Notes On Ossoff, Platner, Trump's Ongoing Meltdown, And The Importance Of Investing And Winning Everywhere

Big week ahead in Washington - we need to be very loud everyone

Morning all. It’s going to be a big week here in Washington and in national politics. Bessent, Blanche, DHS Sec Mullin and Marco Rubio all testify in front of Congress. We have primaries in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota on Tuesday. We could have war powers votes in the House this week, as well as an incredibly important vote on the Ukraine Support Act, HR 2913. The Senate is going to try and pass it’s huge funding bill for ICE/CBP later this week, a process that is going to be very hard for the Republicans, particularly after the crack up between Trump and Senate Rs over the past few weeks and Trump’s ongoing madman behavior.

Here’s Punchbowl News this am:

Trump has been directly confronting Congress — especially his own party — on a number of fronts. From defeating GOP incumbents to trying to put his face on U.S. currency to attempting to drastically revise how elections are conducted, Trump continues to push the boundaries of executive power.

All of this has left trust between Trump and GOP senators, in particular, at a low point.

Now Trump and Republicans have a real problem on their hands, with two of the president’s priorities — immigration enforcement and rewarding his political allies — in conflict with each other, forcing GOP lawmakers along for the ride.

Weaponization of reconciliation. The Republican reconciliation bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the rest of Trump’s term is in real peril amid strident opposition to the administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.

First, let’s map out what Senate GOP leaders see as the ideal — let’s call it “ambitious” — timeline for this week. They want to begin the vote-a-rama on Wednesday night and pass the immigration reconciliation bill Thursday morning after an overnight marathon. Later Thursday, they want to hold a procedural vote on FISA Section 702, which expires June 12. More on that in a moment.

But the anti-weaponization fund is screwing up Trump’s ICE-and-CBP bill. As of now, Senate GOP leaders are struggling to see a clear path to 50 votes to kick off the floor process for the $70-plus billion reconciliation bill.

And Democrats want to make life even harder for GOP leaders…..

Democrats will be able to use the vote-a-rama to offer amendments centered on the fund, some at a simple-majority threshold, even if the fund isn’t in the bill. Aides in both parties believe many of these will be considered at a simple-majority threshold regardless of whether the fund is actually mentioned in the underlying reconciliation bill. That decision is up to the parliamentarian.

“Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Dear Colleague letter out this morning. “And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote on it.”

GOP leaders believe it’s nearly certain that enough Republicans will provide the votes for at least some of these to pass.

There are four things to call your Senators and House Member about this week:

• Pass HR 2913, the Ukraine Support Act, in the House

• Pass the war powers resolution in the House, reining in Trump’s failed war

• No to the big Senate ICE/CPB funding bill that gives DHS years of funding with no reform of the out of control agency

• No to the ballroom, the Arch, the gilded statues, the slush fund, the corruption, self-enrichment……

Trump’s incredible stretch of deeply deranged posts continued overnight, something that there is very little question Republicans in Congress are well aware of:

Last night Georgia Democrats kicked off their exciting general election campaign, United for Georgia, that showcased the new unity ticket of Senator Jon Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms who is our new nominee for Governor of Georgia.

Senator Ossoff’s powerful speech got a lot of social media buzz last night. I’m including it in here and hope we can watch it and discuss it together in our Hopium chat in the coming days……

A new article by Natasha Korecki on the NBC News website features our work here at Hopium and some of our partners this cycle. Here’s an excerpt from the paywalled article:

Investment in state parties

For now, Martin — who formerly served as chair of Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party — still has pockets of support, particularly in states where he has focused on bulking up party infrastructure.

Vinod Thomas, a DNC member from North Carolina who had called for transparency around the autopsy, said he was standing by Martin.

“Progressives calling for Ken’s removal — he’s going to be replaced by someone who is 5,000 times more objectionable,” he said.

Much of Martin’s support is grounded in his “organize everywhere, compete everywhere” investment approach. He invested early on in state parties, saying the Democratic map needs to expand if the party is to reclaim the White House.

It’s a departure from a familiar playbook that Democrats have long employed in presidential contests: sink the vast majority of resources into the same seven battleground states and all but ignore the rest. The goal now is to reshape and expand the Democratic map by grooming a bench of political talent, building party infrastructure and capturing disaffected voters.

“It’s a mistake that Democrats made. Rather than playing everywhere, we ceded territory we didn’t have to. You’ve got to engage with people continuously. You have to engage everywhere,” Alaska Democratic Party Chair Eric Croft said. “It’s not the persuasiveness of the Republicans. It’s that we haven’t been playing. If you don’t hear a message, it’s easy to think that Republican is all there is.”

Alaska is among the states where national Democrats are trying to expand their reach in the Senate. Croft said the DNC financial boost of $22,500 a month has allowed him to finally hire a volunteer coordinator and a part-time office manager, which has freed the executive director to focus more on strategy. That has expanded the total paid staff from three to 4 1/2.

Some red- and Southern-state Democratic leaders have fully invested in their own “run everywhere” credo. In Texas, the Democratic state party opened an office in deep-red Amarillo for the first time in decades. More than 200 people turned out. It was a sign that voters were there but no one from the party was reaching them, the state party chair said.

