Powerful New Harris Ad, Prepping For The Debate, Let 2024 Be 2024, Trump Is A Weak Man Not A Strong Man

10% Off Annual Hopium Subscriptions Through Election Day!/Welcome New Subscribers!

Happy Monday all. Big week. The debate is tomorrow at 9pm ET. It’s a close, competitive election today and this debate is going to matter. I will be opening up a paid subscriber live chat here tomorrow night around 815pm (watch for an email).

Here are a few ways to prep. 1) The Harris-Walz campaign launched a new issues section on its website. Check it out, study up. 2) Watch her inspiring Convention speech again, or her new national ad on the economy. 3) Enjoy this new ad the campaign released today that is running on Fox News and in the Philadelphia and West Palm Beach (Mar-a-Lago) media markets:

4) Here are some key points the Harris-Walz campaign released today:

• Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz will build a brighter, more hopeful future where everyone will have a chance to not just get by, but to get ahead.

• Vice President Harris is a fighter for the people. From her days as a prosecutor to her work as Vice President, she has defended the rights of the American people by standing up to predators, scammers, and powerful interests. 

• As Vice President, she’s helped deliver historic progress across the country, and in Governor Walz, she chose a running mate who shares her vision – and who will be a great governing partner as they deliver for working families.  

• Governor Walz is a lifelong Midwesterner who has delivered for the middle class: he signed the largest tax cut in state history, lowered the cost of prescription drugs, and has stood up for reproductive freedoms. Just like Vice President Harris, he will never stop fighting for working families. 

5) We need to let go of 2016. This election is not like 2016, or 2020, or 2008 or 2012. It is 2024. No election is like any other. One of the central mistakes analysts made in 2022 was believing it was going to be like other mid-terms even when the data was making very clear it just wasn’t going to be. We need to let 2024 be 2024, and Kamala Harris be Kamala Harris.

Think about how different things are. We have a dynamic, new, next gen Presidential ticket. Enthusiasm for Harris-Walz is far more like 2008 than 2016 or 2020. Harris has been the Vice President and leader of an Administration that has left the country far better than they found it. Governor Walz is an important bridge to parts of the country we have struggled to reach, and the campaign is working very hard to expand its coalition even beyond what we had when we won in 2020. We have vastly more money than we used to have, and our grassroots is far more powerful, experienced and capable. In 2014 we had a very disappointing mid-term performance. In 2022 rather than losing ground we actually gained ground in the mid-terms, and have continued to overperform expectations and win in elections of all kinds across the county since. As Tom Bonier and I discussed last week, the intensity indicators we tracked in 2022 that led us to believe the election would be better than expected for us are all once again heading pointing in the right direction.

Trump, meanwhile, is far more diminished, degraded, untethered and extreme. He is now a rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon. The opposition from within the GOP, as the ad above reminds us, is far greater and more consequential. Vance was a disastrous VP pick. Every election since 2016 has gone poorly for MAGA, and their underperformance in elections of all kinds across the country since Dobbs - including Trump in the GOP primaries this year - should be as important, or even more important, than Trump’s overperformance in 2020 in our understanding of this, the 2024 election. Yes, in 2022 the polls overestimated Republican strength, not underestimated it. Here’s the final Real Clear Politics map in 2022 - Rs at 54 in the Senate. They got to 49.

Trump does not have super powers or some magical connection with the American electorate and never did. This myth of his strength is corrosive, red wavy and wrong. He only won the election in 2016 with the extraordinary interventions of our FBI and the Russian government. He only received 46% and 47% of the vote in his two elections, less than Mitt Romney received in 2012. Every election since 2016 has gone poorly for MAGA. Rs were so worried about Trump’s low ceiling this cycle they got three Jill Steins to run this time, not just one. They are struggling to raise hard dollars. It is not clear they have a legitimate field operation this time. MAGA Senate and gubernatorial candidates are struggling, as they did in 2022, and may act as a drag on Trump throughout the battlegrounds. Trump 2024 is weak, not strong.

Here is how Adam Kinzinger described Trump at the Convention:

Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim. He puts on—listen—he puts on quite a show, but there is no real strength there. 

