Inflation Has Been Tamed - So Much More Is Possible Now For American People, Encouraging Battleground Polls, Let's All Commit to Vote on Day 1!

We Gather Tonight At 7pm ET, Calls/Postcards Thursday Night at 730pm For Will Rollins (CA-41)

Happy Wednesday all. Got a few things for you today, just 36 days before early voting begins:

Another Good Inflation Report. Inflation Has Been Beaten, A Soft Landing Achieved - The main gauge of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, came in at 0.2% for July and 2.9% over the past 12 months. Food prices have only increased 1.1% over the past year, far below the wage gains of workers. Over the past six months inflation has averaged 2.0% which is the target rate the Fed has been shooting for. As we’ve been saying here these last few weeks inflation, a global phenomenon, has been tamed here in the US and a soft landing achieved. It is time for the Fed to cut interest rates and start easing up on consumers.

The Washington Post’s Heather Long posted this today. “It’s looking more and more like the U.S. inflation battle is done.”

Biden-Harris have made things better in America, much, much better:

In the last few months we’ve gotten repeated confirmation of the success of the Biden-Harris Administration - inflation has been at Fed’s target rate of 2% over the past six months; crime and murder rates are way down; gas prices are down; the flow to the border is down and it is now below where it was at the end of Trump’s Administration. 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 and Kamala Harris promised to make things better for all of us, to get us successfully to the other side of COVID. And they have. America is far better off today and poised to do even more remarkable things in the years ahead under the leadership of President Harris and Vice-President Walz.

Writing in The New Republic today, Greg Sargent argues that Vice President Harris has much she can offer to voters in hard to reach places for Democrats:

Which brings us to Climate Power’s new report released on Wednesday. It finds that approximately 335,000 new clean energy-related jobs are on track to be created by over 600 manufacturing projects already launched or announced since August of 2022. That’s when Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars to incentivize the manufacture and purchase of green energy technologies.

Notably, the report finds that many of these jobs—mostly manufacturing in wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and energy storage—are concentrated in Trump-friendly areas. More than 100 such projects are located in rural communities, potentially totaling over 50,000 jobs. Most projects are in GOP-controlled House districts, totaling nearly 200,000 jobs.

As I wrote yesterday it is critical Dems close with a can do, upbeat economic message consistent with the joyful vibes of the early Harris-Walz campaign. Voters in the battleground states believe things are better where they are.

Let’s close strong by connecting that feeling to what we’ve done, and the talk about how much better things will be under our new team. With inflation behind us now so much is possible for the good people of America.

More Encouraging Polling for Harris-Walz, We Are Playing To Win Now - A new set of battleground state polls from the very influential DC player The Cook Political Report has more good news for Democrats:

Before you jump about Nevada, remember we’ve had polling showing us ahead there in recent weeks. We enter our Convention week with a modest lead in national and battleground state polls, far better candidates, much stronger campaigns, a strong track record to run on, lots of momentum and a Trump-Vance thing struggling and melting down. Exciting times everyone! In every way imaginable today I would much rather be us than them.

Do note in the last week we’ve now had two polls with North Carolina with the race tied and two more with Harris leads (one is private, not yet published). Go Josh Stein and Anderson Clayton! Just as I was about to hit send we got more encouraging polling, this one of Latino voters in the battlegrounds. Check it out today if you want. I will be writing about it tomorrow.

Can we win all seven of these core battleground states? Absolutely. But only if we do the work people!

Working From Joy, Be Part Of Our Thursday Night Winning The House Series, Supporting Our Hopium-backed Candidates and State Parties, Voting On Day 1 - On Saturday I offered an in-depth post on the strategy behind our candidate and state party endorsements, including our Presidential battleground “check” and “checkmate” strategy. 36 days to go before early voting starts and we just need to leave it all out there on the playing field everyone!

• Harris-Walz!!!!!! - $850,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel - Let’s keep working it people!

• Winning The House - $821,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. Watch our recent discussion with Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Come to our next Hopium Winning The House Thursday for Will Rollins (CA-41) - register here. Watch our interviews of Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Will Rollins (CA-41), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Rudy Salas (CA-22), Josh Riley (NY-19) and Tony Vargas (NE-02) - great candidates all!

• North Carolina - $372,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $320,000 raised, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $140,000 raised, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in three states on September 20th - just 36 days away!

• Help grow our community. Use this link to encourage others sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber during our Democratic Convention subscriptions sale (10% off through August 22nd!). You can gift a subscription to a friend or student here and get group rates too. If you have changed credit cards or moved you can you update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep our community growing the Hopium flowing!

• Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election.

We have three events this week:

Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Monthly Hopium-wide Get Together - I’ll be kicking it off at 7pm with a 20 minute overview of our new, bluer election and then open it up for Q & A. Register here. Lots of exciting news to discuss! This event will be recorded and shared here for those who cannot make it live.

Thursday, 730pm ET - Hopium Winning The House Thursday For Will Rollins (CA-41) - Excited for this one! Our third postcarding and phonebanking event for one of our 11 Hopium endorsed candidates. You can register here for our event this week, and note when doing so you can now select which breakout room you want to join. We have trainings for both activities live each evening, and for those who are more experienced you can a select a breakout room without training and just get to work. Visit here to learn more about ordering postcards for these events.

Each week I will kick things off with a few comments about the election. We will then be joined by the candidate and then we will we will get to work. Our goal is to let voters know when early in person and mail/drop box voting begins in their states and encouraging them to Vote on Day 1. These events have been great - come check it out tomorrow night!

Friday, 1pm ET - With Democrats, Things Get Better - On Friday I’ll be doing a live showing of my signature presentation, With Democrats, Things Get Better. With Dems is a 30 meditation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, and will be a great way to prep for our Convention next week. Register here and encourage others to join you - the more the merrier.

With Dems will be recorded and shared for those who can’t make it live, and it is new and updated each time so even if you saw it a few months ago there will be new data and insights. This will be the first With Dems since the Vice President became our candidate so it will have to be new and fresh!!!!!!!!!!!!

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