Dobbs At 2, The Threat of MAGA, The Success of Biden - Let's Keep Making June Count

Tue, 730pm ET - June Hopium Gathering - Register Today!

Happy Monday all. It’s a big week this week. The Hopium community really rallied for our candidates and committees this weekend, contributing more than $90,000 since Saturday afternoon. We’ve now blown through our original goals for Biden-Harris and our Winning The House campaign - thank you all!

We head into the most important week of the campaign with better polling, a better candidate, better arguments and a far superior organization and grassroots-fueled political machine. We can and should win this thing this year - as long as keep our heads down, keep doing the work, and this week, keep making June count.

Last week we celebrated Juneteenth, a moment of triumph in freedom’s battle with the politics of dominion. Today, we mark the 2 year anniversary of Dobbs, a terrible setback in our ongoing fight for freedom. Fundamental rights and freedoms, common throughout the world today, were stripped from the women of America by Donald Trump, Republicans and the rancid Roberts Court two years ago today. And our politics changed, profoundly.

It’s my view that something broke inside the Republican Party when Dobbs came down. That for many Republicans this decision was just too much, a bridge too far, further affirmation that the now-MAGA led GOP had become dangerous and had clearly strayed from its Lincolnesque roots. A big chunk of the GOP became further loosened from MAGA, unhappy with their MAGA led-party and MAGA candidates.

Dobbs also intensified our opposition to MAGA, helping fuel an extraordinary spike in fundraising and grassroots activity on behalf of our candidates. This fear and opposition to MAGA became the most powerful force in the 2022 elections, and helped us overcome typical party-in-power erosion, high inflation and low Biden approval to have a far better election than most anticipated. The red wave did not come, and we began to see this post Dobbs dynamic of Dems overperforming, winning and MAGA struggling, and losing, in elections of all kinds across the country, kick in.

It is central to our understanding here at Hopium that this dynamic, which I go into more detail here, remains the central dynamic in American politics today. In the fall of 2021 I wrote a memo, 3 Reasons Why 2022 Won’t Be 2010, which argued that the Republicans were making a big strategic error in running towards a politics, MAGA, which has just been routed in the 2018 and 2020 elections. Usually parties run away from a failed politics. Republicans were running toward it. And it didn’t work for them in 2022. The red wave never came.

They are making a similar mistake by rallying around Trump this time, and a version of MAGA far more extreme, dangerous and spectacularly criminal and corrupt than earlier versions. For all the articles we’ve read about the risk we are taking by backing Biden, a manifestly successful President, we should have been reading far more about the risk Rs are taking by once again backing a failed politics and a loser of a candidate.

We got one of those rare Rs are taking a big risk stories from Politico this morning:

For Republicans who spent much of the year crowing about Joe Biden’s weaknesses, Donald Trump’s massive fundraising haul looked like an affirmation, with the former president erasing Joe Biden’s longstanding cash advantage.

But outside of the money race, a series of other developments in recent days have left even Republicans with the impression that November may not be quite as good for the GOP as it once seemed.

First came the GOP’s underperformance in a special House race in a deep-red swath of Ohio that included a swing county. Then, after Republicans over the weekend nominated a far-right candidate for lieutenant governor in Indiana, a top national GOP lawyer predicted a “serious” threat to the top of the ticket even in the heart of MAGA country.

Now, new polling from Fox News shows a seven-point swing in President Joe Biden’s favorability among independents: They prefer Biden by 9 points, a reversal from May, when they favored Trump by 2 points.

For the first time this year, the poll has Biden leading Trump by two points, 50-48, within the margin of error.

Trump may be raking in donations. But across the country, the mood of Republicans has dimmed, according to nearly a dozen Republican operatives, county chairs and current and former GOP officials. It comes amid ongoing concerns about the effect of abortion on Republican candidates. And it follows defections from Trump in the primaries and, most recently, polling that has found Trump’s conviction in his New York hush-money trial hurting him with independents.

“I do think this is probably about the time that we should legitimately see a reaction to the guilty verdict, so it certainly makes sense,” said Jason Roe, a Republican strategist and former executive director of the state Republican Party in Michigan.

Or, as Tom McCabe, the GOP chair of swingy Mahoning County, Ohio, put it: “This election is going to be decided on the margins, and short-term, his conviction is hurting him in the polling.”

It isn’t just Trump’s conviction, of course. Republicans are now seeing reasons for concern across the map, even in the most unusual of places. Trump is animating base voters — and donors — with his grievances about the trial. But his standing with swing voters and independents appears to be slipping. And other problems for Republicans are popping up down-ballot.

In a special election in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District this month, massively outspent Democrat Michael Kripchak erased 19 points from Trump’s 2020 margin of victory — still losing, but becoming the first Democratic candidate to carry the blue-collar Mahoning County since Trump painted it red in 2020.

Incumbent Democratic senators in battleground states like Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania are polling ahead of their Republican challengers. In Arizona’s open Senate race, Republican Kari Lake, a star of the MAGA movement, is underperforming in the polls.

And Republicans across the map are still laboring under backlash to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. A Gallup poll released this month found record levels of voters saying that, in major races, they would only vote for candidates who share their views on abortion — with the intensity surrounding the issue likely to benefit abortion rights candidates more….

“The best indicator of how voters are feeling heading into November is how they are actually voting at the ballot box, and for the past three years, in special elections across the country, voters have turned out to support Joe Biden and Democrats’ winning platform of safeguarding Americans’ freedoms against MAGA extremism,” Democratic National Committee spokesperson Maddy Mundy said in the wake of the Ohio vote.

