"If Kamala Harris wins North Carolina, she has a 97-percent chance of winning the election."
I’m reposting this great comment from Catherine N to yesterday’s Hopium. If you haven’t watched this, please do so. The video is so informative, so inspiring!
"If you haven't seen this, check how Drew Kromer, the Chair of the Democratic Party in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina is managing the campaign to GOTV from Robert Hubbell substack today."
They set the ground work for this starting in 2023, well before Kamala Harris gained the top of the ticket. Without that initial ground work, I'm not sure that NC Dems could have properly leveraged the swell of enthusiasm for Kamala and converted vibes into volunteers and (knock on wood) votes.
Going to donate now...can't thank you (and Catherine N) enough!! It really makes a difference knowing what's needed and why...and in what specific areas as well. He makes a great case, and I hope this is shared far and wide.
Thanks for the link. Win Mecklenburg County NC big, we win North Carolina, win North Carolina we win the election. Agreed p, Drew Kroner is the real deal and if we go all in now to help him we will win this election. I’m keeping my Simon recommended contributions going but today I made my second biggest donation to date (behind my Harris/Walz contribution) to Mecklenburg County Dems, that’s Charlotte NC with more registered Dems than Atlanta. Get Charlotte out, we win. Simon please go interview this guy, he’s your kinda guy. Cheers Hopium Mates
Anyone see the front page of The NY Times? It’s about time they covered Trump’s rambling incoherent speeches. Will it make a difference? I don’t know so I’m gonna go back to my postcards. 😊 Have a great and productive Sunday everyone!
Really good video commentary on Trump’s incoherent rambling, which, fortunately, I was able to watch that without a subscription (cancelled in disgust a long, long time ago).
If you have a mail in ballot, don't waste time. Fill it out and send it in now because you never know what could happen. For instance:
.
I got my ballot in the mail on Thursday. I filled it out on Friday and gave it personally to my postman yesterday, Saturday.
.
Today, Sunday, I learned that there is going to be a category three hurricane that sure seems that it WILL come up the river where I live on Wednesday, and completely destroy my house and neighborhood. But at least I have already voted!
The framing of the NYT article is hilarious. Kamala seeks to make an impact with friendly media.
The implied contrast is with Donald Trump, I guess. How does Mr Trump have the energy to confront the strategic trickery of media foes like Steve Doocy, Maria Bartiromo, and Greg Kelly? How did he maintain his steely focus during that 90 minute barrage of hard-hitting questions from Elon Musk? How does he manage to call into Newsmax AND Fox and Friends in the same morning?!?
Hilarious would not be the word I'd assign to the ridiculous NYT pullout Simon provided. But in keeping with Simon's message of hope, laughing at their pathetic representations is better than being angry and frustrated. Back to work!!
Such an awful way to put Harris's media - "FRIENDLY" media. RIGHT -- like TRUMP would ever sit for an interview with ANYONE who even challenges him ! He ran out on the 60 minutes interview, won't do another debate - UGH. His "interviews" on Fox are beyond ridiculous. OH HOW DISGUSTED I AM WITH OUR MAINSTREAM MEDIA. I hold them largely responsible for the state (of misinformation) we're in.
Does anyone know of weekday virtual volunteer options (i.e. phone banking) targeting AZ and NV, or even NE’s Blue Dot? Not to mention our CA House races and MT Senate? Here on the east coast, sometimes one is free on weekdays when it’s too late to call Eastern Time voters.
You can call from anywhere with the DNC's Call Crew. They are calling for Harris-Walz all day long. They have excellent virtual training opportunities. Just google DNC Call Crew Crew or click on this link: https://democrats.org/call-crew/
In my Biden-Harris section there is a link to volunteer. I would follow that first. And yes, folks, we all need to hit the phones and postcards this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Grassroots Democrats HQ (the group doing the training for Simon's Thursday night phonebanks) has a signup on Mobilize for On Demand phonebanks. If you sign up, it redirects you to the phonebanks available when you sign up.
Simon, it is so encouraging to see Tom Bonier’s analysis of the Early Vote based on "modeled party"! Hope we soon can see similar comparisons for each of the swing states – including Florida.
The analysis I mentioned is actually in Simon’s post today. He also had a bit yesterday. This is all I’m seeing on TargetEarly, although I’m sure Tom Bonier will soon add more details:
Amongst other things, there is an interesting chart showing this year’s Early Vote compared to previous elections. We’re significantly ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections. (Because of the pandemic, any comparisons to 2020 are, of course "apples and oranges".)
