Happy Friday all, and another good Friday it is! Lot’s of stuff today. Let’s get to it:
My Interview With Sue Altman (NJ-7), Thanks To Everyone Who Worked For Josh Riley Last Night - My latest interview with one of our Winning The House candidates is above. Please watch. Sue Altman is a very good candidate, and this was a really fun and energetic conversation. My favorite moment was our discussion of competing from joy and confidence, rather than from fear and worry. This is a topic we’ve been discussing here for the last few weeks and Sue’s insights into this as a former professional basketball player are worth your time.
You can support our Winning The House series with a single contribution that goes to all 11 candidates here. To support Sue directly, you can donate here or volunteer here. She has been an organizer herself and welcomes volunteers from across the country. She is an impressive candidate and I look forward to flipping this seat and bringing her to Washington next year!
Last night we had our biggest Hopium Winning The House Thursday so far! More than 400 people joined us and we wrote thousands of postcards and made tens of thousands of calls encouraging Democrats to vote for Josh Riley (NY-19) and to vote early, on Day 1. Josh joined us briefly from an event in Cooperstown, and then everyone got to work!
Simply, these Winning The House events are where all the cool kids go on Thursday nights and you should join us. Next Thursday we will be calling and postcarding for George Whitesides in CA-27. You can register here. See you next Thursday all!
More Encouraging Economic News, Winning The Big Economic Argument With Republicans - From The Washington Post this morning:
The U.S. economy grew last quarter at a healthy 3% annual pace, fueled by strong consumer spending and business investment, the government said Thursday in an upgrade of its initial assessment.
The Commerce Department had previously estimated that the nation’s gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — expanded at a 2.8% rate from April through June.
The second-quarter growth marked a sharp acceleration from a sluggish 1.4% growth rate in the first three months of 2024.
We also got more good inflation news, making an interest rate cut in mid-September almost assured now. Here is a graph produced by Nick Timeros of the Wall Street Journal. Note the darker blue line - inflation just keeps coming down.
A CNBC headline this morning - “Stocks rise slightly as S&P 500 aims for fourth straight winning month.”
The only comment on the Harris-Walz CNN interview I have today is to note how ridiculous the media discourse continues to be on the US economy. We are living through one of the strongest American economies of the last 60 years. Our recovery from the economic catastrophe of COVID and Trump’s Presidency has dramatically outpaced the rest of the developed world. Under Biden’s Presidency we’ve seen the lowest poverty rate, the lowest uninsured rate, the highest rate of new business formation in American history. We’ve seen the best job market since the 1960s, a stock market that keeps breaking records, the most significant investments in our infrastructure in 60 years, historic investments in accelerating the energy transition that will make it far less likely the planet warms.
Inflation has been a global phenomenon, driven by COVID, collapsing supply chains, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and repeated price hikes by OPEC. Because of the strong leadership of Biden-Harris inflation was lower here than almost any other advanced economy in the world, and today, inflation has been beaten. Prices of many goods are falling. Our recovery is complete, our policies a success, and with inflation behind us now so much is possible for the American economy and the American people. The next four years are going to be exciting ones, as we can build on our robust recovery and keep forging an economy that works for everyone, and in particular make the building of affordable housing one of our next major national projects.
Democrats need to stop being defensive about the economy under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The economic stewardship of this Administration has been kick-ass, historic, and not only created a strong economy today but its investments will be creating opportunities for younger American for decades to come. I once again share a chart that I think needs far more discussion inside Democratic policy and political circles:
Voters in the battleground states believe their economies are much better today. We should be loud and proud about this, and connect their understanding of the progress and growth they’ve seen in their communities with the policies of Democrats in the current Administration and over the past 35 years, something Bill Clinton discussed last week at the Democratic Convention. Basically all the jobs created since the Cold War ended and a new age of globalization began have come under Democratic Presidents.
Our party has repeatedly brought growth, rising wages, lower deficits. The other side has brought three consecutive recessions, the last two some of the most severe in American history. To win this election the way we want to win it we need to lean into our success, be loud and proud about it, and take back the economic discourse from those who are rooting against America everyday and journalists too cowered and chicken shit to challenge the poisonous pessimism of MAGA’s Russian-backed wrecking ball.
Loud and proud people, loud and proud!
Harris Gets Her Best Battleground Poll So Far - A new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll is the closest we’ve had to her being at 270 Electoral College votes outside the margin of error so far:
Heads down peeps. Keep working. Early in person voting starts three weeks from today. If we keep working hard we can have the election we all want to have this November.
Tom Bonier Joins The Hopium Community Next Wed Night at 7pm - My good friend and super smart data guy Tom Bonier will be joining us live next Wednesday night at 7pm. Tom will be joining us to talk about two new tools his team at TargetSmart are releasing in the coming days - one that tracks changes in voter registration across the country and another, TargetEarly, which will track the early vote.
We are going to use this event to review the analytical process Tom and I used to get the 2022 election right, and apply that same approach to this election. Tom will be coming with fresh and encouraging voter reg data from across the country, and we will also be spending time discussing why Voting on Day 1 is so important, and why we should all be working to win this election in October and not on Election Day.
Register for our event here. It’s going to be a good one! For those who cannot make it live a recording will be shared here on Hopium.
Trump Broke The Law In Arlington And Must Be Prosecuted - It is very simple. Donald Trump broke Federal law by filming and then posting campaign video in Arlington National Cemetery and he must be prosecuted. We once again return to a basic rule of law issue with Trump - if he is not prosecuted, then we are creating an incentive for others to break the law regarding the sanctity of our fallen soldiers. The White House and Congress also must force the release of the incident report of the physical and verbal assault of an employee of the United States Army who tried to block the Trump entourage from breaking the law, and the Trump campaign must IMMEDIATELY FIRE everyone who involved in this outrageous incident.
The US Army released the following statement yesterday:
Donald Trump is the worst man to run for President in our history. He is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. He is profoundly unfit and deeply unwell. He is an extremist, racist and misogynist. He tried to end American democracy for all time and stripped rights and freedoms common throughout the world from the women of the United States of America. And for this new outrage, for trampling on our fallen heroes for his own political gain, and assaulting an employee of the United States Amy, we should throw the fucking book at him with everything we got. No letting up on this one people.
Supporting Hopium-backed Candidates and State Parties, Working From Joy - In the spirit of not letting up, “doing something” as Michelle Obama said and leaving it all on the playing field as Gov Walz has encouraged, I again make my pitch for the candidates and state parties we’ve been working for this year. A week ago 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. 21 days to go before early in voting begins everybody - time to get to work!
Harris-Walz!!!!!! - $894,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel - Let’s make this a big week people!
Winning The House - $930,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. Watch our recent discussion with Leader Hakeem Jeffries. To go deeper catch one of our interviews with our great candidates - 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), Tony Vargas (NE-02) and Adam Gray (CA-13).
North Carolina - $410,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $335,000 raised, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $152,000 raised, $175,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb
Here are ways you can do even more:
Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in three states on September 20th - just 21 days away!
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. You can also catch my big new presentation the 2024 election and my Wednesday night talk with Lawrence O’Donnell.
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. 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!
Proud to be in this fight with all of you. The election we all wanted is within our grasp now. Let’s keep working hard and win this thing, together - Simon
More Good Econ News, More Good Polling, Winning The House W/Sue Altman (NJ-7), Trump Must Be Prosecuted For Defiling Arlington