It's April. Joe Biden Is Still A Good President, and Trump Is Still The Ugliest Thing We've Ever Seen
Welcome New Subscribers/Register for Our April Events!
Happy Monday everyone. I am back from vacation, and ready to go! Let’s get to it:
It’s April! 7 Months To Go - New month, same 2024 story:
Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong, unified, and winning elections all across the country. And they have Trump - the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen.
Sometimes politics is hard, complicated, and confusing. Sometimes it’s easy, clear, simple. In my mind the story of 2024 so far is a simple one. We are strong, successful and unified. They are weak, extreme and divided. We can and should win the election this year. Lot’s of work to do, of course, but we like doing the work here at Hopium. It’s what we do.
We have one more week of focused fundraising for our three core projects right now, all below - Biden-Harris, NC Dem Party/Anderson Clayton, AZ/Ruben Gallego. This early money is critical to create the kind of grassroots and volunteer-led campaigns we know are so vital to our success. In my recent interview with Anderson Clayton she talked about how the money we had raised had allowed her to hire more field organizers. In our discussion with Ruben Gallego he talked about how they were making unprecedented investments in their ground game with the money he was raising. And look at what Biden-Harris is doing:
The Biden-Harris campaign and Democrats have opened more than 100 coordinated offices in key battleground states to build on the already strong infrastructure supporting President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot.
100 field offices already, and look at this, they are even staffing up in Florida!
As for the ugliest political thing we’ve ever seen, he’s “leading” a party that is broke and broken:
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and the RNC are closing offices and cutting staff, leaving them with no ground game in the critical battleground states that will decide this election. This week alone, Republicans sold their Arizona headquarters for cash, their minority outreach center in Wisconsin was taken over by an ice cream shop, and they revealed they have zero presence in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina.
It’s April. Together, we are building the kind of campaigns we need to win. These early investments we are making really matter - we can see it in how these campaigns are growing and unfolding now. Trump is campaigning from the court house, not the White House; is leading a broke and broken party; and today is far more degraded, extreme and dangerous, his performance on the stump so terrible and damaging they are keeping him off the campaign trail.
As I keep saying, together we are building the most powerful machine the Democratic Party has had ever had, and you are now starting to see the 2024 general election version manifest on the ground, across the country. It’s really exciting to see.
It’s April, my friends, and in every way imaginable, I would much rather be us than them. Let’s get to work people!
April Hopium Events (So Far)
Fri, April 5th, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Member Discussion With Simon
Wed, April 10th, 7pm ET - Monthly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together - Register here
Thur, April 11th, 1pm ET - With Democrats, Things Get Better - updated and fresh - Register here
Tue, April 16th, 8pm ET - Monthly Hopium Community Wide Get Together w/Simon - Register here
Thur, April 18th Evening - Simon speaks in person at the Maricopa Country Democratic Party 100th Anniversary Event (Phoenix) - Buy A Ticket Here
Why I Am Optimistic About Winning This November - New resources for your viewing, listening and reading pleasure:
Posts, Analyses, Op-Eds - Biden Leads in 6 New Polls, The Country Is Better Off and The Democratic Party is Strong, There’s Only One Party Good At This Capitalism Thing, Moving On From The Trump Trials, Biden’s Chances Are Much Stronger Than People Realize (MSNBC), 4 Things Biden Should Do Now (New Republic), The President Is Clearly Fighting For Us. Now We Need To Fight For Him
The “Trump Is A Strong Candidate” Bubble Is Bursting, The GOP Is Splintering/MAGA Is A Failed Politics, The GOP Has Worse Than Nothin’
Video Presentations - My Latest Election Overview - “I’d Much Rather Be Us Than Them” (with Anderson Clayton too), Gov. Gavin Newsom Joins Us To Talk State Of The Union, 2024 Election, Hopium’s 1st Birthday!, Ruben Gallego Joins The Hopium Community
Audio Podcasts - The New Republic’s Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, NewDEAL’s An Honorable Profession, Deep State Radio with David Rothkopf and Tara McGowan
Hopium Building Blocks - While on vacation last week I shared a series of essays which are foundational to the thinking behind Hopium. Hope you get a chance to review them in the coming days:
The 50 Year Strategy (2007)
Forward or Backward? (2012)
The Case for Optimism (2017)
Build Back Better (2020)
My First Hopium Post (2023)
Do More, Worry Less and Let’s Get to 55 - Two days after starting Hopium a year ago I posted a new, comprehensive political analysis, Get to 55: Expanding Our Coalition, The Youth Opportunity. Drawing from our strong performance in 2022, I argued this election cycle is one of opportunity for us, one where, due to their escalating extremism, we could imagine growing and expanding our coalition, and “getting to 55%” in the Presidential election. It is a cycle where more possible for us, where we could take things from them, geographically and demographically, and make this election a clear repudiation of the terrible danger MAGA had become.