Sorry to be a bit dense here, but what do the totals in each category represent? Where we were and where we are now at this stage? The totals in the first column are much higher. 😬
The lines on the graph are comparable, along the timeline. For 2020 and 2022, the numbers at the bottom are Total Early Votes – NOT comparable with 2024, which is Early Votes so far.
The thing about early voting is that you have to have a “like election” to compare to, which we don’t. 2020 was Covid and changed how pretty much everyone voted, then 2022 was a midterm and showed some of the voting behaviors had permanently changed, some hadn’t.
One way to compare “where we are in the early vote” is to look at percentages rather than raw vote totals (which I think Tom Bonier’s site says to do). Right now, Dems make up a larger share of the early vote than they did in 2020 and 2022 at this point.
Another way to compare is to look at the eight states that use mail voting exclusively- CA, CO, HI, NV, OR, UT, VT, WA. We may get a sense of turnout or enthusiasm from those states since 2020 was a “like election” for them- everyone votes by mail.
Eagerly awaiting my AZ ballot which I will fill out and deliver to a Pima County Election office. In 2020, the ballot box was chained to a palm tree and both a Democrat and Republican poll watcher watched me drop it on the ballot box! I do not trust the slime that is the Postmaster General!!
It sounds good to me. Getting Harris out is a good thing. I wish there was more being done (at least from what I can see) to get Walz out there with rural voters, or at least just out more.
We'll just have to see how the hurricane impacts voting. I'm going to phone bank in Mecklenburg County this week. It is the Charlotte area where Harris is right now.
I'm worried about Hurricane Milton, predicted to make landfall in Florida early this week. Other than that I trust the incredible ground game the Harris - Walz campaign has, as explained in Simon's Hopium last week when he interviewed Campaign Manager Julie Rodriquez and Wisconsin Dems Chair Ben Wikler. Adam Kinzinger will interview Colin Allred on Tuesday. Adam also has a Substack here. He's been traveling in Arizona and Nevada and will go to Texas for Tuesday's Zoom with Colin. I've been donating to the Harris Victory Fund and Democrats running for Senate seats plus certain House candidates since July. It's so easy to set up recurring donations on Act Blue Express. My neighbor, who has a voice like Morgan Freeman, is phone banking and canvassing in Wisconsin. I'm home recovering from a yoga accident and writing as many postcards as I can every day. I feel positive.
It seems to me that the Trump campaign is doing what Stuart Stevens called "surfing the news cycle". In this case they are using the news cycle to lie about the hurricane response.
That doesn't seem likely to project a very focussed message and is likely to fail. There is still time between now and Election Day, and other than immigration, they don't seem to have any real message. If anything, manufacturing lies about the hurricane response is deflecting them away from immigration.
I think this is what happens when your campaign is based on lies. They can't even put Trump anywhere where someone will fact check him.
So happy VP Harris & Governor Walz will be on The View, Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Howard Stern this week! Hopefully they'll use those programs' incredibly broad reach to keep reminding everyone to vote early - a message all of us can reinforce daily within our own networks.
Looking forward to writing more Hopium postcards today! Visit www.WinningTheHouse.com for more information.
Also Call Her Daddy (Spotify's #1 podcast among women) and 60 Minutes TV special Monday night. Tuesday on Howard Stern (Sirius XM), The View and Colbert.
Here is a truth A.G. Sulzberger doesn’t want to acknowledge or even hear: By and large, Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern ask better questions and do far better interviews than his NYT political journalists do. In fairness, some of the do write good articles – only to have the editors stick biased, click-seeking and manipulative headlines on them. (Journalists don’t get to choose their headlines.)
If we spool back in history, there was a time when Italians and Poles were not considered White. Certainly not the Jews either, and hardly the Irish. That’s worth remembering.
we should support dan osborn in Nebraska as an independent candidate. He has an excellent chance to win the senate seat and by caucusing with the Dems he would counterbalance a possible loss by Tester in Montana
My understanding is that he has not said which party he will caucus with if he wins. Does he have to caucus with a party? If not, then the republicans still don't gain a seat. Right?
I think his positions align more closely with Dems (he's pro-choice, for example). Pro-labor. The bottom line is that he will not BLOCK Harris's cabinet picks and judge appointments as the GOP has vowed to do - BIG TIME - EXACTLY what they did to Obama for 6 years of his 8 year term;.
Two of my friends, one in MD, one MA, both mailed their ballots in last week - for Harris-Walz, of course! Early, in-person voting starts here in NC on the 17th. Can't wait!
