Happy Thursday all. I send along a recording of my talk last night to Hopium paid subscribers. It is a very comprehensive look at where we are with four weeks to go. I hope you will watch and share with others you think might be interested. The bottom line - the election is close, polling remains steady and consistent, the early vote is promising and our meaningful financial, organizational and enthusiasm advantages make it far more likely that in these closing days we push the election towards us and win this thing.
My presentation is very comprehensive, and looks at many of the things that have been on folks’ minds this week. I also close out our hour together with a reminder of why we are in the fight, and reflect back on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party. I do hope you will watch.
I will be doing weekly live briefings like this for our paid subscribers Wednesdays at 7pm ET and for our Founding Members Fridays at 1pm ET through the election. Regular Hopium subscribers will have access to the Wednesday briefing as a recording, will get to see my new Closing Strong series with Tara McGowan and will of course keep getting my Hopium analysis 7 days a week. If you would like to upgrade to either of these two levels of membership you can do so here or below. Your financial support helps keep most of our content free and helps keep the Hopium flowing……
Let’s get to it! Got a lot to cover today:
The strong and aggressive Harris-Walz “media blitz” week continues today with a big Harris rally in Phoenix and the return of Barack Obama to the trail in Pittsburgh. Early voting began in Arizona yesterday, and check out this exciting video of a line to vote in Tuscon:
The main guage of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, came in at 0.2% for September and 2.4% over the last twelve months. Over the past 5 months the CPI is running at annual rate closer to 1% - below the Fed target of 2%. All of this is a yet another reminder of how successful the Biden-Harris Administration has been in getting us to the other side of COVID. Today in the closing days of the 2024 election the American economy remains the strongest of any advanced economy in the world, one of the strongest in my lifetimes and far stronger than the economy Donald Trump left us.
National polling remains steady and encouraging for Harris. Here is what we’ve seen in recent days:
51%-45% (+6) Morning Consult (gained a point since last week)
49%-44% (+5) Susquehanna
50%-46% (+4) Big Village
49%-45% (+4) Research Co.
49%-46% (+4) NYT/Siena (4 pts with rounding/this is a 4 pt gain since the last poll)
49%-45% (+4) Economist/YouGov (gained a point since last week)
49%-46% (+3) TIPP/Issues and Insights (TIPP polls for rw groups)
49%-46% (+3) Data For Progress
50%-48% (+2) NPR/Marist
48%-46% (+2) Redfield & Wilton
47%-45% (+2) Reuters/Ipsos
48%-47% (+1) Yahoo/YouGov
Some of the major national polls this week showed Harris gaining ground. She gained 4 points in the New York Times poll. In the two weekly tracks I follow closely, Morning Consult and Economist/YouGov, she gained a point since last week. To be clear - in these three highly credible polls Harris has her biggest leads of the election.
What has been remarkable about the national and state polling in recent weeks is how stable and consistent it has been. Outside the right-aligned red wave polls, dozens and dozens of polls taken since the debate have consistently shown Harris up 2-3-4 points nationally, and closer to 270 in the battlegrounds. The consistency has been unusual, frankly, as polling is usually a bit more scattered and choppy.
So we should not be surprised that we finally saw some good polls yesterday for Trump, the Quinnipiac polls showing him leading in MI and WI. No one should be surprised by these polls. We’ve had 40-50 polls showing one election and were bound to start getting polls showing another election. Are these new polls harbingers or outliers? We will see in the coming days. But as I discuss in my presentation polls need to be seen as sketches, not photographs. They are not precise enough to tell us much more today than then election is close and we have work to do to have the election we all want to have.
As I wrote to you a few days ago, the right is running a desperate, frenetic campaign to create a red wave narrative that the election is slipping away from Harris and moving towards Trump (even thought national polling was arguably better for us this week than last). Their red wave pollsters dropped 27 polls last week alone, and have continued to drop new battleground polls this week. Their allied sites, Polymarket and Real Clear Politics, have declared that Trump is now closer to 270 and leading due to their voodoo MAGA “math.” They are really working to push MT, NC and PA to the Rs - it’s where their most intense work has been. Be aware that the entire right-wing noise machine is now working overtime to establish the narrative that the election is slipping away from us, that Trump is strong and Harris is weak. Do not allow a single poll or two to tip you into that place too when lots of other data tells a different story.
There have been good polls out there in the battlegrounds this week if you want to see them. A right leaning pollster had Harris up 4 in PA. Another right-leaning poll had her up 3 in Michigan. Most of recent WI polls have her up 1 to 2 points. Emerson dropped some battleground state polls this morning showing things a little better for Trump than they’ve been in recent weeks but everything is still 1 or 2 points apart, well within margin of error. While Emerson has been a credible pollster in the past, this cycle they are working for right-wing groups and their polls have been running 2-3 points more to the right (red wavy) than other public independent polls. Which is why I want to share their Senate polls this am:
This continued underperformance by Republican Senate candidates is going to matter in these closing days. I spoke to Ruben Gallego on Tuesday and he said that if he wins by 7-8 points Harris will win Arizona. Folks on the ground in Nevada are very pleased with what they are seeing. There just won’t be that many ticket splitters at the end of the day in these places, and I think this ongoing Republican underperformance in the Senate and NC Gov is a 2024 dynamic that deserves far more attention. I still believe Mark Robinson’s epic implosion in NC makes it far more likely we win there.
