Happy Saturday all. 3 days of hard work left until victory. I know many of you are already out working it this morning. Many more are getting ready for an afternoon shift. Thank you all! We need to make this the biggest weekend of action for our democracy in our proud history.
To put a little gas in our doing more, worrying less tank I share my closing remarks from my Wednesday night I’d much rather be us than them presentation. They are in the video above and are a celebration of the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, the power of the Four Freedoms and a reminder of the extraordinary stakes of this election. Enjoy, share and let’s get to work people!
I ask two things of you today:
If you haven’t voted yet, please vote today. Voting early helps our campaigns move on to lower propensity voters earlier, helps us grow our vote, and helps us win. It’s really important!!!!!!
Volunteer for the Harris-Walz campaign this weekend. Be part of the biggest GOTV weekend in history! Here’s the official volunteer link. No regrets folks. We need to leave it all out there on the playing field in these final 3 days and go win this thing, together!!!!!
The VP had two more amazing rallies in Wisconsin yesterday. Here’s a link to her rally from Milwaukee. Enjoy, feel the energy and share and catch all these closing rallies on her YouTube channel live. It’s going to be the best TV out there in these final days.
The VP is closing out the election by hitting Georgia and North Carolina today, Michigan tomorrow, and Pennsylvania on Monday. Here’s the new closing Harris ad in Pennsylvania, with special guest Governor Josh Shapiro:
Here’s a new national closing ad from team Harris. It is great:
Here is a powerful new ad from the Lincoln Project with the cast of the West Wing. Please watch and share this one too…..
Here’s how Trump is closing it out:
SATURDAY: Gastonia, NC Salem, VA Greensboro, NC
SUNDAY: Litiz, PA Kinston, NC Macon, GA
MONDAY: Raleigh, NC Reading, PA Pittsburgh, PA Grand Rapids, MI
I want folks to note that four of Trump’s final stops are in North Carolina, more than any other state. As the Hopium community knows, winning North Carolina has been one of our biggest collective projects this year. We’ve raised more than $1m for the North Carolina Democratic Party and our friend Anderson Clayton, and together have played a big role in forcing Trump to spend so much time and fighting to win in a state they never believed would be in play. Great work everyone. As President Biden likes to say, it’s a big f-ing deal!!!!
Of course, having Trump do 10 events over the next 3 days is an enormous risk for the Trump campaign. For it dramatically increases the likelihood he does or says something that hurts him. His Madison Square Garden hatefest did enormous damage to his campaign. On Thursday, while sitting next to a known Russian intelligence asset, he openly fantasized about shooting Liz Cheney. Last night, he did this:
Here is how our friends at MeidasTouch played Trump’s completely unhinged performance last night. It’s a little hard to watch but worth your time:
Meanwhile, and related to his repeated unraveling these past few weeks, the early vote keeps getting better for us nationally and in the battleground states. With 3 days to go there is clear evidence that we are moving the Presidential election towards us, on the ground. Using TargetEarly and the 2020 early vote at this time as a benchmark, and with the understanding that due to Republican prioritizing the early vote this time it was universally expected that they would do far better than 2020, a few 3 days out takeaways:
Republicans were performing 8.1 percentage points better than 2020 in the national early vote a few days ago. Today that lead is down to 4.5 points.
In the 7 battleground states Dems and Rs are running even, and Ds are currently outpacing the Rs in AZ, GA, MI, NE-2 and WI.
The unaffiliated category as a percentage of the early vote is rising everywhere. This is not a good development for the Rs as it is widely expected that the unaffiliated category will favor Dems this time, and will be more Dem than 2020. We also expect to do better with Rs than 2020. Taken together that means if we are running even in the 7 battleground states, as we are today, we are actually running ahead of our 2020 vote - a truly remarkable achievement, and a sign of the strength of our campaign.
Even though the national electorate is only 2.7 points more D than R today, in the various polls of the early vote we are running 20+ points better than Republicans. This is a confirmation that we are picking up a fair number of R and unaffiliated voters, and that we are heading into Election Day in better shape in the early vote than 2020, an election we won.
Let’s look at the progress we’ve made in the four sunbelt states since October 23rd. This data compares the GOP lead in the early vote compared to 2020 to their lead/deficit today:
Arizona - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 7.9 percentage points. Today Democrats lead in AZ by 1 point.
Georgia - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 2.6 percentage points. Today Democrats lead in GA by 2 points.
Nevada - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 13.1 percentage points. Dems have cut this lead to 5.6 points. As Nevada Senator Cortez Masto explained in our recent Closing Strong interview, the unaffiliated vote in NV is going to be larger and more Dem due to the adopting of automatic voter registration in the state. In what is a good sign for us the percentage of the very D unaffiliated vote has risen a lot in recent days. In my view it is likely, given current trends, that we will enter E-D ahead of 2020 in the NV early vote.
North Carolina - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 11.1 percentage points. Dems have cut this lead to 2.6 points. As NC today has a higher share of its early vote coming in as unaffiliated than 2020, it is almost certain we are now outpacing our 2020 early vote here.
As we’ve been discussing all week, as PA does not have early in person voting, only mail, there will be far less early vote here than in the other battleground states. Many PA Ds have decided to vote in person rather than by mail to ensure their vote is counted on Election Day. For all these reasons the PA early vote is far less important than in other states, and so that we are off a few points from 2020 isn’t that material. It’s a few points off from a smaller vote. PA is going to be an old fashioned Election Day state in 2024, and far too many are reading far too much into the current PA early vote returns.
