Happy Friday all. I was feeling good this morning so I made a video above which lays out where I think things are. Hope you will find time to watch this weekend and share it with others. My big takeaway is that it has been another good week for the blue team. Polling remains encouraging. Our ticket is remarkably popular - people just really like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Harris is making gains on the economy, and is now even ahead of Trump on the economy in some polls (a huge achievement by the campaign). On Wednesday she again offered a very strong contrast between her forward-looking, opportunity based economic plan and Trump’s Russian-back plan to wreck the US and global economies. We got more welcome news on inflation. The stock market keeps breaking records. We learned yesterday that our economy grew much faster in recent years than we understood, making the Biden-Harris economic record that more remarkable. The Vice President met with President Zelenskyy yesterday and reaffirmed our commitment to keeping Ukraine a free, sovereign nation. She is strong, prepared, getting it done. We are ahead in the polls, having very bigger rallies than Mr. Trump and have a much greater capacity to close strong.
On Wednesday I wrote about how voters in our coalition are much happier with the economy than those in the right-wing media bubble; how their relentless lies about what has been a very, very strong American economic recovery really distorted our discourse, and led people, many many people, to believe things that were far worse than they were. Look at this new graph I found this morning. Due to very strong wage growth throughout the entire Biden Presidency, groceries are actually more affordable today than they were under Trump. Of course all we ever hear about is how prices have risen, not how due to huge gains in wages and wealth Americans are clearly better off today by virtually every measure:
The fascists have not had a good week. Again. It is clear now Trump’s historically awful debate performance did significant damage to his campaign, and he’s too scared to debate her a second time. We’ve learned that while Trump has sexually assaulted women his abortion bans are now killing them. He embarrassed the United States of America on the global stage this morning in a completely unhinged rant while standing with President Zelenskyy. He is doing about one third the number of rallies he did in 2016 and his crowds are thin. The Robinson meltdown in North Carolina could easily cost him the election. The blue dot in Nebraska will remain the blue dot. Polling in FL and TX cannot be comforting to them. JD Vance continues to be an unbelievable drag on the ticket, a negative news machine. Trump’s talks are still full of sharks and batteries, Hannibal Lecter, eating dogs and cats and ongoing rancid lies about America and the Democrats. Independent analysts are tearing his ridiculous economic plans apart. Prominent Republicans continue to aggressively campaign against him. He is now spending a lot of his time hawking watches, coins, sneakers, a fraudulent media company, Bibles, books, crypto to his supporters, diverting money from his campaign to line his pockets, apparently preparing for his life after his nine years of grifting off politics ends in a few months.
Here we are:
Here is their guy, a “billionaire,” selling $100,000 foreign-made watches. None of this money is going into the campaign. It is going to him:
Polls And The Election - Last week we saw a slew of high-quality polls with Harris up 4-5 points nationally. In the last two days two polls, Ipsos and Echelon (A GOP pollster) had her up 6-7 points. We saw some polls with her up mid-single digits in MI and PA. The upper end of her range got higher this week. We are consistently seeing polls with her ahead now in all 7 battleground states. A new Fox poll has her up in GA, 51-48. Here are some new Bloomberg/Morning Consult polls from the battleground (all polls can be found on 538):
Yes, some polls had must-win PA tied this week. But we’ve also had these polls too:
52-47 (+5) MassInc Polling Group
51-46 (+5) Bloomberg/Morning Consult
52-48 (+4) ActiVote
49-45 (+4) NYT/Phily Inquirer/Siena
48-46 (+ 2) UMass/YouGov
My bottom line right now is that the election is close but things have been getting better for us since the debate. We are ahead in the national popular vote and we are closer to 270 than Trump. Our continued strength in MI, PA, WI is a big problem for them, as is the epic Robinson meltdown in NC and the blue dot in Nebraska. While there have been some bumpy polls in AZ, we’ve had good ones too (above). Essentially what the polls show us today is that we can win the election. It is an opportunity. With huge advantages in money, volunteers/field, enthusiasm and crowd sizes (really important) we should be able to close stronger than them. We just have more capacity right now to move the election towards us than they do to them. Look at this report from a project that tracks media buys. Trump’s media buys are declining.
Weeks and weeks of us beating them on paid media, generating far more compelling organic social content (vs. their ongoing ugliness) and reaching more voters on the ground is going to take its toll on them. It is possible that some of that good polling we saw this week is evidence of our superior campaign starting to move the needle as voters start to really check in. We are just touching more people in more powerful ways than they are, and over time that is really going to matter. We are winning this election right now my friends. Now, together, we have to do the work to make sure we win it.
To go deeper:
Harris’s economic speech and Stephanie Ruhle interview - both are well worth watching this weekend
More Reasons for Optimism - 4 new trends I am tracking that leave me optimistic about November
Trump Has Assaulted Women Now His Abortion Bans Are Killing Them - As bad as things are for the women of America today it will got far worse if Trump and Vance win
Watch My Talk On The Importance Of Voting On Day 1 And Winning It In October
Hard Work Is Good Work/Winning It In October - September 30th is the last major filing deadline for campaigns across the country so these next few days really matter my friends. Whatever you got left in your pocket try to give it before the end of the month on Tuesday night. Money now is better than money in late October for all these races. Do what you can, and I will note that this community has really stepped up in recent days. We are moving a lot of money into these races and state parties - $50,000 to $60,000 a day - thank you all!
Harris-Walz For President - $1,072,000 raised, $1.5m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel
Our Presidential Checkmate States - Learn more about our “checkmate” strategy, and support Ruben Gallego and these two front-line state parties:
North Carolina - $543,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $389,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $199,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb. Nebraska has become very important to us this year - please consider donating today!
Winning The House - There are four ways to support our 15 Winning The House candidates:
Support All 15 With A Single Donation - $1,235,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates
Support The New 4 House Candidates In Our Expanded Target List - $44,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More.
Donate Directly To A Candidate - You can donate to any of our 15 candidates directly here. Let’s do this people!
Sign up to postcard and call into these critical swing districts in our Hopium Winning The House Thursday series. Next Thursday we are working for Adam Gray (CA-13) starting at 715pm ET and ending at 9pm (note new start time - getting more work in). Register here. Each week in addition to the work we usually hear from the candidate we are working for and I close with a 10 minute update on the election. Join us - it’s where all cool kids are on Thursday nights!
Keeping The Senate Blue - By popular demand, we are now supporting Senators Tester and Brown in addition to Ruben Gallego:
Montana/Jon Tester - $53,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $35,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $389,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Ways you can do even more:
Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting has now begun across the country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Promote I Will Vote to help people check their registration status and register to vote. There are many weeks of voter registration left. Let’s keep making more Democrats!
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.
Grow and Strengthen The Hopium Community - 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 117,000 strong in our community down the home stretch!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you! - Simon
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