We got more good news on the polling front this weekend with A CBS News/YouGov breakout of 18-29 year olds coming in at 61%-38% (+23) for Biden, similar to his +24 Exit Poll showing in 2020 and the Harvard/IOP’s spring +19.

New Navigator polling of the House battlegrounds show Democratic candidates in better shape, and the GOP House brand still severely damaged:

And Democrats are winning across all issue dimensions, including the economy:

In my new video presentation about why I am so optimstic about winning this year I talk in depth about the choice we are all working to establish this year, the contrast between the success of the Biden Presidency and the danger of MAGA. Here’s my latest summary of Biden’s successes:

In the last few weeks we’ve gotten repeated confirmation of the success of the Biden Presidency - inflation was zero last month and prices of many goods are failing, crime and murder rates are way down, gas prices are down, the flow to the border is down. We’ve had the strongest economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world, the best job market since the 1960s, the lowest uninsured rate in American history, the deficit is trillions less, the Dow has broken 40,000 and all three indices continue hover in record territory. Domestic oil, gas and renewable production continue to be at all time highs leaving America more energy independent than it has been in decades. The Wall Street Journal called the American economy the “envy of the world,” and the Economist just wrote about the unprecedented start up boom America is experiencing right now. Biden’s big three investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to combat climate change and will be creating opportunities and jobs for our workers for decades to come.

Joe Biden promised to make things better for all of us, to get us successfully to the other side of COVID. And he has.

People in the battlegrounds know things are better, and we should be able to in these closing months make the clear connection between this upbeat sentiment and our policies:

Here’s what MAGA 2024 wants to do. It’s why we are fighting so hard:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. The economy to crash. Americans to lose more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist's baby to term, and for more women to die on an operating room table. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Huge new tariffs which raise prices on everything, destroy the global economy which has made us prosperous while enacting big tax cuts for the wealthiest. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to get pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

That fear and opposition to MAGA has been the driving force in American politics is warranted, for the threat of MAGA is the most important issue in American politics today. For to be very clear Trump is running now on a platform to:

• End the NATO alliance which has keep us safe and free

• End the American-led global economic order which has made us prosperous

• End American democracy, which has inspired the world, for all time

Yes, it is now not an exaggeration to say that Trump 2024 is running to destroy the country and the American-led global order, an order as I discuss in my With Dems presentation, that has created a golden age of freedom and opportunity for the people of the world and people of the United States. Somehow in recent years Trump has become even more aligned with and an aspiring leader of a global political movement - Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Hamas, Hizbollah - which wants to return the world to an era of dominion, of unfreedom. Trump made that clear to all of us on January 6th, 2021, again on June 24th, 2022 and every day on the campaign this year. He is an extraordinary threat to everything that has made America great; and all of us need to mark this dark day by committing to do everything we can to ensure Joe Biden beats him this November. Due to your generosity and hard work we have been winning elections of all kinds all across the country since Dobbs - but we all know that we have one big one left we need to go win, together, this November. That’s why we are, why we keep fighting and why restoring the rights and freedoms stripped from the women of America must be one of our great inspirations and motivations in the months ahead.

2 Events This Week -

• Tues, June 25, 730pm ET - The monthly Zoom gathering of the entire Hopium Chronicles community - Register here. Excited to see everyone. So much to talk about!

• Sat, June 29 - I’ll be speaking in person at Network NOVA’s 8th Annual Women’s Summit this weekend in Tyson’s Corner, VA. Hope to see DC area Hopium folks there. Use promo code “Hopium” to get a 15% discount. More info, register today!

Let’s Make June Count Everyone!!!!! - The new polls suggest June is turning out as we hoped, and we need to keep making June count everyone!

Learn more about the “Check and Checkmate” strategy driving our June campaign and recommendations. Watch our new interviews with Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb, Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27) and Kirsten Engel (AZ-06). Donate and volunteer below. Together, over the past month we’ve raised more than $625,000 for our candidates/state parties and have already blown past our original Winning The House goal of $300,000. Thank you all - it’s amazing stuff!!!!

Here’s where we are today, and here’s how you can help:

• Biden-Harris - $419,000 today, $450,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

  Watch my favorite Biden-Harris Ad “Flag.” Yes, we’ve blown past our ambitious $400,000 goal - thank you all!

• Winning The House - $347,000 today, $400,000 goal - yes!!!!! - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve blown past our $300,000 goal and are now shooting for $400,000 - great work everyone!

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $212,000 today, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More - Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• North Carolina - $259,000 today, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More - Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Nebraska/Blue Dot -$69,000 today, $100,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More - Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Thank you all! Our community of proud patriots and information warriors just keeps bringing it day after day after day. So inspired by your passion, grit, determination and willingness to leave it all out there on the playing field for this great country. As we discuss in the new With Dems presentation, when democracy calls Democrats answer, and that is what all of you are doing now - answering democracy’s call, powerfully!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10% Off Annual Hopium Membership in June - As a token of my gratitude for all that you are doing, I’m now offering a 10% discount on annual paid subscriptions for new subscribers through the end of the month. Click on this link to subscribe today. On that link you can also purchase gift or group subscriptions for others you’d like bring into the Hopium community. If you signed up as a paid subscriber in the first half of last year and want to make sure your paid subscription is current and up to date check be sure to visit here.

My stretch goal is to get to 10,000 paid subscribers by June 30th. We are within range of hitting that target as we at now at 9,630. These funds will put Hopium in a financial place to close out this election strong. Thanks to all of you who have stepped up and become a paid subscriber in recent days - you are making June count!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon