeply thoughtful and highly intelligent person. A real American treasure.
reason for lower support from latinos is univision which is leaning toward trump. there is a lot of misinformation sent to them about biden and harris.
arab americans are evenly split between voting for trump and voting for harris. the ones who support trump are angry about biden/harris gaza policies even though trump plans to ban muslims.
steve doocy from fox news is in florida. race is close between trump and harris 2 point difference. besides abortion rights, what could help democrats win is that legalizing marijuana is on the ballot. passing a law in florida allowing marijuana dispensaries to exist in florida. Bill Mahr once said that if democrats put marijuana on the ballot, they would win every election.
Ross please take this post down. Lots of unhelpful speculation in here. Folks need to stay very grounded and careful about their posts in the home stretch.
GOTV to Nov. 5.
Ross with all due respect you appear to be posting misinformation.
I love Springsteen’s video!
That's the real Bruce. He eats at that diner all the time.
I wondered about that. He looked quite different from his concert attire. :-) Effective communication!!