Republicans Come Out Of The Elections And Shutdown Battered And Weakened, And Will Now Have To Defend The Indefensible

Katie Phang drops by today at 130pm ET. Join us live......

Morning all. As we struggle to pick ourselves up from the Senate Democrats’ mistaken capitulation just days after our big electoral wins last week there are two lessons from fighting autocracy that are sticking with me this morning:

• Appeasement invites escalation

• If we splinter they could remain in power for decades

Yes, the message is - we must fight, we must be strong and courageous, and we must stay together.

I was rummaging through some old posts for inspiration this morning and ran across this “Hopium Daily Reminder” from February:

Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America, and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight. As dark as all this is, we cannot for one moment forget that what Trump is doing is wrong; he and his project remain unstable and his coalition fractious; he is doing deeply unpopular things, going far beyond his narrow “mandate;” he is old, impulsive, reckless and clearly in decline; and extremists and ideologues are often far better at bread and circuses than governing.

As we’ve discussed here all year as we our movement learns together how to counter - and defeat - Trump, there will be moments of failure, struggle, of disappointment. Good days, and bad days. We had one of each in the past week.

What history tells us, however, is that we cannot lose sight of the mission and must overcome (not dismiss) our disappointment as we fight, together, to mitigate the damage he is doing, advance our agenda, and win back power. We just did that together in last’s weeks election, overcoming the terrible disappointment of 2024. Now we must lift ourselves up and overcome this latest disappointment (when you are ready) to properly prepare for 2026 and, in the short term, use the coming budget process to make them own their agenda of sabotage, plunder, and betrayal; block as much of it as we can; and keep driving them further and further away from the electorate.

In that vein let me share some notes on the path forward on a very cold November morning in Washington, DC…..

The great Stuart Stevens dropped by yesterday for one of our regular discussions. If you haven’t gotten to it yet get to it when you can. It’s a thoughtful look at where we are from two guys who’ve been around a while and are struggling, like you, to make sense of it all.

Our talk helped confirm where I think we stand a year out from the 2026 Election and just days after one of our best elections in recent decades - we are in a far stronger position than it feels right now. Four main reasons:

1 - Trump is wildly unpopular, his agenda more so. He is in serious physical and cognitive decline. He just suffered a humiliating electoral loss, one that was a clear and very loud repudiation of him and his terrible regime. Meaningful cracks have begun to appear in his control over Congress. In this shutdown fight his already battered image took on a huge hit, as people saw him acting imperially, impulsively, and with extraordinary malice towards the American people. He enters this next phase a very diminished figure.

2 - While this phase of the year end budget negotiations - the shutdown phase - did not end as we hoped, it has done enormous damage to Trump and the Republicans in two very specific ways. First, it contributed to our stunning electoral rout last week and to creating an electoral playing field that is now far more favorable to us as we head into 2026. Second, we’ve begun the process of getting 2026 Republican candidates on the record “defending the indefensible” - taking votes that will make it far more likely they lose next year. A few examples:

• Last night all 53 Senate Republicans voted down an amendment introduced by Senator Baldwin to delay the ACA subsidy cuts by a year. This means their vulnerable 2026 class - Collins (Maine), Cornyn (TX) Husted (OH), Sullivan (AK) - all just voted to affirmatively to do material harm to large numbers of their constituents. In some polls these ACA cuts are polling in the 20s making them essentially impossible to defend.

• Two weeks ago Senator Tim Kaine got three of these vulnerable Republicans - Cornyn, Husted, Sullivan - on record supporting Trump’s tariffs and once again doing clear, material harm to their constituents on something that really matters. In most polls these tariffs are now in the low 30s, making them essentially impossible to defend.

• Last week Senator Kaine got all four of these Republicans on record supporting Trump’s lawless actions in the Caribbean and Venezuela. A vote that, if Trump’s adventurism goes awry next year, will also be impossible to defend.

The coming debate over the fiscal 2026 budget is going to give many similar opportunities to get vulnerable 2026 Congressional Republicans on record on things that will be very hard - even impossible - to defend in their elections next year. They enter this next phase of the budget debate in a much weaker position than they were prior to the shutdown.

3 - New Leaders, New Strategies, New Tactics Are Emerging, And Last Tuesday We Won Everywhere With Many Flavors Of Democrat - A new post-Clinton/Pelosi/Biden/Obama era is emerging in the Democratic Party, and it feels strong, modern, healthy, diverse, connected. I talked about this on C-Span last week, and will have more to say about this in the coming days.

Morning Consult, Monday 11/10/25

4 - The illusion that right-leaning pollsters have given to Trump and Rs that everything was “OK” with Trump has begun to evaporate. In the New Jersey governor’s race their red wave polling was exposed for what this stuff has always been - a well funded and strategic disinformation op designed to make their candidates look strong and ours weak.

