New Biden Memo and Ad, I'd Much Rather Be Us Than Them, Do More and Worry Less

Early voting in the Presidential election begins on Sept 20th - less than 4 months away!

Happy Friday and Memorial Day weekend all. Got a few things for you today:

I’d Much Rather Be Us Than Them - Yesterday I posted a new video recording with my latest take on the 2024 election, a review of encouraging recent data on food prices, inflation, crime and other matters, and a round up of my most important recent political analysis. Lots there for you to chew on over this long weekend.

In the NYT today Nate Cohn has an analysis, “A Polling Risk For Trump: His Advantage May Not Be As Stable As It Looks,” which will sound very familiar to folks in the Hopium community:

The polls have shown Donald Trump with an edge for eight straight months, but there’s a sign his advantage might not be quite as stable as it looks: His lead is built on gains among voters who aren’t paying close attention to politics, who don’t follow traditional news and who don’t regularly vote.

Disengaged voters on the periphery of the electorate are driving the polling results — and the story line — about the election.

President Biden has actually led the last three New York Times/Siena national polls among those who voted in the 2020 election, even as he has trailed among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of Trump’s gains came from these less engaged voters.

Importantly, these low-turnout voters are often from Democratic constituencies. Many back Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate. But in our polling, Biden wins just three-quarters of Democratic-leaning voters who didn’t vote in the last cycle, even as almost all high-turnout Democratic-leaners continue to support him.

This trend illustrates the disconnect between Trump’s lead in the polls and Democratic victories in lower-turnout special elections. And it helps explain Trump’s gains among young and nonwhite voters, who tend to be among the least engaged.

Trump’s dependence on these voters could make the race more volatile soon. As voters tune in over the next six months, there’s a chance that disengaged but traditionally Democratic voters could revert to their usual partisan leanings. Alternately, they might stay home, which could also help Biden.

In my talks and writings I acknowledge this trend, and argue that what all this can signify is that as people go through the process of becoming a voter - from disengaged to engaged to voter - and considering the choices in front of them - Republicans lose ground and we gain. This is what we’ve seen in elections across the US in 2022, 2023 and now in early 2024 too. We’ve been outperforming expectations and polls in special elections this year, Trump has been - importantly - underperforming public polling and struggling with bringing his coalition together. My explanation for this dynamic is that the fear and opposition of MAGA has been driving our politics particularly since Dobbs, and that as people get to the point of making up their minds and voting many just cannot go for the MAGA candidate. And Trump 2024 is ultra MAGA, super MAGA, the ugliest MAGA of all - and it’s a serious problem for the Republicans this year.

This is why the Biden campaign needs to amp up and start far more aggressively talking to voters, which they are doing now (below); why we need that early June debate to get far more people checking in and beginning that process of becoming a voter; and why we need to keep doing the work to build the biggest and most powerful political machine we’ve ever had. We have a better candidate, better arguments, a far better campaign apparatus and we just have to go out there now and make our case, work hard and leave it all on the playing field in these next 5+ months.

My favorite recent chart speaks to the opportunity we have in the coming months to tell our story and make gains. Voters in the battleground states overwhelmingly believe that things are better where they are. This suggests that we can - and I think will - make the connection in the seven states that things are better because of Joe Biden and the Democrats. Because they are.

Remember:

Joe Biden is a good and successful President. The country is better off. We have a very strong case for his re-election.

The Democratic Party is strong, winning elections across the US, raising tons of money and building our most powerful political machine that we’ve ever had (thanks to all of you!).

And what do they have? They have Trump - the ugliest political thing any of us has ever seen, running a party which looks far more like a raging Trumpian dumpster fire than a well-oiled machine.

Do More, Worry Less - 4 ways to do more, worry less here at Hopium now. I will be building out and expanding this section in the coming weeks:

• Donate To and Join The Biden-Harris Campaign - Job #1

• Help Ruben Gallego Win Arizona

• Win North Carolina By Supporting Anderson Clayton and NC Dems

• Win The House By Backing Our 11 Candidates In Republican Seats

Thanks to all who’ve given to or volunteered for these critical efforts. We are already over $120,000 raised for our House candidates!!!!!!