Here is something I wrote a few weeks back about how the entire Trump brand is built around he is strong and we are weak, and why we must be at all times fighting to take it away from him and never, ever build him up:

Trump’s general election narrative was very simple - I am leading in the polls and I am strong and my opponent is weak. I may be a rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon but I am leading in the polls and I am strong and my opponent is weak. I may have the most extreme and dangerous agenda in American history but I am leading in the polls and I am strong and my opponent is weak. I may be profoundly unfit and deeply unwell but I am leading in the polls and and I am strong and my opponent is weak. I may be a racist, bigot, misogynist and a xenophobe but I am leading the polls and I am strong and my opponent is weak. I may have led an armed attack on the Capitol, tried to overturn American democracy for all time and stripped the rights and freedoms away from the women of America but I am leading in the polls and I am strong and my opponent is weak. I may lie about the economy, the border, crime, gas prices, Russia - everything - but I am leading in the polls and I am strong and my opponent is weak.

Which is why Harris leading in the polls is so important now. For now she is leading in the polls and she is strong and Trump is weak and he is also a rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon, extremist, unfit and unwell, a racist, bigot, misogynist and a xenophobe, who led an armed attack on the Capitol, tried to overturn American democracy for all time, stripped the rights and freedoms away from the women of America and lies about everything all the time. All Trump ever really had in this election was his lead in the polls and now that is gone.

Vice President Harris’ polling lead undermines the strongman construct of the Trump brand. That he is now trailing to a woman, a bi-racial woman of immigrant parents, is even more devastating for his narrative. It’s why he has been so angry, petulant and wild this week - for his ugliness is far more exposed, the rationale for his candidacy has disappeared, he looks far more like yesterday than tomorrow, the curtain has been drawn back on The Wizard and we’ve learned the Orange Emperor is indeed not wearing any clothes and is standing naked and exposed in public for all to see. Today Trump is far more a weak and ugly man than a strong and popular man, and he knows it. We all know it. And now we are all going to work really hard, leave it all on the playing field and kick his MAGA ass this November.

In 2024 our candidate is exhibiting strength and leadership in new and powerful ways:

And with Trump not winning and weak we have this too:

Friends, as I wrote yesterday once early in person voting starts in 11 days we will have 46 days of voting to win the election. To me, winning is an opportunity we must seize not something that is a given. The reason I remain so fundamentally optimistic is that I think we enter the home stretch with meaningful financial, organizational, enthusiasm, candidate and message advantages that makes it more likely we close stronger and win.

As the Vice President keeps saying, the torch has not been passed to her. It’s been passed to us. So let’s keep our heads down, keep working from joy, prep for the debate tomorrow and keep doing everything we can to make this the election everything we want it to be, together.

Worrying Less, Doing More - Here’s my post on the strategy behind our candidate and state party endorsements, including our Presidential battleground “check” and “checkmate” strategy. Sign up to call or postcard for Mondaire Jones (NY-17) at this week’s Winning The House Thursday. These events have been well-attended and fun - join us if you can!

Contribute, volunteer and win with the Hopium community today:

• Harris-Walz!!!!!! - $961,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel - Let’s get to $1m people by the debate people!

• Winning The House - $1,018,000 raised, $1.5m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Sign Up For Our Thursday Night Winning The House Calling and Postcarding Series. Watch our recent discussion with Leader Hakeem Jeffries. To go deeper watch one of our interviews with our great candidates - Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Will Rollins (CA-41), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Rudy Salas (CA-22), Josh Riley (NY-19), Tony Vargas (NE-02), Adam Gray (CA-13), Sue Altman (NJ-07) and Mondaire Jones (NY-17).

• North Carolina - $443,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $348,000 raised, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $161,000 raised, $200,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here are ways you can do even more:

• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in three states on September 20th - just 11 days away!

• Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party and this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election.

• Help grow the Hopium community. Use this link to encourage others sign others up. You can gift a subscription to a friend or student here and get group rates too. From now until Election Day a paid annual Hopium subcription is 10% off. If you have changed credit cards or moved you can update your payment information or check your renewal status by following these instructions from Substack. Let’s keep our community growing and the Hopium flowing! Paid subscribers help keep most of our content free for the 110,000 strong in our community down the home stretch!

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