“The traditional voices of the party, while well-intended, nice people, cannot shake traditional mindsets of what has to be done,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said of resistance to change within his own state party mirroring what’s happening at the DNC. “I’m not a Ken Martin apologist, but I’m a person taking on the political establishment in my own state, and I know how aggressively they bite back when you do that.”

Scudder and other party chairs said they believed Martin erred in not releasing the autopsy report right away. But they also supported his ongoing focus on red- and purple-state organizing.

“We have trained and are in place, ready to spring into action,” Scudder added. “You don’t have to build that from scratch, which is what we have been having to do.”

A similar situation is playing out in Maine. While a high-profile Senate race where Democrat Graham Platner threatens to oust longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins is getting national attention, the party itself is building on the most local level.

“When we took office in the beginning of 2025, we were determined to expand the map and reconnect with people in parts of the state where we haven’t been seeing Democrats elected in recent years,” Maine Democratic Party Chair Charlie Dingman said.

With the help of DNC funding as well as outside fundraising, the Maine Democratic Party added year-round staff and ramped up organizing efforts even in off-year elections. Democrats are looking to regional posts, budget committees, school boards and city council races to build the next generation of Democratic talent and leadership, they say.

“What Ken Martin’s attempting to do is to take responsibility as a national party for all the things that go into helping us win elections, and that isn’t just about winning the presidential race in seven states,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic operative who helms Hopium Chronicles, a newsletter and grassroots group, that has also been fundraising to help the rebuilding of red- and purple-state parties.

Rosenberg said heading into the midterms, the party is “more ambitious in its thinking,” including by beginning to register its own voters and pushing states to develop multiyear plans to make gains in red areas and win back legislative chambers. That will allow the party to assert more power over redistricting and create a farm team for governor, Congress and the Senate, he said.

“He’s trying to create a strong national party that can invest and win everywhere,” he said.

The party vs. ‘consulting class’

Martin has come under attack for the program as well, with critics saying he was essentially buying support from party chairs. While on a “Pod Save America” episode in late April, host Jon Favreau asked Martin whether it was a good call to essentially make the same monthly investments in places like Guam as in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Martin said he was following an “if you invest everywhere, you can win anywhere” path.

“This is where I’m challenging the conventional wisdom of all these smart people in Washington, D.C., here, which is that the only thing that matters is control of Congress and the presidency,” Martin said.

The DNC added that the monthly investments in battleground states and elsewhere are baseline. It pointed to states like Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Virginia that have received additional support. The party also pointed to successes such as the flipping of 30 legislative seats, including in Trump’s home district, and Republicans’ failure so far to flip any.

A DNC official said the committee’s organizational work and investments over the last year extended to at least a dozen states and contributed to significant wins and overperformance in special elections, state supreme court races, mayoral contests and others. That included providing assistance in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races; supreme court and state Senate contests in Pennsylvania; and other elections, including ballot measures, in states like Wisconsin, Texas, Maine, Florida and California. The DNC’s help ranged from deploying and recruiting volunteers to GOTV efforts through emails and texts.

Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska state party chair who also heads the Association of State Democratic Committees and has long been a Martin ally, said the group has been working toward professionalizing the top party post in each state.

“We’re still as a national and state party infrastructure getting out of the 1970s-to-1990s mentality that the chairs and vice chairs should be all volunteers and basically wealthy lawyers that can give their time as some ceremonial position,” Kleeb said. Chairs are undergoing more intense training, she added, on strategies to register voters and for engaging with young people.

Supporters also credited Martin for launching partisan voter registration efforts in January. It’s a task that the party previously de-emphasized, leaving it to nonprofit groups, which are restricted in engaging on behalf of one party over another. That meant for years, money from the left had been helping sign up Republicans. Meanwhile, the GOP made voter registration a core function of its mission. From 2020 to 2024, Democrats lost 2.1 million voters while Republicans gained 2.4 million, according to an analysis of voter registration data by The New York Times.

Florida’s Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said that since 2025, the state party has implemented year-round statewide organizing, mirroring a model similar to those in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina, where the left has made gains in state and local races. Since Trump began his second term, Democrats have won the Miami mayor’s race for the first time in 30 years and the legislative seat in Trump’s home district.

“Part of the reason why we’re winning is because the power is back with the party, and that’s where it needs to stay,” Fried said. She said the power had been with “the consulting class.”

“They were the ones who were making most of the decisions. … Ken wants the power back in the party.”

“We have seen that the investment that is coming in from the DNC and off some of our national donors who have understood the concept that 40% of the American population has moved to the South,” Fried said. “We have to invest in the South.”

Thanks to all of you who have invested in our Audacious Expansion Fund that supports the four state parties Korecki writes about in the article (and Iowa too) and our parallel investments this cycle in the DNC and the Democratic Parties of Georgia, Minnesota, and North Carolina.

