Happy Saturday all. The Vice President has had another very good week in her remarkable run for President. You can catch me talking about the Vice President’s very good week in a new interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, above.
There have now been 10 polls released with interviews conducted after the debate. Harris has a 3.8 pt average lead in these 10 polls, suggesting the VP has picked up a point or two this week (all polls via 538):
Harris 50-45 (+5) Morning Consult
Harris 47-42 (+5) Ipsos/Reuters
Harris 51-47 (+4) RMG
Harris 50-46 (+4) Data For Progress
Harris 49-45 (+4) YouGov/Yahoo (LVs)
Harris 49-45 (+4) YouGov/Times (LVs)
Harris 47-43 (+4) TIPP Insights
Harris 50-47 (+3) Leger/NYPost
Harris 48-45 (+3) SoCal
Harris 44-42 (+2) Redfield & Wilton
To go deeper on this very good week:
Here’s my new in-depth presentation on the 2024 election. I recorded it Wednesday night with many of you.
Tom Bonier and I joined the MeidasTouch team on Thursdays for an extended sit down on the election. Think you will like this one.
The full new episode of this week’s Closing Strong is out. Tara had some great insights into the Vice President and the debate. We also have a new remarkable roundtable discussion on the deep penetration of the Republican Party by Putin.
The Harris campaign released three new powerful ads flowing out of her strong debate performance. You can watch them here. They are really good! You can also catch her first interview since the her big debate win here. It is with a local TV station in Philadelphia.
New Harris-Walz Latino Effort - This morning the Harris-Walz campaign announced a new stepped up effort to reach Latino voters. Here’s part of the release:
“Today, Team Harris-Walz launches historic actions to engage, reach, and mobilize Latino voters as Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off. Beginning just 51 days before election day and as early voting begins in key, Latino-heavy battleground states, Team Harris-Walz will build on its existing Latino outreach efforts to-date. Todays’ historic actions include:
An aggressive push by surrogates as well as Vice President Harris and Governor Walz to campaign and reach out to Latino voters in battleground states – with a focus on showing up at Latino community events.
A historic, $3 million investment into Spanish-language radio for the month alone – among the largest and most significant investments into Hispanic media ever.
A historic organizing push designed to leverage key cultural moments and events within the Latino community to meet voters where they are, and talk about the importance of this election.
“Hispanic Heritage Month is an important moment to celebrate the richness and diversity of Latino communities across the country,” said Harris-Walz Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. “It is also a critical moment for us to leverage, as we continue to reach Latino voters about the stakes of this election, how crucial their vote will be in deciding this race, and defeating Trump and his anti-Latino agenda. Building on our historic efforts to break through and earn the support of Latino voters everywhere, this Hispanic Heritage Month will be a key part of our aggressive campaign efforts to make our case to voters about Vice President Harris, who has spent her entire career fighting for Latino families, and as president, will always focus on the issues that our community cares most deeply about.”
Really good stuff from team Harris-Walz.
Understanding The Nature Of The Conflict We Are In - In my very first post here at Hopium I wrote:
I am calling it Hopium Chronicles because I want this to be a journey guided by hope and optimism, of belief in ourselves, in love of country and a clear understanding of the nature of the conflict we are in. I have become convinced that part of Greater MAGA’s strategy is to intentionally poison our discourse with negative sentiment every day. They want us to feel bad about America, our democracy, our leaders, our institutions, our success, each other, ourselves. We cannot let them do that any more. While they talk American down every day, we need to talk it up. While they spread lies, we respond with truth and data. Hopium is a rejection of the darkness they are trying to spread. It is a way of standing up for our great country and its remarkable people. It is the key to how we win.
In our Closing Strong episode this week Tara and I talk to former Republican consultant Stuart Stevens and Jiore Craig, a digital integrity expert, about the US government’s stepped up efforts to counter Russian influence operations here and around the world. I know I’ve been throwing a lot of content at you recently but I hope you will take the time to watch this segment. It is a really important conversation about the need for a far more comprehensive response to Russia’s “hybrid war” against the West and in particular Russia’s deep penetration of the Republican Party here in the US.
Here’s the segment:
Note this headline in the NYT Times yesterday:
I have not spent as much time here at Hopium talking about “the nature of the conflict we are in” as I had hoped when I started this thing back in March of 2023. One of the reasons I teamed up with Tara, who is an expert on how information flows these days, was to spend more time exploring these important issues. So I hope you watch our discussion - it was really good - and let me know what you think.
Hard Work Is Good Work. And We Are Going To Win! - Friends, remarkably, we now over $1m raised for each of our three big projects - Harris-Walz, the checkmate states of Arizona, Nebraska (blue dot) and North Carolina, and the 11 House candidates most likely to turn red seats blue. I am really proud of these deeply strategic set of investments we’ve made this year. Thank you all for making this happen. We making a real difference, together.
Due to the VP’s sit down with Oprah at 8pm ET this Thursday, our Hopium Winning The House Thursday will be at 6pm ET this week not 730pm. We now will be working for Laura Gillen, not Rudy Salas, so our calls will be a time when folks are more likely to be home. You can register here to postcard or call for Laura Gillen (NY-04) this Thursday at 6pm ET.
Here are ways you can contribute, volunteer and win with the Hopium community today:
Harris-Walz - $1,045,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel - When we fight, we win!!!!!!!!!
Winning The House - $1,043,000 raised, $1.5m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Sign Up For Our Thursday Night Winning The House Calling and Postcarding Series. Watch our recent discussion with Leader Hakeem Jeffries. To go deeper watch one of our interviews with our great candidates - Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Will Rollins (CA-41), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Rudy Salas (CA-22), Josh Riley (NY-19), Tony Vargas (NE-02), Adam Gray (CA-13), Sue Altman (NJ-07) and Mondaire Jones (NY-17).
North Carolina - $457,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $356,000 raised, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $167,000 raised, $200,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb - and note for those who are focused on the Nebraska Senate race money into the NE Dem Party supports that race too.
Here are ways you can do even more:
Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in three states on September 20th - just 6 days away!
Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party and this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election.
Help grow the Hopium community. Use this link to encourage others sign others up. You can gift a subscription to a friend or student here and get group rates too. From now until Election Day a paid annual Hopium subscription is 10% off. If you have changed credit cards or moved you can update your payment information or check your renewal status by following these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep our community growing and the Hopium flowing! Paid subscribers help keep most of our content free for the 110,000 strong in our community down the home stretch!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
Another Very Good Week For VP Harris, Countering Russian Influence Ops, Early In Person Voting Starts In 6 Days!