Wow, pretty good numbers for Baldwin and Slotkin you say coming from a pollster who has been leaning right this cycle. Yep. Let’s look at some other recent public polling in the Senate. Let’s start with Wisconsin, Baldwin-Hovde:
53-46 (+7) Marquette
50-43 (+7) NYT
52-47 (+5) Research Co
47-42 (+5) Redfield & Wilton
50-46 (+4) Quinnipiac (yes +4 in Quinnipiac)
50-46 (+4) Emerson
For time and space purposes, I could show you similar data in both the MI and PA Senate races but will get to it tomorrow. It is possible that has GOP advertising ramps up things are “tightening” but the public polling we are seeing in the battleground Senate races remains remarkably encouraging, and I think will matter for Harris in the home stretch.
The early vote continues to be encouraging too. Here’s the latest national tally from TargetEarly. My benchmark is 2020. If we are running ahead of an election we won we should be pleased. And today we are.
I will have more on the early vote starting in a few days - trying to let more votes come in - but the early vote in Michigan and Pennsylvania is coming in well above 2020 right now. The early early vote in the 7 battlegrounds suggests that our campaigns and our coalition are bringing it this year as of right now we are running well ahead of 2020 in the aggregate of the 7 battleground states:
As I discussed in my presentation last night, the same indicators of intensity Tom Bonier and I tracked in 2022 - special election performance, recent voter registration, financial advantages, the early vote - that led us to believe we were going to do better than the polls suggested favor us again this year. It is why I still believe 2024 is more likely to be like 2022 and not like 2016 or 2020. Since Dobbs we have been the party overperforming public polls and it has been the Republicans who have been underperforming and struggling. The “hidden vote” has favored us not them. It is our job now to go find that “hidden” Harris vote and make sure it is no longer hidden!
Finally, the Bulwark has a report about a promising new poll of Haley voters:
A SIGNIFICANT CHUNK OF SELF-IDENTIFIED Nikki Haley voters say they will support Kamala Harris for president, according to a new survey shared exclusively with The Bulwark.
If the election were held today, Donald Trump would win just 45 percent of those who backed Haley in the GOP primary while 36 percent said they’d back Harris, the new poll shows, according to the survey of 781 registered Republicans and independents conducted by the new Democratic-leaning polling outfit Blueprint. The poll did not include Democrats or Democrat-leaning Independents who supported Haley.Trump’s level of support from Haley voters in the poll represents a significant drop in support for Trump, who won those same voters against Joe Biden by 59-28 percent. That 22 percentage point change in preference (from plus 31 percent for Trump in 2020 to plus 9 percent in this survey) could represent a swing of millions of votes.
The findings are among the most substantive analyses of Haley supporters. They come on the heels of a New York Times/Siena College poll showing that Harris has made major inroads among GOP voters, with 9 percent saying they planned to support the vice president, up from 5 percent from a survey last month.
“Between 5 and 10 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are Nikki Haley supporters,” said Evan Roth Smith, the lead pollster for Blueprint, which conducted the poll between September 28 and October 6. “If Harris can indeed win a third or more of them in the general election, it will provide a boost of a couple percentage points. In such a close race where the margin of victory will be razor-thin, particularly in the swing states, it’s clearly worth pursuing these voters.”
Heads down, keep working hard all and enjoy my presentation!
Doing More, Worrying Less In The Home Stretch - My one ask today - volunteer for or donate to Harris-Walz to help keep our momentum going and to welcome Barack Obama back to the trail! Thank you everyone for what you’ve done for our candidates and state parties. We are now, on October 10th, hitting some of our October 31st goals. Thank you all! And come call or postcard for Sue Altman tonight (see below). We have a good crowd coming and these Thursday events are a lot of fun!
Harris-Walz For President - $1,192,000 raised, $1.5m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Subscribe to The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel
Our Presidential Checkmate States - Learn more about our “checkmate” strategy, and support Ruben Gallego and these two front-line state parties:
North Carolina - $748,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $448,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $242,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb.
Winning The House - There are 5 ways to support our 15 Winning The House candidates:
Support All 15 With A Single Donation - $1,510,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates
Support The 4 New House Candidates In Our Expanded Target List - $74,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More.
Donate Directly To A Candidate - You can donate to any of our 15 candidates directly here.
Winning The House Thursdays - This week we gather for Sue Altman (NJ-07), Thursday, at 715pm ET. Register here to postcard or call for Sue. Watch my wonderful interview with her. She is a very impressive candidate!
Keeping The Senate Blue - By popular demand, we are now supporting Senators Tester and Brown in addition to Ruben Gallego. If you want to help defeat Deb Fischer give to the great NE Dem Party today!
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $448,000 raised, $500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Montana/Jon Tester - $119,000 raised, $200,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More (yes I saw the NYT poll - more on that tomorrow)
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $83,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $242,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Grow/Strengthen The Hopium Community - 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 subscription 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!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
The Election Is Close And We Just Need To Go Out And Win This Thing, Together (Video), More Good Economic News, Prayers For Florida