Gallego and Whitesides Win, Walking The Mall, More Thoughts On Modernizing Our Comms, The Role Of The DNC, And Getting Louder
Join me in Los Angeles at Grassroots Dems HQ This Friday at 6pm PT!
Good morning all. Got a few things for you today:
Walking The Mall - Yesterday my wife walked the National Mall. This is something we try to do at least twice a year. It was a beautiful day in DC, and it felt important after this dark week to get reconnected with those who got us here. It was also Veteran’s Day, and there were somber ceremonies at the WWII Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and Vietnam War Memorial. Some photos from our moving journey:
Many worked hard and sacrificed much over centuries to give us the opportunities we have today. We have to honor their vision, inspiration and patriotism with our own, everyday, in ways big and small. It is one way we will prevail in the hard and necessary fights ahead, together.
What Happened And What Comes Next - As I wrote yesterday, the way I’m going to approach the vital discussion we need to have is by 1) posting short sketches and fragments here each day with a goal of a more comprehensive take in a few weeks 2) holding a robust video discussion series with folks in the game to get their thoughts and insights 3) keep asking a series of questions of them and others. I am not in a rush here, and nor should we be. What’s important is that we have a well-informed and respectful conversation, together, about what happened and what comes next over the next few months. We are far more likely to end up in a smart place if we take our time and not rush to judgment.
Re-Imagining The Roles Of The DNC, Elected Officials And Grassroots Dems In The Info Wars - As we’ve discussed since the very first day of Hopium, our family has to learn how to be loud not just in our muscular campaigns but every day, 24/7/365. We need to work together to close what I call the loudness gap with the right. We’ve talked here about the need to grow pro-democracy media organizations like Crooked Media, COURIER Newsroom, MeidasTouch, Resolute Square, Deep State Radio and fellow Substackers like Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder. We’ve talked about the role we all have to play in working our networks each day, getting louder, and becoming more accomplished information warriors for our democracy. Today, I want to talk another piece of a new loudness strategy - the roles of our party committees and elected officials.
First, the DNC and other state parties must become more like MeidasTouch. The DNC has to become a central communications hub of the new opposition, and produce high quality, modern, social and YouTube content everyday both advancing our ideas and leaders, and challenging theirs. As some have mentioned here, elements of the social-based KamalaHQ should be brought into the DNC, and large gatherings of Dems along the lines of White Dudes For Harris should become a regular thing. Our party infrastructure simply has to take on a greater comms responsibility in the 20 months outside of the last 4 months of elections every two years, and large donors in our family should support this strategic evolution.
Next, the relationship between Democrats across the country and our big campaigns and party committees must change. The millions of us who gave and volunteered need to be treated like partners in the fight not just donors to the cause. There has to be a more respectful information based relationship between us, where our campaigns and parties start treating us not only like ATMs but also like proud patriots, information warriors and willing amplifiers. In this networked age we must see the 4-5-6m people who gave this past cycle as a vast information network to be deployed to counter the right’s information superiority. Imagine the Senate/House/DNC doing a training on how to understand and talk about Trump’s tariffs or his mass deportation plans with a million Dems over Zoom? Creating a true and robust center-left amplification network has to be an immediate, 2025 goal.
Finally, our elected officials, every single one of them, at all levels of government, need to get louder in every way possible every day. There has to be a revolution in how we see the role of an elected official, both on the official side and on the campaign side. Electeds need to not only govern and legislate, but also should see themselves as influencers and info warriors with enormous platforms to help shape the information environment every day, 24/7/365. Simply, they have to work it as hard as they can, every day, using all the tools at their disposal.
Party leaders should work to create a new baseline of understanding of how people get their information these days to help every person in this process become more effective. Classes and training should be required for all electeds and their staffs, and best practices shared.
In the last Congress we saw examples of where we need to go. House Members like AOC, Eric Swalwell, Jamie Raskin, Maxwell Frost, Jeff Jackson, Jasmine Crockett and Jerad Moskowitz were effective at creating “hot moments’ which broke through the noise and went viral. These kinds of tactics are going to become far more important now in this period of opposition.
The world has changed and we need to change with it or be left behind.
More On 2024 - Here’s what we know right now:
My working summary, which updates daily as new info comes in:
2024 was a close election. Trump will win by approx. 1.5 pts, and 0.9 in WI, 1.4 in MI, 2.0 in PA and 2.2 in GA. A shift of 2 points in MI, PA, WI and Harris wins. 2024 was not a landslide, not a blowout. It was a close election. The Senate today is at 52-48 (PA is still counting) and the House will be decided by a few seats, either way. While we lost some House seats, we’ve also flipped a few, including 4 in New York State this cycle. While Harris lost in the 7 battleground states, we had important down ballot wins, including AZ, MI, NV, WI Senate and NC Gov. We had other important wins across the US and did win the blue dot again in Nebraska.
