New Harris Ads, Good New Battleground Polls, Working From Joy, Trump Is Melting Down

Our Hopium Community Is Now 100,000 Strong - Thank You All!

Happy Friday all. And a good Friday it is! Let’s get to it:

Another Remarkable Week for Vice President Harris - So friends, we are three weeks into this new election and it’s hard to imagine how things could have turned out better for us, and for the country. The Vice President has come out of the box strong, confident, ready, in command of this critical moment in our history. The Biden campaign seamlessly became the Harris campaign. The party has rallied around her. Her message has been clear, powerful, leaning hard into freedom and opportunity. She found a great partner in Governor Walz. The crowds at her events have been raucous and huge. Her early media has been compelling and effective. We’ve seen an explosion of money and volunteers. She’s taken the lead in the national polls, and polling in the states is also very encouraging. Here are three state polls released yesterday:

• AZ Harris 44% - Trump 42% HighGround

• GA Harris 48% - Trump 48% AARP

• WI Harris 48% - Trump 45% RMG

It’s all very encouraging, exciting and motivating.

The Harris campaign has released two new ads. Be sure to watch and spread aggressively through your networks.

The first is about her middle class upbringing and values:

The second is about the border. “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”

In a new video released yesterday I spelled out, in depth, about why I am so optimistic about winning this November. We have the advantage now and are playing to win. The other guy is melting down, struggling, and has stopped campaigning. His VP pick is an odious, extremist who is dragging down the ticket. Their attacks on Governor Walz this week have been deranged, disgraceful, desperate and easily debunked. Their thing is becoming a vintage Trumpian shitshow, again:

You can catch the magical Harris-Walz rallies live or watch recordings (well worth your time) on the campaign’s YouTube channel. You can also donate here to Harris-Walz, volunteer or buy fun new merch. However you become part of the campaign do not wait. Join, engage, today - for when we fight, we win!

This week we’ve been talking the need for us to transition from working from worry and fear to a more powerful place where we work from joy and optimism. Here’s what I wrote in my first Hopium post back in March of 2023:

I am calling it Hopium Chronicles because I want this to be a journey guided by hope and optimism, of belief in ourselves, in love of country and a clear understanding of the nature of the conflict we are in. I have become convinced that part of Greater MAGA’s strategy is to intentionally poison our discourse with negative sentiment every day. They want us to feel bad about America, our democracy, our leaders, our institutions, our success, each other, ourselves. We cannot let them do that any more. While they talk American down every day, we need to talk it up. While they spread lies, we respond with truth and data. Hopium is a rejection of the darkness they are trying to spread. It is a way of standing up for our great country and its remarkable people. It is the key to how we win.

Friends, if we do the work we can have the election we’ve all been hoping for this year. Let’s keep our heads down, keep working, and go out and win this thing, together. Remember hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope our elections will turn out well. We do the work, together, to make it so. We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Upcoming Events

• Fri, 1pm ET - Monthly Hopium Founding Member Get Together (invite sent via email)

• Wed, Aug 14th, 7pm ET - Monthly Live Gathering Of The Entire Hopium Community - Registration link will be available tomorrow

• Thur, Aug 15th, 730pm ET - Hopium Winning The House Thursday for Will Rollins (CA-41) - Registration link will be available tomorrow

• Fri, Aug 16th, 1pm ET - With Democrats, Things Get Better - as a way to prep for the Democratic Convention I will be doing a live showing of my signature presentation about the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party. It is updated and refreshed every time I present it so even if you have seen it before come check it out. A recording will be available here for those who cannot make it live. Registration link will be available tomorrow

Working From Joy, Voting on Day 1, Hopium Winning The House Thursdays - Thanks to all who came to our Thursday night postcarding and phonebanking session last night for Kirstin Engel. We got more than 4,000 postcards written and made calls though our phonebanking had some issues last night. Each week we keep learning and improving and I am sure next week’s session with Will Rollins will be our best so far.

A huge thank you to the volunteer team who have been producing these wonderful events - Robbin Warner, Susan Wagner, Elizabeth Reingold, Ellen Bender, Judy Weinstein, Sandy Johnson and Chris Roat - and our partner organizations Markers for Democracy, Postcards4VA and the DCCC.

If you are looking for other ways to help us win this November, please consider supporting one of our Hopium backed candidates or state parties. Our ambitious fundraising goals are now for the first day of early voting, September 20th. It’s show time people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Harris-Walz!!!!!! - $826,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Learn More. Let’s keep working it people!

• Winning The House - $786,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $62,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 11 or each one individually). Be sure to watch my recent interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries who came by to thank the Hopium community and give us an update on our efforts to flip the House this November

• North Carolina - $359,000 raised today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $313,000 raised today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $133,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s the great NC Dem Party Chair Anderson Clayton thanking the Hopium community for our huge investment in helping her turn the Tar Heel State blue:

Here’s how you can do even more:

• Volunteer for the Harris-Walz campaign - Join the hundreds of thousands of people who have volunteered in recent weeks!

• Watch our Winning The House interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Will Rollins (CA-41), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Rudy Salas (CA-22) and Josh Riley (NY-19). Great candidates all!

• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in three states on September 20th - just 41 days away!

• 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.

Hopium Hits 100,000! - We did it everyone! Yesterday our community became 100,000 people strong. Thanks to all of you for being here, and helping us grow. I am having a great time with all of you, and we are making a difference, a real difference, together. As a way of marking this moment I’ll share my short video about why I am here, why I do this work, and why I am so optimistic that together we can beat the fascists this fall - as Europe, the UK and France just did - and start the process of sending MAGA into the dustbin of history where it clearly belongs……

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