And is what we’ve seen since. We took away a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat in April of 2023, and ended the rancid redistricting there which made the state something other than a democracy. In May we took away Colorado Springs and Jacksonville, two of the largest Republican-held cites in America. We then got to 57% in two Ohio ballot initiative, and took away its six week abortion ban. We then took away the Virginia Assembly from Glenn Youngkin, and did severe damage to the right’s fantasy that a 15 week abortion ban was an escape hatch from Dobbs. We gained seats in New Jersey, Andy Beshear grew his winning margin in Kentucky, and in more than 30 state House and Senate special elections across the US we overperformed our 2020 results by more than 5 points. 2023 was a blue wave year where we made gains all across the country and just repeatedly took things away from them.
We are now seeing this same post-Dobbs Dem overperformance and GOP struggle show up 2024 too. We took away that Orlando state house seat in January; took away NY-3, bigly; both RFK and Dean Phillips failed spectacularly against Joe Biden in the primary; buoyed by our grassroots, we are raising lots of money, building a strong general election campaign and more broadly together are building the most powerful political machine we’ve ever had. And Trump keeps underperforming public polling when voters vote; Republicans are struggling to raise money, and the RNC appears broken; there is unprecedented and growing opposition to Trump inside the Republican Party, and his party has splintered; GOP House Members are abandoning ship in droves- literally just quitting and walking away. We are strong and united. They are weak and divided. Joe Biden is a good President, the country is better off. Donald Trump is the ugliest political thing any of us have ever seen.
So in this spirit of growth and expansion, we are focusing on three critical projects right now - Biden-Harris, Ruben Gallego and Anderson Clayton and the NC Dem Party. This community went to work in 2023 in all these elections we discuss above; we worked hard for Tom Keen and Tom Suozzi this year; and have been working hard for these three projects too. I am making one more ask for we need to stay on offense, keep expanding our map and our coalition, and keep taking stuff away from them. These three places are the most important places I think you can donate too today, and hope you will take a step to help us win and get to 55 this November.
Donate To and Join The Biden-Harris Campaign - Job 1 this year is defeating Trump, and as the general election has begun and it’s time to get on board the Biden-Harris train. Please donate whatever amount you can - $5, $10 - to get started and become part of this must-win campaign.
So far the Hopium community has raised $194,000 from 2,300 of you for Biden Harris - thank you all!
Make An Early Investment in North Carolina - North Carolina is our most important 2024 battleground expansion state. Please donate today!
For more on why I think North Carolina is so important watch my in-depth interview with Anderson Clayton, the dynamic new NC Dem Party chair; learn about the extremists running statewide in North Carolina this year and why they give us a great opportunity to grow, expand and flip NC blue; and hear Anderson give us an update on her work and the impact our investments are having there.
So far we’ve raised $147,000 from over 1,900 of you for Anderson and the NC Dems - thank you all. Look at what having Anderson there at the helm, with resources, means:
Help Ruben Gallego Win Arizona - Join me in helping Ruben Gallego in his campaign to become the next Senator from Arizona. The polls are encouraging there, and this is a very critical 2024 battleground state - must win Biden-Harris state, must win Senate, two House pick up opportunities (and maybe the state house too). Because Senator Sinema stayed in for so long, Ruben is a bit behind where he should be financially and organizationally, and needs our help today. Watch my recent interview with Ruben, and please donate today! We have already raised over $105,000 from over 1,600 of you - thank you all!
Spread Hopium - Encourage people in your networks to become a Hopium subscriber. We hit our two big March 31st goals - 50,000 overall subscribers and 6,000 paid! Thank you all for helping keep this community growing and the Hopium flowing!
Keep working hard all. Excited to be back, and proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
I love that Dems are going on offense! We have a real shot in NC and investing in FL is important long term regardless of what happens there this year. As Simon says we can’t afford to give up on such a large diverse state even if the past few election cycles have been challenging for us there. Hopefully what happened recently in Jacksonville and with Tom Keen is a harbinger of more wins in the future.
Michigan, Michigan, Michigan! NC is crucial yes but we MUST win MI! We won’t get back all the uncommitted votes unfortunately regardless any progress made in the Middle East from here on out. That said, MI is still ours to lose. Hopefully, you’re all focusing heavily on MI too in tandem with Whitmer. Excellent work all around! Feeling optimistic though cautiously optimistic as Trump remains a persistent wildcard. Harris is fortunately tapping into the female voting block at an unassuming rate against the GOP. Let’s keep at it.