In A Blue Wave Election Americans Deliver A Powerful Rebuke Of Trump And Republicans Across The Country
People are pissed and we need to keep fighting
Good morning everyone! Some initial coffee-fueled notes on a remarkable election for us and the country……
2025 Was A Blue Wave Election, The Country Is More Democratic Today - Democrats not only won the big races we also won in local races - school board, city council, mayor, county - across the country.
The generic ballot has been 7-8 points more Dem than a year ago, Gallup Party ID has seen Dems gain 12 points over the past year (more on that here). We saw something like these shifts across the US last night. The country is much bluer today than it was a year ago.
The results last night are consistent with polling we’ve seen that has Democrats competitive in red states like Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas, and leading in blue/purple states like Maine and North Carolina.
Sherrill outperformed Harris by 7 points last night, Spanberger by 10. The country has moved, so far, by something like 7 to 10 points towards the Democrats since last November. More is possible for us now. If we keep working hard 2026 can be a cycle of opportunity for us.
The Margins. We Didn’t Just Win. We Won Big - Look at these margins. In most races we outperformed the public polling:
Mikie Sherrill - 56%-43% (+13)
Abigail Spanberger - 58%-42% (+16)
Yes On Prop 50 - 64% -36% (+28)
No On Question 1 - 64%-36% (+28)
The 3 PA Supreme Court races 61%-39% (+22)
The two GA PSC races came in at 63%-37% (+26)
Mamdani broke 50% in a three way race
Jay Jones is up 7 points right now in the VA AG’s race
Mikie Sherrill appears to have restored our traditional margins with Hispanic voters in New Jersey (from The Exit Polls):
We made enormous gains across Virginia and had a very good night in the Miami mayoral election too (it is headed to a December run off).
The many red wave pollsters who showed the New Jersey race close had a very, very bad night.
In retrospect this data from CNN was some of the most important we had heading into the election:
The Polling On The Shutdown Is Getting Worse For Republicans - Newly published Navigator data shows Trump and the Rs losing the big arguments on the shutdown, and their standing eroding as it goes on:
Trump Is A Weakened And Diminished Figure, His Mandate Has Been Revoked By The American People - Simply, Trump has been a terrible, terrible leader and people are pissed. He has done clear material harm to the American people and our country, on purpose, by design. He has become wildly unpopular, his agenda (which Republicans have to run on next year) even more so. He is acting far more like an insane dictator than an American President, something voters have begun to figure out. And people are pissed.
As we’ve written last week we saw some of the biggest cracks in Trump’s Congressional coalition this year as the Senate voted three times to repeal his destructive tariffs (see our discussion with Senator Tim Kaine for more on this). Can the cowardly Speaker, clearly scared of his own conference, really keep his Members home now? They should come back now and deal with the many crises the President’s reckless leadership has caused and must, must get to work on passing a year end budget.
Look at this data from the NYT this morning. Nearly half of all imported goods are now subject to his ridiculous “more for me, less for all of you” tariffs:
In these these videos and written analyses
I have argued that if the elections went well - and they have - there was going to be tremendous pressure on the Republicans to start course correcting and mitigating the damage Trump and they have done to the country and their political prospects. Democrats in Congress need to understand that as painful as the shutdown has been we have forced a necessary conversation about the harms Trump is doing to the country that we needed to have; and Trump and Johnson’s petulant and destructive response to Democrats stepping into their own power has reinforced our core arguments about their malevolence and illiberalism. They have created a vicious cycle for themselves, and all of this contributed to our big wins last night.
The bottom line - people are pissed, and we need to keep fighting.
We have three events to go deeper into this encouraging election today:
Wed, Nov 5, 9:15am ET - I’ll join Jen Rubin and Norm Eisen for “Coffee With The Contrarians” to review the election results.
Wed, Nov 5, 1pm ET - Live Hopium Election Recap show. Will include some special guests. Join us here!
Wed, Nov 5, 7pm ET - A Hopium paid subscriber election recap.
Register here.
Let’s Keep Working It Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make last night’s big wins possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates
Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $49k raised- Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my interviews with Gov. Cooper
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $250,000 goal, $88k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my inspiring new interview with Senator Ossoff
Hopium House 7 (2026) - $250,000 goal, $234k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents
Expanding The Map - Support Our Audacious Expansion Fund (2026-2032)
Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $250,000 goal, $182,000 raised - Join our new campaign to invest in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas and watch interviews with the state Party Chairs of all 5 states | Donate to all five state parties | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!
Our updated fundraising goals are now for the end of the year, December 31st, except for the 2025 races, which are now for Election Day, 2025.
For those who can please vote early, today, not tomorrow. When you vote early your name comes off campaign GOTV rolls allowing our campaigns to move on to lower propensity voters, which increases D turnout and makes it more likely we win. Voting early = another way to help us win.
Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:
1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our our emerging four part agenda. Demand that your Senators and House Member work to:
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world and fully fund SNAP FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE, restoring due process for immigrants across the country, vigorously defending the 1st Amendment, warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents, and ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy
Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia and China
2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston. They offer practical advice on how to get a resolution passed in your own community.
Remarkably, members of this community have passed or are advancing 85 (!!!!) resolution projects in 23 states + DC. Can we get to all 50 states by the end of the year?
Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!
Keep working hard all, and remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today.
We do the work to make it so - Simon
I worked the polls yesterday here in suburban Philly, just as a greeter. Major problems with the ballots (they printed the wrong ones, indies had to vote provisionally, a mess). BUT the feeling, outside in the cold and then in the cold dark, was different. The people who work the Republican side were friendly to me, and I to them. (Not so last year.) People streaming in were polite—on both sides. (Not so last year.) Given how much we all now must do to help those in need (we were also encouraging food bank donations yesterday), it feels as if we might have the chance not just to surge as Ds but to heal our country. Gosh, I hope so. Haven't slept. Stayed up to watch everything, got up to watch the speeches again.
I'm still discovering the scope and depth of our wins, including flipping two seats in Mississippi, and how about the Bucks school board kicking out the Moms for Liberty types! That was ground zero for MAGA's big educational takeover, and now poof, gone.