Happy Tuesday all. We are in the midst of a very strong stretch for the Harris campaign - big debate win, remarkable Oprah event, crushing Trump in August fundraising, encouraging polls, raucous crowds, huge interest rate cut, gas prices down, crime rates down and a campaign on offense, working to expand their coalition, contest every state and issue.
And Trump. Cats and dogs. Sharks and batteries. Women have died due to his abortion bans. His ally Mark Robinson melting down in must win North Carolina. Nebraska’s blue dot will remain the blue dot. Ongoing fundraising struggles. His new media company’s stock is crashing. House Republicans are starting to complain about his hawking bibles, books, coins and crypto to line his pockets rather than help them. Trump continues to be a rapist, fraudster, traitor, 34 times felon and his party will now be forever known as the party of insurrection and American betrayal. It is new levels of ugly and extremism every week.
I’ve written a lot about polling here in recent weeks but I want to review a bit of data this morning and make the argument that Harris is now hovering at or above Biden 2020 results. Biden won 2020 by 4.5 points and had very small margins of victory in the AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA, WI and came close in NC. Look at the national spread for Harris in these recent, well-regarded polls:
51%-46% (+5) ABC News
50%-45% (+5) Morning Consult
49%-44% (+5) NBC News
52%-48% (+4) CBS News
49%-45% (+4) Economist/YouGov
That’s Biden 2020, 4.5 points. She is tied or ahead in all polls taken in MI, PA, WI in recent weeks. That’s Biden 2020 or even a little better. She has been tied or ahead in 7 out of the last 8 independent polls in NC. That’s better than Biden 2020. She is up 1 in a new poll NV poll today, and the last 4 non-NYT polls in Arizona have the race tied. While some polls have her down in GA the most recent poll by a Republican outfit American Greatness had her ahead. We have a solid lead in NE-02, and we learned yesterday that the blue dot will remain the blue dot this November.
My point - I think the VP is now hovering around where Biden was on Election Day in 2020. That was good enough for us to scrape out a narrow victory. We should be pleased with that. But you know what I am going to say now, my friends. Scraping out a narrow victory is not what we want this year. We have to keep working as hard as we can and help VP Harris keep gaining ground, keep reaching voters, keep driving the early vote, keep doing the work to help her win.
We are currently leading in MI, PA, WI. Polls have gotten much better for us in PA in recent weeks. Winning these three states gets us to 269 Electoral College votes. In addition to holding these states, we need to keep battling to get to 270. We got closer yesterday with the blue dot staying the blue dot. And now have to go fight it out in AZ, GA, NC, NV. Anticipating that this is where we would be Hopium adopted it’s “checkmate” strategy earlier this year by urging our community to support Ruben Gallego in AZ and the state parties in NE and NC. “Check” to us is winning MI, PA, WI. “Checkmate” is winning AZ, NE-2 and NC. One way you can help us get to where we need to be is by donating to or volunteering for our checkmate states (below). We’ve come a long way in the last two months and the VP is kicking ass. Now we need to put our heads down and go win this thing, together.
New Harvard-IOP Youth Poll - The Fall poll of 18-29 year olds from Harvard’s Institute of Politics dropped this morning, and it is very, very encouraging - Harris leads Trump 61%-30% (+31) with likely 18-29 year old voters. In 2020 Biden won 18-29 year olds by 24 points, 60%-36%. So the new, gold standard youth poll has Harris outperforming Biden significantly with young people. Here’s how the Harvard Crimson covered the poll this morning:
Vice President Kamala Harris leads former President Donald Trump by 31 percentage points among likely young voters, according to the latest iteration of the Harvard Institute of Politics Youth Poll.
The poll, released by the Harvard Public Opinion Project Tuesday morning, found 61 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds nationwide voting for Harris, 30 percent voting for Trump, and 9 percent expressing support for other candidates or undecided — with Harris leading by double digits on key issues including abortion, climate change, and gun violence.
When the IOP last conducted the poll in March — before President Joe Biden stepped out of the race — only 50 percent of likely young voters said they would vote for Biden.