Is it really possible that Dan Osborn can beat Deb Fischer in NE? Hope so!
I've got a reminder on my phone for the 17th to vote early in person before it gets too busy. As a retiree, I sometimes lose that of what day it is unless I have an appointment reminder!! ;-)
"If Kamala Harris wins North Carolina, she has a 97-percent chance of winning the election."
I’m reposting this great comment from Catherine N to yesterday’s Hopium. If you haven’t watched this, please do so. The video is so informative, so inspiring!
"If you haven't seen this, check how Drew Kromer, the Chair of the Democratic Party in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina is managing the campaign to GOTV from Robert Hubbell substack today."
https://open.substack.com/pub/roberthubbell/p/mecklenburg-county-north-carolina?r=cjn1m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks for posting that. I had seen it a few days ago and donated + volunteered.
Maybe Drew Kromer would be a good interview for Simon, or perhaps with the LP people.
Holy cow, this guy!!!
🚨🚨 Simon!! You MUST interview Drew Kromer and let him make the case for GOTV in Mecklenburg County!
Thank you, Arctic Stones, for this link!
All credit to Catherine N! She posted this yesterday.
The Gen Z Democratic leaders in NC are utterly amazing, Anderson Clayton included. Thank you, Catherine N for sharing this!
They set the ground work for this starting in 2023, well before Kamala Harris gained the top of the ticket. Without that initial ground work, I'm not sure that NC Dems could have properly leveraged the swell of enthusiasm for Kamala and converted vibes into volunteers and (knock on wood) votes.
Absolutely. The ground work isn't sexy, doesn't attract a lot of attention, but it's absolutely vital to winning elections. I'm keeping my fingers 🤞
LOVED IT - Jessica Craven was one of the interviewers - I will bet a lot of us are BOTH Simon Rosenberg and Jess Craven fans!
I caught this earlier this morning and donated.
I donated as well
Wow thank you for reposting. Just watched it - very inspiring. Drew Kromer is fantastic. Let's do this!
Just donated to MeckDems!
Going to donate now...can't thank you (and Catherine N) enough!! It really makes a difference knowing what's needed and why...and in what specific areas as well. He makes a great case, and I hope this is shared far and wide.
Drew knocked me out! So encouraging to watch this!
Thanks for the link. Win Mecklenburg County NC big, we win North Carolina, win North Carolina we win the election. Agreed p, Drew Kroner is the real deal and if we go all in now to help him we will win this election. I’m keeping my Simon recommended contributions going but today I made my second biggest donation to date (behind my Harris/Walz contribution) to Mecklenburg County Dems, that’s Charlotte NC with more registered Dems than Atlanta. Get Charlotte out, we win. Simon please go interview this guy, he’s your kinda guy. Cheers Hopium Mates
Thanks for the link. Incredible interview, so inspiring! Drew Kromer is a rock star. Just donated. THIS is how we win!
I second having Drew Kromer on Hopium, would love to see MeckDems get more exposure.
I have shared this with SO many and each person (including me) has responded with a donation. I am grateful.
Wow! That is incredible – and it pleases me to no end.
Anyone see the front page of The NY Times? It’s about time they covered Trump’s rambling incoherent speeches. Will it make a difference? I don’t know so I’m gonna go back to my postcards. 😊 Have a great and productive Sunday everyone!
Me too. Doing more along with you.
Haven't seen the front page headline. They wrote about Trump's rambling speeches and didn't how that hurts VP Harris?
Really good video commentary on Trump’s incoherent rambling, which, fortunately, I was able to watch that without a subscription (cancelled in disgust a long, long time ago).
If you have a mail in ballot, don't waste time. Fill it out and send it in now because you never know what could happen. For instance:
.
I got my ballot in the mail on Thursday. I filled it out on Friday and gave it personally to my postman yesterday, Saturday.
.
Today, Sunday, I learned that there is going to be a category three hurricane that sure seems that it WILL come up the river where I live on Wednesday, and completely destroy my house and neighborhood. But at least I have already voted!
.
So, like I said, get your ballot in ASAFP!
Very best wishes to you Scott, I hope things work out better than feared.
Oh Scott, I hope the hurricane misses your area. We’re in for some really bad storms this fall, I fear.
It can't miss. It's making a bee-line. I'm getting out sooner rather than later.
I wish you the very best. Thank you for voting.
And that also allows time for ballot error “curing” (not that we won’t be very careful!).
Praying for you and everyone in Florida in this next hurricane!!!
The framing of the NYT article is hilarious. Kamala seeks to make an impact with friendly media.
The implied contrast is with Donald Trump, I guess. How does Mr Trump have the energy to confront the strategic trickery of media foes like Steve Doocy, Maria Bartiromo, and Greg Kelly? How did he maintain his steely focus during that 90 minute barrage of hard-hitting questions from Elon Musk? How does he manage to call into Newsmax AND Fox and Friends in the same morning?!?
Hilarious would not be the word I'd assign to the ridiculous NYT pullout Simon provided. But in keeping with Simon's message of hope, laughing at their pathetic representations is better than being angry and frustrated. Back to work!!
Such an awful way to put Harris's media - "FRIENDLY" media. RIGHT -- like TRUMP would ever sit for an interview with ANYONE who even challenges him ! He ran out on the 60 minutes interview, won't do another debate - UGH. His "interviews" on Fox are beyond ridiculous. OH HOW DISGUSTED I AM WITH OUR MAINSTREAM MEDIA. I hold them largely responsible for the state (of misinformation) we're in.
Check out this substack post from Scott Dworkin about press failures:
https://www.dworkinsubstack.com/p/the-press-gave-up-on-telling-the?r=1aiy5t&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you! A appreciate Scott's work and subscribe.
Thank you!
Does anyone know of weekday virtual volunteer options (i.e. phone banking) targeting AZ and NV, or even NE’s Blue Dot? Not to mention our CA House races and MT Senate? Here on the east coast, sometimes one is free on weekdays when it’s too late to call Eastern Time voters.
I would contact the campaign offices for those states.
You can call from anywhere with the DNC's Call Crew. They are calling for Harris-Walz all day long. They have excellent virtual training opportunities. Just google DNC Call Crew Crew or click on this link: https://democrats.org/call-crew/
In my Biden-Harris section there is a link to volunteer. I would follow that first. And yes, folks, we all need to hit the phones and postcards this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Grassroots Democrats HQ (the group doing the training for Simon's Thursday night phonebanks) has a signup on Mobilize for On Demand phonebanks. If you sign up, it redirects you to the phonebanks available when you sign up.
https://www.mobilize.us/grassrootsdemocratslahq/event/549753/
Simon, it is so encouraging to see Tom Bonier’s analysis of the Early Vote based on "modeled party"! Hope we soon can see similar comparisons for each of the swing states – including Florida.
The analysis I mentioned is actually in Simon’s post today. He also had a bit yesterday. This is all I’m seeing on TargetEarly, although I’m sure Tom Bonier will soon add more details:
https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024
Amongst other things, there is an interesting chart showing this year’s Early Vote compared to previous elections. We’re significantly ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections. (Because of the pandemic, any comparisons to 2020 are, of course "apples and oranges".)
I assume we should be ahead of the midterms because there’s greater turnout in a general election
You’re right. That too is actually "apples and oranges".
Sorry to be a bit dense here, but what do the totals in each category represent? Where we were and where we are now at this stage? The totals in the first column are much higher. 😬
The lines on the graph are comparable, along the timeline. For 2020 and 2022, the numbers at the bottom are Total Early Votes – NOT comparable with 2024, which is Early Votes so far.
Thank you!
The thing about early voting is that you have to have a “like election” to compare to, which we don’t. 2020 was Covid and changed how pretty much everyone voted, then 2022 was a midterm and showed some of the voting behaviors had permanently changed, some hadn’t.
One way to compare “where we are in the early vote” is to look at percentages rather than raw vote totals (which I think Tom Bonier’s site says to do). Right now, Dems make up a larger share of the early vote than they did in 2020 and 2022 at this point.
Another way to compare is to look at the eight states that use mail voting exclusively- CA, CO, HI, NV, OR, UT, VT, WA. We may get a sense of turnout or enthusiasm from those states since 2020 was a “like election” for them- everyone votes by mail.
colorado ballots go out by county starting October 11 and completed by October 18.
Just want to note that CA is not exclusively mail voting, but rather by request.
Eagerly awaiting my AZ ballot which I will fill out and deliver to a Pima County Election office. In 2020, the ballot box was chained to a palm tree and both a Democrat and Republican poll watcher watched me drop it on the ballot box! I do not trust the slime that is the Postmaster General!!
It sounds good to me. Getting Harris out is a good thing. I wish there was more being done (at least from what I can see) to get Walz out there with rural voters, or at least just out more.
We'll just have to see how the hurricane impacts voting. I'm going to phone bank in Mecklenburg County this week. It is the Charlotte area where Harris is right now.
So the most they could muster was shame? What a load a weasely crap.
Hopium Doers, i miss reading every single comment but time is short and postcards are many and work suddenly increased. Hurrah to all of you!!
You go Freda! we got your back and are right there with you!
Thx!!!
Yeah same here it's all working on postcards but it's joyful work! Time is short 😉
I'm worried about Hurricane Milton, predicted to make landfall in Florida early this week. Other than that I trust the incredible ground game the Harris - Walz campaign has, as explained in Simon's Hopium last week when he interviewed Campaign Manager Julie Rodriquez and Wisconsin Dems Chair Ben Wikler. Adam Kinzinger will interview Colin Allred on Tuesday. Adam also has a Substack here. He's been traveling in Arizona and Nevada and will go to Texas for Tuesday's Zoom with Colin. I've been donating to the Harris Victory Fund and Democrats running for Senate seats plus certain House candidates since July. It's so easy to set up recurring donations on Act Blue Express. My neighbor, who has a voice like Morgan Freeman, is phone banking and canvassing in Wisconsin. I'm home recovering from a yoga accident and writing as many postcards as I can every day. I feel positive.
It seems to me that the Trump campaign is doing what Stuart Stevens called "surfing the news cycle". In this case they are using the news cycle to lie about the hurricane response.
That doesn't seem likely to project a very focussed message and is likely to fail. There is still time between now and Election Day, and other than immigration, they don't seem to have any real message. If anything, manufacturing lies about the hurricane response is deflecting them away from immigration.
I think this is what happens when your campaign is based on lies. They can't even put Trump anywhere where someone will fact check him.
So happy VP Harris & Governor Walz will be on The View, Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Howard Stern this week! Hopefully they'll use those programs' incredibly broad reach to keep reminding everyone to vote early - a message all of us can reinforce daily within our own networks.
Looking forward to writing more Hopium postcards today! Visit www.WinningTheHouse.com for more information.
Also Call Her Daddy (Spotify's #1 podcast among women) and 60 Minutes TV special Monday night. Tuesday on Howard Stern (Sirius XM), The View and Colbert.
The campaign’s Communications team is outstanding.
The podcast is available now.
So glad they are pursuing this approach!
Here is a truth A.G. Sulzberger doesn’t want to acknowledge or even hear: By and large, Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern ask better questions and do far better interviews than his NYT political journalists do. In fairness, some of the do write good articles – only to have the editors stick biased, click-seeking and manipulative headlines on them. (Journalists don’t get to choose their headlines.)
We finally found that evidence of voter fraud that Trump was looking for:
"Florida Trump supporters arrested on charges of casting more than one vote in 2020 election"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/14/florida-trump-supporters-arrested-charges-casting-more-than-one-vote-2020-election/
"Las Vegas man charged with voting twice in November 2020"
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-joe-biden-nevada-voting-election-2020-09052a5509f7161e9edd15c6ed8de518
There was a post from Elon Musk's mother encouraging Republicans to vote 10 times at 10 different polling locations too.
Certain immigrants should have been barred entry: Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Peter Thiel, Friedrich Trump...
Yes, one has to ask why the Party that doesn't care for immigrants take no issue with the 'white' ones........
If we spool back in history, there was a time when Italians and Poles were not considered White. Certainly not the Jews either, and hardly the Irish. That’s worth remembering.
Just donated to NC! Also writing postcards via Field Team 6, postcardstovoters org and Postcards to Swing States.
we should support dan osborn in Nebraska as an independent candidate. He has an excellent chance to win the senate seat and by caucusing with the Dems he would counterbalance a possible loss by Tester in Montana
My understanding is that he has not said which party he will caucus with if he wins. Does he have to caucus with a party? If not, then the republicans still don't gain a seat. Right?
I think his positions align more closely with Dems (he's pro-choice, for example). Pro-labor. The bottom line is that he will not BLOCK Harris's cabinet picks and judge appointments as the GOP has vowed to do - BIG TIME - EXACTLY what they did to Obama for 6 years of his 8 year term;.
Two of my friends, one in MD, one MA, both mailed their ballots in last week - for Harris-Walz, of course! Early, in-person voting starts here in NC on the 17th. Can't wait!
Is it really possible that Dan Osborn can beat Deb Fischer in NE? Hope so!
I've got a reminder on my phone for the 17th to vote early in person before it gets too busy. As a retiree, I sometimes lose that of what day it is unless I have an appointment reminder!! ;-)
I feel ya, Cheryl! ❤️🤍💙