Despite him being a rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon there was a 5.8 point shift in the national popular vote towards Trump this cycle, and Trump is on track to be only the second Republican to win the national popular vote since 1988. While there were bright spots this year, this was a very bad election for our party, our freedoms, our democracy and our future and there is a lot of important work ahead of us.
Ruben Gallego and George Whitesides Win - Ruben Gallego has officially won (congrats everyone!) in Arizona and George Whitesides has officially flipped CA-27.
Here is where our 15 endorsed candidates stand now:
Flips (4) - George Whitesides (CA-27), Gillen NY-4, Riley NY-19, Janelle Bynum OR-5
Too Close To Call/Still Counting - (6) Engel AZ-6, Gray CA-13, Salas CA-22, Rollins CA-41, Tran CA-45, Bohannan IA-1
Losses (5) - Shah AZ-01, Vargas NE-02, Jones NY-17, Altman NJ-07, Stelson PA-10
What happens in these races in the coming days - the place where we put out money and time - will determine control of the House. I remain very proud of the good we’ve done, together, this cycle. We made deeply strategic investments, and let’s hope that some of them end up giving us the House.
Also want to note the success we’ve had in New York this cycle. We’ve now flipped 4 NY House seats this year - NY-3, NY-4, NY-19 and NY-22. These wins have been another bright spot in a tough year.
Post-Election Pods, Posts and Videos - I got together with Tara McGowan and David Rothkopf last Thursday for one of our Deep State Radio discussions about US politics. This is the first of what will be many discussions I will be participating in about what happened and where we go from here.
A few more things to chew on this week if you haven’t gotten to them yet:
Proud of All Of You - My big thank you to members of the Hopium community who left it all out there on the playing field this cycle
My new video with some initial thoughts on the election, what we did together this cycle and the hard road ahead.
My post, On The Urgent Need To Get Louder, and my recent related Closing Strong conversation with Dan Pfeiffer and Tara McGowan
My Friday post on the need for the national Democratic Party to compete more aggressively in all 50 states and not just the 7 battlegrounds
Ballot Curing - There are still states where we are working to help people “cure” their ballots. Curing is a process where a mail/dropbox ballot is rejected for a missing signature or other reasons, and we notify people that this has happened and help them “cure” or fix it so their votes count. If you would like to help out in this process you can sign up for DCCC calls into California this week, or a parallel process being run by the DNC. Yes more work to do in the 2024 election!
Hopium “Thank You, Rest Up and Get Ready” Party in Los Angeles This Friday at 6pm - I am heading out to Los Angeles later this week to speak to a class at USC’s Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism. While there, and as a way to thank the many people who volunteered and donated this year, I’m teaming up with our friends at the Grassroots Democrats HQ to have a formal thank you party Friday at 6pm PT. It will take place at the GDHQ office, 1027 Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles. All members of the Hopium community are invited so please RSVP today! I am really looking forward to seeing members of this community, and thanking all of you in person.
While we did not have the election we all wanted to have, grassroots Democrats have much to be proud of, and left it all out there on the playing field this year. It will be an honor to be able to thank folks in person for their extraordinary work this cycle (which in California continues this week!).
Tuesday, November 19th, 1pm ET - With Democrats, Things Get Better - Join me for the next live showing of my big picture presentation on American politics, With Democrats, Things Get Better. It is newly updated with each showing, so even if you caught it earlier this year there will be new data and fresh analysis. Please register here. The arguments in this presentation are foundational to our work here at Hopium, and will be helpful to those wrestling with where we go from here.
My favorite slide from With Dems:
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
This thinking —YOUR constructive and light-shedding thinking—is precisely what we need right now. Thank you for rising above the blame game and setting us on a path of possibility. I love the path(s) you are beginning to draw. I dream of seeing you, Robert Hubbell, Heather, and a few others being invited into each other's worlds—perhaps monthly panel conversations featuring all of you (interviewed by someone like Tara, say), then shared on your respective sites. A growing, centralizing place of reason. A sense that we aren't in silos but together. A way of getting coherently and collectively loud. I also dream, as noted yesterday, of bringing in some voices of absolute experts in fields like immigration, who can help us tell the story of how we NEED the immigrants they are about to expel. Let's tell those stories. Let's try to save some lives together. Now.
Congratulations, Ruben Gallego! He is such a bright light among the new generation of Democrat leaders.