“In just a few weeks, Vice President Harris has drummed up a wave of enthusiasm among young voters,” Anil Cacodcar ’26, chair of HPOP, said in a press release. “Harris is enjoying a perfect storm of personal appeal, policy support, and positive reach on social media.”
More on this encouraging new poll tomorrow.
Donald Trump Has Assaulted Women and Now He Is Killing Them - I try not to spend too much time here talking about them here at Hopium. I like to use my time building us up, making our case. This morning, however, we are going to talk about them.
Donald Trump has assaulted women and now his abortion bans are killing them. He has taken the rights of women in America, rights common throughout the modern world, away and given them to Republican politicians. They, them, Republican men get to choose now, not women and their doctors. And as bad it is for the women of America today, it will get worse, far far worse if Trump and Vance win.
Trump has come to understand that causing young healthy women to die has become a serious problem for him, and he has now developed a new, insulting, lie-filled rap that just has to be heard to be believed:
I have been in politics a long time and am not often surprised. What has surprised me this year, caught me off guard, is just how much the Republican Party and its leaders hate women. The raw, unfiltered misogyny has surprised and shocked me. Wanting to end no-fault divorces so women will be forced to stay in marriages where they are beaten. Ending Roe and the ongoing assault on reproductive freedom including IVF. Restrictions on women’s ability to travel out of state. Jail time for women having miscarriages.
Yesterday new video of Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno surfaced. It too has to be seen to be believed. Here is a video the Sherrod Brown campaign put out this morning:
As I discussed in my CNN hit this morning (above, enjoy) I think the abortion issue is becoming an issue for many men too. And it should. Our sisters, daughters, wives, friends, classmates and co-workers are under assault by the Republican Party. And we need to rally and vote for them for what is happening here in America is not unacceptable, and we need to fight. Women are dying, and my fellow dudes we need to fight.
Finally, the Vice President. She went to Georgia last Friday to talk about all this. It was a powerful speech. She isn’t holding back she is leaning in. Watch this video from Jessica Valenti who writes about abortion here on Substack. She talks about why the Vice President’s speech broke new ground, and how she is finding ever more compelling ways to talk about the stakes of this election.
Donald Trump assaulted women and now his abortion bans are killing them.
We have an election to go win, together.
Spreading Hopium in DC Tonight - I will be out and about in DC tonight and invite folks to join me:
COURIER Newsroom’s From Vibes To Votes - 6th and I Synagogue, 600 I Street, NW. Our friend Tara McGowan is hosting a great event with Nancy Pelosi and others. I am speaking on a panel looking at the 2024 election with our good friend Tom Bonier moderated by my former colleague and CNN commentator Maria Cardona. This will be the first time Tom and I will be together live in DC this year. Hard to believe! The event starts at 530pm ET and our panel begins at 6pm. You can register, get more info and live stream info here. The event is free and there are still some seats remaining. I will be getting to the event at 5pm for anyone who wants to connect in person.
Fundraiser For The North Carolina Democratic Party And Anderson Clayton! - From Tara’s event I will be heading over to an event nearby for Anderson Clayton and the North Carolina Democratic Party. Come hang out with me, Anderson and a whole lot of good people. Tickets start at $100 and $35 for young professionals. Sign up and get more info here.
Hard Work Is Good Work/Winning It In October - September is the last major filing deadline for campaigns across the country so this next week really matters my friends. Whatever you got left in your pocket try to give it before midnight on September 30th. 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 - thank you all!
Harris-Walz For President - $1,064,000 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 frontline state parties:
North Carolina - $520,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton. We have hit $500,000 everyone. So amazing. Thank you all!
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $377,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $190,000 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 - $1,189,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates
Support The New 4 - $38,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More. This is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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. This week we are working for Rudy Salas (CA-22). We start at 730pm ET and go to 9pm. 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 - $41,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $24,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $377,000 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 in MN, SC, SD, PA and VA!
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 115,000 strong in our community down the home stretch!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you! - Simon
Harris Hovering Around Biden 2020, Encouraging New Youth Poll, Trump Has Assaulted Women and His Abortion Bans Are Killing Them