New Post-Election Pods and Posts, Final Hopium Fundraising #s, Putin's Big Win
A hearty welcome to our many new subscribers!
Happy Friday all. Got a few things for you today:
Harris-Walz Volunteer Thank You Call at 3pm ET Today - The campaign is hosting a thank you call for all volunteers today at 3pm. Register here, and I will join them right now - thank you all for all that you did this cycle. The power of our passionate, patriotic and muscular Dem grassroots is one of the true bright spots in this tough election for us. Thank you all!
New Post-Election Podcast - I got together with Tara McGowan and David Rothkopf yesterday for one of our Deep State Radio discussions about US politics. This is the first of what will be many discussions I will be participating in about what happened and where we go from here. Perhaps listen over the long weekend, and for those looking for more pro-democracy content do check out Deep State Radio. It will be an important source of informed content in this new Trump era.
Four more things to chew on this weekend if you haven’t gotten to them yet:
My new video with some initial thoughts on the election, what we did together this cycle and the hard road ahead
Vice President Kamala Harris’s eloquent concession speech
My post, On The Urgent Need To Get Louder, and my recent related Closing Strong conversation with Dan Pfeiffer and Tara McGowan
I also want to note that we have picked up a lot of new subscribers both paid and general over the past few days. Welcome to the ferocious opposition everyone!
Final 2024 Cycle Hopium Fundraising Totals - I am going to produce a more thorough review of our work for candidates, state parties and ballot initiatives in a few weeks, but sending along some initial totals, below.
A few notes: we were the largest bundler to Ruben Gallego in the country, one of the largest fundraisers for battleground House candidates, and the biggest non-candidate or national party committee investors in the Nebraska and North Carolina Democratic Parties. We had important wins in all four of our biggest investments, and I am really proud of what we did here, together:
The Presidential Election
Harris-Walz- $1,419,000
North Carolina Democratic Party - $1,102,000
Ruben Gallego For Senate/Arizona - $693,000
Nebraska Democratic Party/Blue Dot - $320,000
Wisconsin Democratic Party - $142,000
Winning The House
15 Candidate Link - $1,870,000
Donations to Individual Candidates - $300,000
Total - approx $2,187,000
Keeping The Senate Blue
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $693,000
Montana/Jon Tester - $204,000
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $136,000
Wisconsin Dem Party/Tammy Baldwin - $142,000
Nebraska Dem Party/Dan Osborne -$320,000
Hopium Winning The House 15 Update: Here is where things stand this morning:
Flips - Gillen NY-4, Riley NY-19
Still Counting - Shah AZ-01, Engel AZ-6, Gray CA-13, Salas CA-22, Whitesides CA-27, Rollins CA-41, Tran CA-45, Bohannan IA-1, Vargas NE-2, Bynum OR-5
Losses - Jones NY-17, Altman NJ-07, Stelson PA-10
The control of the House will come down to what happens in these districts that are still counting. I hope this confirms how strategic our investments were in the House this cycle. The majority will be determined by the races we fought in.
While the AZ and NV Senate races have not been called, we are likely to prevail in both, and PA appears headed towards a recount. Could be some time before we know the winner there.
The FT Democracy Analysis - John Burn-Murdoch posted an update:
As we parse through this, we have to recall that one of the central drivers of the global inflation that the West experienced was Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and how it spiked both food and gas prices. Part of Putin’s strategy to win the war was to drive inflation and topple the Western governments aligned against him. It appears to have worked.
Final Election Forecasts - I addressed this in previous posts and my video presentation, but it is critical that people understand that in the final week of the election the polls got much better for Harris. The Washington Post battleground state polling average had her winning MI, NV, PA, WI and winning the election. The early vote got much better, and we went into Election Day ahead of our 2020 early vote results in AZ, GA, MI, NE-02 and WI. And most of the forecasters tipped back to Harris from Trump. Here are the final forecasts:
538 - Harris 270 Trump 268
Nate Silver - Harris 271 Trump 267
Sabato’s Crystal Ball - Harris 276 Trump 262
The Economist - Harris 270 Trump 268
Elections Daily - Harris 292 Trump 246
CNalysis - Harris 308 Trump 230
Race To The Whitehouse - Harris 275 Trump 263
Decision Desk HQ - Trump 275 Harris 263
Folks have asked how we all got it so wrong…..we will be discussing that in the days - and perhaps years - ahead. But to be very clear - we went into Election Day ahead of Trump in public polling, and in 5 of the 8 states in a stronger position in the early vote than 2020. Harris was better liked, with a higher favorability rating. It appears the polls underestimated Trump’s support by 2-4 points nationally and in the battlegrounds - within or close to margin of error, and well within the range of a traditional polling misses.