From upper right - Maine’s Charlie Dingman, Texas’ Kendall Scudder, Florida’s Nikki Fried, Alaska’s Eric Croft, and Iowa’s Rita Hart

Got to weigh in on the new Platner revelations in a new Washington Post story this morning:

Maine is key to Democrats’ plan to flip the Senate, given it is the only state that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 where a Republican senator is seeking reelection in November.

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, told The Post that Platner’s texting controversy could set Democrats back as they seek to flip the Senate.

“We have a real shot at winning the Senate now, given recent polling, and this is not helpful,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said that, across the country, Democrats’ odds are looking good despite a map that forces them to flip seats in several red states in order to regain power. Former Rep. Mary Peltola is polling well in the Alaska Senate race, polls have shown that former Sen. Sherrod Brown is statistically tied in Ohio, and, in Texas, Democrats are hopeful that James Talarico could flip the seat in the race against Attorney General Ken Paxton.

“I’m sort of shocked at how strong the polling is for us right now,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said that while Platner remains a popular candidate in Maine, despite the multiple controversies, Collins and Republicans will be armed with millions in campaign funds in the general election, which they will likely use to attack Platner. Republicans, Rosenberg argued, “cannot win this election on the issues, so what they’re going to do is they’re going to go scorched earth against our candidates and their character.”

There’s a difference between what Democratic primary audiences are willing to accept and what the general electorate of Maine are going to accept,” Rosenberg said. “Graham Platner is asking the people of Maine to overlook a lot of things here, and I think this is going to be very material in the race.”

To put a little pep in your step today be sure to check out some of our latest discussions with those leading the charge:

• National leaders Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator Ruben Gallego

• Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder

• House candidates Rebecca Bennett (NJ-7), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15) and our great candidate for Governor in Ohio Amy Acton

• DCCC Deputy Executive Director Will Van Nuys

• And my latest talk If You Think Trump Is Winning You Aren’t Paying Attention

And yes, my friends…..

It’s Time To Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!

We kicked off a campaign on Thursday to give Rebecca Bennett resources to fight off a massive $650,000 attack against her in NJ-7. Our goal was to raise $10,000 by tomorrow, a goal we hit last night - thank you all.

Thanks to all who have contributed! Watch my new interview with one of our very best candidates of the cycle and consider donating to her campaign today!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign - $747,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal (new ambitious, audacious even, q2 goal) - Donate to all twelve of our endorsed House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.

Friends if these twelve win, the House will flip, no matter redistricting madness the Rs execute in the coming days. So eyes on the prize here.

Hopium’s Winning The House - Second Wave - $47,700 raised, $250,000 goal - We’ve launched a second House fund, one targeting candidates who’ve recently emerged from primaries or have to run in new districts. Our initial crew is Bob Brooks (PA-07), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Denise Powell (NE-02), and Bobby Pulido (TX-15). More on this exciting new initiative in the coming days…

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $98,500 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more through my uplifting conversation with Mary Peltola as she fights to turn Alaska blue

James Talarico For Texas - $82,100 raised, $250,000 - Donate | Learn more from my inspiring interview with Rep. Talarico as he fights to turn Texas blue

Winning Ohio - $153,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party | Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue | Watch my new discussions with US Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, our candidate for Governor Dr. Amy Acton, Lt. Gov candidate David Pepper, and Ohio Dem Chair Kathleen Clyde

This total includes $21,000 sent by a Hopium community member directly to each of our three Buckeye State partners!

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $578,100 raised, $1,000,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up! | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five new battlegrounds

Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $20,000 to each of our five state parties over the past two years

Roy Cooper for NC Senate - $119,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more through my new discussion with Gov. Cooper

Jon Ossoff GA Senate - $181,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn more through my uplifting conversation with Senator Ossoff

Advocate For The Hopium Agenda/Pass Resolutions Of Condemnation In Your Community/Winning In An Evolving Battlefield

There are a few more ways to go to work in the coming days - call your leaders and advocate for elements of our working, ever evolving Hopium Agenda; bring resolutions that condemn our Mad King and lets facts be spoken to a candid world to your state or local government; and learn how you can help us win in evolving political and electoral battlefield this year.

Here’s our working, evolving Post-Iran Disaster Agenda:

• Work to end this ridiculous new gulf war and Trump’s Imperial global ambitions

• Support Ukraine and Europe, not Russia by passing HR 2913, The Ukraine Support Act, in the House this week

• Roll back the new, illegal tariffs

• Rescind the Trump tax cuts, claw back the extra ICE funding, fund the IRS so it can collect the taxes the rich are hiding from us

• Launch a major anti-corruption, renewing democracy campaign, one that ensures accountability for the crimes and treason committed, limits the political power of our emerging oligarchy, and strengthens democracy here and everywhere

• Make the US a clean energy superpower, fight for true energy independence, and lower utility and energy prices for the American people

• Rein in ICE, end Mass Deportation

• End Trump’s destructive war on science, research, our health scare system and our public Health

• Make clear to American farmers that we want to end the failed war, repeal the terrible tariffs, find legal pathways for farm workers, and make health care and energy more affordable

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard everyone. We have a country to save, and an election to win, together! - Simon