The bottom line - if anyone is winning the early vote right now it is us. Our superior campaign has repelled the GOP’s ferocious effort to improve their battleground state early vote performance, an omnibus sign for Trumpworld. And that my friends is not the only sign Trump the election is slipping away from Trump:
Here’s my rough calculation of national polls released since Monday, October 14th broken down by independent polls and those affiliated with right-wing and Republican organizations.
Independent Polls Harris +2.5
538 National Average Harris +1.2
Right-Aligned Polls Trump +0.7 (3.2 pts more Trump than independent polls)
The last few days of polling have been some of the best for VP Harris this year. Here’s the new Times of London/YouGov polls battleground state polls:
Here’s the full set of Marist polls released over the past few days:
Many polls showed us tied or with leads in the battlegrounds this week:
Arizona - 1 poll had us tied, 2 polls had us up 1, 1 had us up 2
Georgia - we had more polls showing us down this week than up but the early vote looks really good - fingers crossed!
Michigan - 4 polls had us up 3, 1 had us up 4, 2 had us up 5 (big week!!!)
Nevada - 2 polls had us up 1, 1 had us up 2 and 1 poll had us up 4
North Carolina - 2 polls had us tied, 2 had us up 1
Pennsylvania - 2 polls had us up 1, 1 had us up 2, 1 had us up 3
Wisconsin - 2 polls had us 2, 1 had us up 3, 1 had us up 4, and another had us up 6 (big week!)
Where is the election today? I still think we are up by 2-4 points nationally and in a stronger position in the Electoral College - despite what the averages and forecasters say. We’ve had an encouraging closing week of polling in the battlegrounds and are now overperforming and winning the early vote too. The VP is far better liked, and likeable, something that matters to late breaking voters. We’ve closed the gap on the economy with Trump - a huge campaign achievement. Our campaign is firing on all cylinders. Our candidate is bringing it every day. We are closing strong, really strong. They are closing ugly, really, really ugly.
A flurry of red wave polls pushed the polling averages down in the past few weeks and tipped them to Trump - illegitimately in my view. Since late August 32 right-affiliated organizations have released over 125 polls into the averages In the last few days we’ve seen a huge escalation of these efforts, with 58 polls released since Sunday, a majority of all polls released this week.
Read more about this illicit effort in this recent New Republic article, a new NYT piece, my recent post and catch Trump admitting that some of these red wave polls showing him ahead are fraudulent. Our daily reminder:
Rs would only be working so hard to shape the national narrative to make it look like Trump is winning if they believed he wasn’t. These red wave polls are a sign of desperation, weakness and a campaign that knows it’s losing.
For a deeper dive on all this data catch my Hopium presentation from Wednesday night with special guest Tom Bonier. Tom and I also joined the MeidasTouch crew on Thursday for a very indepth conversation.
Our last pre-election edition of Closing Strong has dropped. It includes interviews with Dan Pfeiffer on the decline of legacy media and Jessica Mackler on the battle for reproductive freedom and the women’s vote. It is a great and informative episode. You can watch it here.
Doing More and Worrying Less/Working Hard And Closing Strong In The Home Stretch - 3 days of voting left everyone - let’s keep working it!
My one big ask today - invest in either Ruben Gallego/Arizona or Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. We need to keep that second pathway to 270 open in case any of the core three - MI, PA, WI - falls. We were tied or ahead in both states this week in most polling and need to close strong now.
I want to thank all of you who are self-reporting on all your remarkable work across the country in our paid subscriber daily chat Postcards, canvassing, back yard phonebank parties - you all are doing the work we need to do to win. 80m postcards are hitting now, and NYC has a postcard shortage because of all of you. Thank you everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Harris-Walz, Our Presidential Checkmate States and Wisconsin - Learn more about our “checkmate” strategy, and support Ruben Gallego and these three front-line state parties:
Harris-Walz, The Mothership - $1,402,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Subscribe to The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel and watch her inspiring rallies live
North Carolina - $1,035,000 raised, $1,110,000 goal (new F—- Trump Stretch Goal) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $641,000 raised, $700,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Wisconsin Dem Party - $134,000 raised, $200,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch Our Recent Closing Strong Interview with the great Ben Wikler
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $318,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb.
Winning The House - Keeping getting very good vibes from our candidates and House Democratic leadership about flipping the House this year. We need to keep working it peeps!
Support All 15 Hopium-Backed Candidates With A Single Donation - $1,848,000 raised, $2,000,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates (for our higher net worth donors note that you can give up to $49,500 split 15 ways for this group). You can donate to any one of our 15 candidates directly here.
Keeping The Senate Blue - this is a brawl my friends, and we just have to keep working it:
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $641,000 raised, $700,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Montana/Jon Tester - $195,000 raised, $200,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $133,000 raised, $150,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Wisconsin Dem Party/Tammy Baldwin - $134,000 raised, $200,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $318,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Growing The Hopium Community - We’ve set some goals for the growth of our community so more of us can be doing more and worrying less in the home stretch:
Hopium Subscribers - 118,533 this morning, 125,000 goal
Paid Subscribers - 13,836 this morning, 14,000 goal
Great work everyone. You can become a paid subscriber and help us hit our goals by clicking on the link below or following this link. The subscription tab includes options for gift and group subscriptions, all 10% off through Election Day!
Let’s bring it home, everyone! - Simon
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