In the weeks before the election 7 right-aligned pollsters dropped polls showing the Sherrill race essentially tied:

• Atlas Intel Sherrill 50%-49% (+1)

• Emerson Sherrill 50%-48% (+2)

• co/efficient Sherrill 48%-47% (+1)

• Quantas Sherrill 49%-46% (+3)

• Neighborhood Sherrill 44%-44% (even)

• Trafalgar/IA Sherrill 45%-44% (+1) IA = Insider Advantage

Sherrill then won by 13 points, embarrassing them all, exposing all this stuff for the scam that it is.

In the days since the election right-aligned and right-leaning pollsters who had been pumping out national polls all year showing Trump’s job approval rating ten or so points better than the polling averages have started “correcting their national sample” and showing an electorate far more favorable to us:

• TIPP has swung from 45-46 Trump approve/disapprove this August to 40-51, an 11 point swing

• RMG has swung 9 points, from 51-47 to 46-51

• Rasmussen has swung 5 points, from 48-50 to 46-53

• HarrisX/Harvard has swung 5 points from August, going from 47-49 to 44-51

• Morning Consult has swung 5 points in the last two weeks going from 46-51 to 44-54

• Emerson has swung 5 points from 45-48 to 41-49

I want emphasize how different the polling Republicans have been seeing is from what we see. Here’s today’s FiftyPlusOne Trump job approval average:

Here is what Republicans saw for Trump in the last few weeks:

• Insider Advantage 52-46

• RMG 51-47

• Daily Mail 51-49 (both RMG and Daily Mail had Trump +10 this summer)

• Rasmussen 48-50

• Quantus 48-50

• Emerson 45-48

These polls were between 12 and 21 points more favorable to Trump than the average.

Republicans see these polls and tell them selves “things are fine, those crazy lefty pollsters are lying again. And yeah baby Ciattarelli has a shot in New Jersey.” Then the election comes, and you get blown out everywhere. Ciattarelli gets beat by 13 points. And all of a sudden things are not fine. And then all those happy polls that had given you comfort that Trump was strong, virile, manly, revered - a giant among men - start shifting 5 to 9 points, and yes, even in the hermetically sealed info bubble the right lives in all of a sudden things are not fucking fine.

Let’s look at one of the red wavers, TIPP. In early August TIPP has Trump at 45-46 (-1). In September it dropped to 43-47 (-4) but here is their write up of that poll (everything is fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

TIPP’s latest poll released last week had Trump at 40-51 (-11), a ten point drop in just a few months. Everything is, all of a sudden, really not fucking fine.

Why does this matter so much, Simon? For its my view that the false impression of Trump’s strength these red wave pollsters have created has been instrumental in keeping Congressional Republicans in line - for “everything was fine.” For in Trump’s world and the compliant right wing media ecosystem the economy is booming, inflation conquered, the deficit gone, farmers lucky, foreign leaders are bending the knee, trillions of phantom investment is rolling in. Everything is fine.

But then all of a sudden it wasn’t.

That’s what makes this next phase of the budget debate so perilous for Trump, and why we are in a very different place now then we were when Trump barely passed his big ugly bill this summer. For the harms of Trump’s agenda are much clearer now; he is much more unpopular, even with their red wave pollsters; now he needs 60 votes in the Senate not 50; Mike Johnson is about to lose a discharge petition vote and potentially lose control of the House altogether; and, remarkably and pathetically, their redistricting gambit keeps failing in state after state:

In other words everything is not fucking fine any more for all these Republicans who have to run next year with a wildly unpopular, ailing leader and an even more unpopular agenda that just failed, bigly, all across the country.

Which is why we need to be gearing up - when folks are ready to do so - for what is going to be a very intense few months here in the Capital. We’ve talked here about winning the fall. For us that meant winning the November elections (we did) and winning this big debate over their agenda/budget. That part is still left to do……

Finally, my recommendation today is for you to channel your anger and frustration into concrete action - call and thank your Senators if they voted the right way these past few days, and call and express your outrage at those who didn’t. Here we don’t stew, we do. And I think whatever happens next, whenever you decide to get back in the game, it is very, very important our networks and communities make daily calling into Congress a priority. There has to be a sense on the Hill that people are pissed, engaged, paying attention, demanding accountability - all of it.

For Those Who Want To Get To Work, Here We Go……

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make our big elections wins possible!

Friends, I’ll be doing a lot of live and in-person events recapping in the coming days, and will be hosting many guests here as well. Check our Events page for the latest schedule and links. Recordings of these events can always be found under the Podcast tab on the main Hopium site and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify too. Today Katie Phang is dropping at 130pm ET for what is sure to be a lively conversation. Join us by clicking here right before 130pm.

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Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:

1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our emerging four part agenda.

Contact your Senators and House Member and urge them to:

1. Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world

2. Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE, restoring due process for immigrants across the country, vigorously defending the 1st Amendment, warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents, and ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities

3. Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy

4. Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia and China

2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston. They offer practical advice on how to get a resolution passed in your own community.

Remarkably, members of this community have passed or are advancing 85 (!!!!) resolution projects in 23 states + DC. Can we get to all 50 states by the end of the year?

Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Keep working hard all, and remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today.

We do the work to make it so.

- Simon