My September Hopium Political Briefing and Discussion (Video) - I Would Much Rather Be Us Than Them

Friends,

Here is a recording (above) of the monthly get together of our broader Hopium community. It was a lively group, and I really enjoyed our time together tonight. My opening take on the current state of our politics ran about 20 minutes, and the rest of the hour I responded to questions and comments from our community.

For some reason the backdrop to the video is from a photo from the FDR Memorial (one of my favorite places) featuring one of his most memorable quotes:

We have faith that future generations will know that here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war

May the future say the same about all of us.

Some related material from what we covered tonight:

• The WaPo-ABC Poll Is A Clear Outlier. Dems Are Having A Very Good 2023

• Get to 55, Expanding Our Coalition, The Youth Opportunity

• Winning Virginia (With links to volunteer and donate)

• The Importance of Voting on Day 1

• Encouraging New Hispanic Poll

• We Have Work To Do On The Economy

• Dem Fundraising Is Up, Not Down

• Some Notes on Current Polling and Political Data (Asymmetrical Engagement)

• On Biden’s Age and Thoughts on 3rd Party/Rogue Party Efforts

Here’s the election data I am most focused on now:

• The Democratic Party Is Strong and On A Very Good Popular Vote Run - Democrats have won more votes in 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections, the best popular vote run of any political party in US history. In the last 4 Presidential elections, Democrats have averaged 51% of the vote, our best showing over 4 elections since FDR’s Presidency. Can we improve on that performance and get to 55% nationally in 2024? I think so.

• Democrats Keep Outperforming Expectations - In a “red wave” year, 2022, Democrats gained ground from 2020 in 7 key battlegrounds: AZ, CO, GA, MI, MN, NH, PA. We also picked up 4 state legislative chambers, 2 governorships, and 1 US Senate seat. As we’ve written 2022 was not a single nationalized election, but really two elections - a bluer election in the battleground where we gained, and a redder election outside where we did not. We’ve seen this strong Dem performance continue into 2023 with impressive wins in CO, FL, OH and WI and in special elections across the US. A new 538 analysis: Democrats have been wining big in special elections finds Dems outperforming the partisan lean in districts this year by an average of 10 points in close to 40 special elections across the US - this is a big deal, and similar to what we saw post-Dobbs last year. The Daily Kos special election tracker now has Dems up 7.6 points over 2020 in 27 elections this year. Very encouraging stuff.

• The Blueing of the Southwest - Democrats are having their best run in the Southwest since the 1940s and 50s. In 2004 Bush won AZ, CO, NM, NV, Rs controlled 5 of their 8 Senate seats, 14 of their 21 House seats. In 2020 Biden was the first Democratic President to win all 4 of these states in a single election since FDR. Today Rs control none of those 8 Senate seats and we control 14 of 24 House seats there. Our success with Hispanic voters and in heavily Hispanic parts of the country remains one of the Democratic Party’s most successful party-wide efforts over the past generation of US politics.

There will be no Hopium post tomorrow, as I have some things I need to attend to.

Keep working hard all - Simon