Despite the initial shock, the election was a very close one, with Trump narrowly winning in the battlegrounds, the Senate will be 52-48 or 53-47 and the House to be decided by a seat or two. While we lost the Presidency, we had many important down ballot wins, including in the Senate and the NC governorship, in these same battleground states. This was not a massive win, a wave election or some big mandate for MAGA. It was a narrow win in a closely divided country.
And as I wrote yesterday, like 2022 this year we had meaningful Dem dropoff in large Democratic states without statewide competitive statewide elections. This is a serious problem that we will need to address, but it means two things in my mind:
In our analysis we need to be careful to distinguish between Trump/GOP gains and Dem underperformance.
Trump’s remarkable popular vote win was fueled in part by this large Dem dropoff in the big Dem states and competitive races in the two big R states, FL and TX, that help drive the national Republican vote. It is what it is, but as I wrote yesterday we cannot accept these large Dem dropoffs that we’ve experienced in the last two elections outside the places where we run our big campaigns. It is making the country look and possibly become more right than it really is. We need a more robust 24/7/365 pro-democracy media we discussed yesterday, but we also need a more aggressive Democratic Party-led strategy to engage Democratic voters in all 50 states to drive turnout in every election, in every state. The Democratic Party and our Presidential campaigns have to be more than just 7 battleground states.
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
Friends, on this issue of us "listening more" - has any party done more to bring people from the other party into the fold? Didn't you listen to Republicans of all kinds at the Convention, in our ads, at our events? There is no reason for us to be beating ourselves up about listening. We've done more listening than any party probably ever has.
Like so many I was devasted at the results of Tuesday night. My bank account has been depleted, my tires have been worn down, my back is sore from canvassing, and my spirit ached. I told my husband first thing on Wednesday that I was going to take a break from politics and just focus on our friends and family till February…..And then three things happened:
1. I founded a debating society in my son's middle school and many of the kids' parents voted for Trump. I spend a lot of time talking to the kids about how to discern truth from fiction and how to verify sources. When I went in yesterday, one of the most conservative students asked if we were going to talk about the election. I responded that we weren’t because I was too upset about it to be a good leader. She looked at me and said, I’m sorry that you are sad but you should be happy to know that we can tell what the truth is you have taught us that.
2. When I got home my son (13) told me that I had to listen to VP Harris’ speech yesterday and that it was incredible. He asked me if we could go to our local Democrat Party meetings together from now on because he wants to learn how to fight against Trump.
3. My mother is a 75-year-old white woman living in Milwaukee by the lake. Today she told me about an encounter she had yesterday as she was walking home from church past an inner city school which is predominately African American. As she approached the school, she saw three kids fighting in the street — she said it was more goofing off than anything serious. One of the boys called out to her and said “he’s bullying me.” My mom responded by saying, I’m not sure about that but you all should probably get off the street so you don’t get hit. Another of the boys then said to her, “Who did you vote for.” My mom responded that she had voted for Harris. He responded by saying so you must be really sad today. My mom’s amazing response to this was:
“ I am disappointed, but I am not sad, because I know that one day I am going to be able to vote for one of you to be president. So I need you to study as hard as possible so that I can vote for you to be president before I die.”
One of the boys quickly responded, “We promise we will study hard.” All three boys then gave her a high five. As she passed them by, she heard them arguing about which of them would be president.
From these experiences, I take hope in the next generation. It is my job to fight as hard as I can to make sure that they can achieve their dreams — our dreams. I am not going to take three months off. My son and I are going to our local Democrat meeting together on Monday. All 18 students of my debate club just re-enrolled for next term, and I’ll keep on working with them to discern what truth is no matter what “fake news” they see. And my mom, well she will keep on inspiring all those around her.
So take time to mourn, but don’t lose faith, what we do does make a difference even when we lose. Be intentional in spreading hope around you. But above all else, don’t stop interacting with the next generation — engage them, prepare them, and instill in them the importance of fighting for our imperfect democracy,
As my veteran husband likes to say, “you need to regroup, reload and re-engage.”