New Biden Ad and Memo - Here go people!!!!!! Yes, this is Robert DeNiro narrating:

Here’s a new campaign memo from Biden-Harris Campaign Chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, called “The Road to Atlanta” -

“When Donald Trump was president, he made it his personal mission to try and rip health care away from millions of Americans. He gifted tax breaks to billionaires on the backs of the middle class. He lost more American jobs than any president in nearly a century. He called the heroes who gave their lives for our country “suckers” and “losers.” And when the country needed leadership amid a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, he tear gassed citizens and encouraged Americans to inject themselves with bleach to ward off COVID, while hundreds of thousands of Americans died as he mismanaged the pandemic.

But that was just the beginning.

When Trump lost the 2020 election, he snapped.

He tried desperately to cling to power, and encouraged a violent assault on our nation’s Capitol, cheering on a mob that threatened to hang his own vice president. He calls those January 6 insurrectionists “patriots.” He takes credit any chance he gets for overturning Roe v. Wade and ripping away the freedom for women to make their own health care decisions – and he would go even further in a second term, supporting punishing women and banning abortion nationwide. He constantly echoes the words of dictators and invokes the language of Nazi Germany – embracing political violence on the stump, warning of a “bloodbath” if he loses again, and pledging to rule as a dictator on “day one.”

This is the Trump agenda in 2024. And on June 27, it will be on full display in primetime for the American people to see in 4K. Joe Biden will hold Donald Trump accountable for all of it on the debate stage – and he’s raring to go.

This road to the Atlanta debate begins in earnest today with “Snapped,” the campaign’s newest ad, which features two-time Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro. Airing on national TV, in local markets, and digitally across every battleground state, the ad highlights how Trump’s unhinged pursuit of revenge and retribution has only grown since he lost the 2020 election. While he was out of control as president, he is running to go further: threatening to be a dictator, calling to terminate the Constitution, and warning of a “bloodbath” if he loses.

As President Biden said last week when he challenged Donald Trump to debate, the President has a list of things he’d like to talk to Trump about:

1. How Trump was the architect of the repeal of Roe – and wants to go even further in a second term;

2. How Trump attacks our democracy, continues to embrace political violence, and spreads conspiracies about the election he lost, and plans to punish his enemies, silence his opponents, and incite more chaos, division, and violence if he regains power;

3. And how his economic plans, from his billionaire tax giveaways to his plans to gut Social Security and Medicare, would make him and his friends richer and jack up costs for the middle class – the same fraudulent and self-centered approach he’s taken his entire life.

In the month leading up to that first debate, the Biden-Harris campaign will zero in on Trump’s dangerous campaign promises and unhinged rhetoric. We will make sure that the voters who will decide this election are reminded of the chaos and harm Trump caused as president – and why they booted him out four years ago. Trump and his lagging campaign will be left to explain to voters why he embraces political violence, brags about abortion bans, threatens to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Social Security and Medicare, and puts greedy corporations and himself over American workers again and again.

Team Biden-Harris will drive these key themes across the entire campaign in the lead-up to the debate, including through new paid media efforts, earned media opportunities, and on the ground organizing and battleground events to bring the stakes of this election to every voter who will decide it.

The campaign will organize around key moments, including:

• The anniversary of the Dobbs decision, which took reproductive freedoms away from millions of women, which Trump says he's "proud" to have done.

• The anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, where a weapon of war was used to murder 49 people – a tragedy to any normal person, but to Trump just something we should all just “get over”

And while we focus on these key issues in the run-up to Atlanta, Team Biden-Harris will also continue to bolster its outreach and organizing programs around other mobilizing issues with the communities that will decide this election.

All the while, we should expect Team Trump to do what it does best: nothing. Their bare-bones campaign would take a few Truth Social rants with a MAGA rally sprinkled in over having their candidate out there talking about the issues that Americans care most about. Because when Trump’s abortion-banning, billionaire-shilling, election-denying agenda is on the ballot, it’s a loser. Just like him.

As we head into the summer, the choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump – between a leader who fights for everyday Americans and a chaos agent waging a self-obsessed campaign of revenge and retribution – is continuing to crystallize for voters. And the stakes are painfully clear: Our fundamental rights and freedoms, our economic opportunities, and our health care are all on the line.

While the stakes of this election are clear, so is the case for Joe Biden. He is prepared to bring that case to the American people in Atlanta on June 27. Donald Trump said he would debate any time, anywhere, any place – and now he can hear it for himself. If he shows up.” Yes, if he shows up.

I talked about many of the themes of the memo on CNN yesterday:

Rest up this weekend friends. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and a big election to go win. Every day I remain so very proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon