Transcript - Simon Rosenberg Presentation To Hopium Paid Subscribers (December 3, 2025)

This rough transcript was generated by ChatGPT from the original Zoom webinar transcript.

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Welcome, everyone. Simon Rosenberg here at Hopium Chronicles for our weekly gathering of the proud, plucky patriots of this community. Whether you’re watching live or recorded on Substack, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify—welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you for being here.

We’ve had another remarkable week in our politics, and I want to ground us in something we talk about often: two things are happening simultaneously. First, Trump continues to inflict enormous damage on the country, and we must act with urgency to mitigate that damage, advance our agenda, and win back power. Second, the political project of weakening him and his regime is going extremely well—better than I expected.

We’ve had strong special election victories across the country, averaging double-digit wins. November brought blowout elections: we won states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, California, and Maine by over 20 points. In Virginia and New Jersey, Spanberger and Sherrill won decisively. We won school board, county, and city council races nationwide. And in Tennessee’s 7th District, Afton Bain came within nine points in a Republican +22 district—forcing Mike Johnson to campaign there and prompting Republicans to spend millions defending territory that should have been safe.

We’re also hoping to finish the year with a win in the Miami mayor’s race with Eileen Higgins, which would be the first Democratic win there since the 1990s. If you plan on contributing, the deadline is Thursday, December 4th. They have unusual rules, so contributions must be in before midnight.

As we look toward 2026, I want to remind everyone: since Trump won in 2016, Democrats have been winning more than we’ve been losing. The loss in 2024 was devastating emotionally, but that shouldn’t obscure the broader pattern. In 2018, we won the national popular vote by 8.5 points—one of the strongest midterm performances in modern history. In 2020, we removed an incumbent president and flipped the Senate. In 2022, the red wave never materialized, and we outperformed expectations, even surpassing our 2020 numbers in several battleground states. It was one of the best midterm performances for a party in power in American history.

In 2023, the year I founded Hopium, we won elections across the country. In early 2024, Tom Suozzi’s special election victory far exceeded polling expectations. Even in 2024’s disappointing cycle, we won key down-ballot races in battleground states. In North Carolina, despite losing statewide, we won five of ten statewide elections, including governor and attorney general, broke the Republican supermajority, and won the Supreme Court race by a razor-thin margin. There were successes.

When we tell our story—and when we tell the truth about the danger MAGA represents—we win. We’ve done so repeatedly. Since Trump went “full MAGA” around 2017 and 2018, we’ve been able to stare them down again and again.

Now, as we end 2025 and move into 2026, the political battlefield has shifted 7–13 points in our favor compared to a year ago. That makes the House likely to flip. It puts the Senate in play. And it opens the possibility that Democrats may hold a majority of governorships.

Six months ago, if I had said the Senate would be competitive in Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas, people would have laughed. But that is the landscape today. Polling shows Mary Peltola leading in Alaska if she runs. Rob Sand leads in Iowa. Sherrod Brown leads in Ohio. Our candidates in Texas are competitive, with three recent polls confirming that. If we hold our current seats—like Jon Ossoff in Georgia—and flip North Carolina and Maine, we’d reach 49 Senate seats. Then we’d need just two more from states we’re investing in through the Audacious Expansion Fund: Alaska, Iowa, Texas, Florida, and Maine. Ohio will likely be added soon.

But let me be clear: flipping the Senate will be very hard. These races are tough, and we must work extraordinarily hard to take advantage of the moment.

One of the key lessons of 2025 is this: when we fight MAGA, we win. We fought them on redistricting, and we’re now more likely to net seats from the redistricting process. We fought them on the budget, ACA subsidy cuts, and the shutdown. They took enormous political damage from that fight, which contributed to our sweeping November victories.

We fought and won on the release of the Epstein files. The House and Senate—every Republican but one—voted to rebuke the president and demand he stop covering up for one of the most notorious sex criminals in American history. It was one of the most significant congressional rebukes of a sitting president in our history. That vote helped fracture their coalition. The cracks are widening—Marjorie Taylor Greene breaking ranks, Pete Hegseth facing scrutiny, Elise Stefanik attacking Mike Johnson and calling him a liar, Nancy Mace hinting at resigning early. If three House Republicans resigned together, the GOP could lose the majority and Hakeem Jeffries would become Speaker.

Their regime is cracking. Trump is weakening. His poll numbers continue to drop or stagnate. In many polls, he’s hitting rock bottom—lower than he was a month ago, lower than Biden was after the catastrophic debate performance. He’s in visible physical and cognitive decline, sometimes falling asleep while hosting events. His ability to do the job is eroding, and Americans see it. Multiple polls now put him in the mid-30s, with disapproval in the low 60s. Sixteen percent of his 2024 voters now say they regret voting for him. Two-thirds of the country disapproves of him. This is extraordinary for a recent president.

This decline should give us confidence. We must stop operating from fear and instead operate from strength. When we fight, we win. We have lost our nerve; we need to regain it. Enter this next cycle with confidence.

To win, we must do three things: mitigate the damage he’s doing, advance our agenda, and win back power. We also must invest early—now, not next summer—so our candidates and committees have the staff and capacity to compete every single day. That could be the difference between winning and losing the Senate.

In the near term, Republicans must pass a budget. We must remember: fighting for the American people makes us strong. We shouldn’t be trying to cut deals; we should be fighting to get the most we can for the country. That means fighting to preserve the Western alliance, eliminate harmful tariffs, defend our healthcare system, fund the NIH, protect vaccines and scientific institutions, defend rights and due process, and push back against attacks on democracy—including demanding full release of the Epstein files.

Every day, through Hopium, I give you the issues to call Congress about and the candidates and committees on the front lines. My advice: get to know these candidates. Follow the interviews. Don’t judge too quickly. We enjoyed getting to know Afton Bain—she was extraordinary. We have more great candidates: Janelle Stelson in Pennsylvania 10, Paige Cognetti in Pennsylvania 8, and others. This is an exciting time.

Our party itself is in transition. We’re moving beyond the era of Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Biden, and even Bernie. A new party is emerging. I don’t know exactly what it will look like or what ideology will dominate, but we need to be open to new approaches, new leaders, and new political realities. Hopium exists to help build what comes next—not to predetermine its shape.

We must avoid factionalism. There are no “good” or “bad” Democrats—we are all rowing in the same boat. And we must support candidates who can win. That means candidates who can survive $10 million of negative ads and withstand extensive opposition research. Many first-time candidates struggle because they haven’t been vetted. This isn’t about ideology; it’s about winning against Republicans.

I’m conservative in my recommendations to you. Many of you give what you can from pensions or Social Security, and I honor that. I will only recommend candidates who have a real path to victory and where your time and money will make a difference.

Last night was a good night in Tennessee. The Republican crack-up today in the House is much worse than it was 24 hours ago. Their regime is weakening. Mike Johnson is losing control of the House for Donald Trump. And this matters.

We are not where we want to be—Trump is still doing enormous harm to the country—but politically, they are far weaker than anyone would have predicted at the start of the year. We are ahead of schedule. But we cannot become complacent. We must continue the work of weakening the regime, advancing our agenda, mitigating the damage, and winning power.

The next race is Eileen Higgins in Miami. Please do whatever you can to support her and help her win next week. It would be a deeply meaningful flip and a great way to end the year.

Thanks, everyone. Let’s get to your questions.