Wow, dt's plunging 32% favorability from American Research Group (ARG) !
Today Leader Jeffries did a fine job of conveying to NPR what sounds a lot like the Hopium agenda. “All of our candidates have been talking about our commitment to lowering the high cost of living, to fixing our broken healthcare system, to making sure we get ICE under control and have immigration enforcement in this country that's fair, just and humane and to stopping this costly and reckless war of choice in the Middle East.” I sure hope our leadership will emphasize the importance of saving Our Democracy as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=609H527GOKI
Focus on the corruption has been my mantra since 2024. With gas prices and inflation going up while people are losing jobs it has to finally sink in to Trump's base that soon the only people faring well are he, his family and the oligarchs.
This is so on point. It's linking the corruption, selling out government to the private sector, so that things done by our government are done by corporations instead for profit, directly to the declining standard of living (prices, wages, jobs, healthcare), that we can have real success.
People may not like government always, but they'll like it a lot less when the corrupt, greedy oligarchs rule every aspect of our lives. From privacy concerns to putting up virtual toll booths to all our economic activity (technofeudalism), and privatizing government functions so they can loot our treasury, there is plenty there to make political headway.
I think people see the corruption. They don't like it, but I also don't think they see the connection to their lives and their own personal struggles.
Lately I keep hearing messages like, “The Trump family gets richer while you pay more.” I think it is getting some steam finally.
Most corruption is hard to explain because it involves at least two things. Like a conflict of interest means at least two interests. And people usually at least try to hide it. So it usually takes time to reveal and explain.
Now the corruption is easy to see and understand, like bribes from foreign governments, ignoring court orders, violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, violating due process, committing war crimes, kicking out the press, lying to Congress about obvious things, threatening universities and law firms and broadcasters. There is no nuance.
It isn’t just the orange one, either. I don’t understand why they got so sloppy, but I am glad of it.
Looting the Treasury, handing out contracts and privatizing government, so someone is getting rich off of your tax dollars, is what people will understand and what needs to be highlighted.
A lot of the corruption, like bribes to build the ballroom, people don't like, but they also don't connect it to enabling tech billionaires and others to exert control over our economic lives, and to engage in destroying our right to privacy. It is a hard connection to make.
I agree with your argument, but privatizing government as a form of corruption is hard to explain. Or at least it is hard for me to explain. It is legal, for one thing. The same services will - they claim - be available. The GOP has spent decades insisting corporations are more efficient than government, and that government doesn't do anything useful.
That narrative is hard to overcome.
Bribes are simpler, and not hard to connect to people's lives. Trump takes bribes to let companies rip you off. Trump takes bribes to spend American tax dollars in foreign countries. Trump takes bribes to cut billionaires' taxes and cut your health care. Trump takes bribes to pardon criminals.
We should certainly be talking about why privatizing government is corrupt and destructive. But easy-to-understand sound bytes are also important.
Anyone else think that Trump’s decision to invade Iran is just like his decision to force TX to redraw its maps? In both cases he only thought through the first step, never contemplating the response his actions might prompt, which likely doom his efforts to failure.
Not tempered enough, unfortunately. Look at opening up MN wilderness opened to mining, gutting USAID, opening coasts to oil drilling, stalling support to Ukraine, blocking wind energy installation, etc. He has destroyed our nation’s reputation as a force for good.
The sooner he and his MAGA enablers are repudiated, the better!
Does anyone know if the House is still pushing ahead with the Epstein files? The legacy media has practically stopped reporting on Epstein since the cheeto started the war. Meanwhile in the UK, the prime minister is in trouble over his appointment of an Epstein guy. Justice in the US has to be top of our list, along with everything else at the top of the list!
SO exciting! Thank everyone for all your hard work!
I'm gearing up for the new Postcards to Swing States campaign, which kicks off next week. We're also going to hear the data on their news boosting postcarding campaign.
Today I'm representing NJ Moms Demand Action at a symposium in Asbury Park for National Crime Victims' Rights Week, and this evening, I'm going to be presenting on data security, AI and the 2026 election. Phew! Keep going, folks - the tide is turning!
Lisa--you are like the Energizer Bunny. You just keep going and doing more all the time. Thanks for all your hard work and for inspiring others here to step up our games!
Thanks for all of your activism, Lisa. I am involved in a few postcard writing campaigns. I think it's a great way to reach voters and those who need to register.
Yes to the Rule of Law!!! Thank you for sharing this article about ICE officers being arrested in CO and MN for assaulting members of local communities.
Must admit I was really nervous last night when I saw No leading 54.8–45.2 in Virginia. Had it not been for the more experienced election watchers I was reading, I would have been very despondent.
Fortunately the needle swung decisively back to Yes as "truckloads" of ballots arrived from Fairfax and northern Virginia!
/s
My schadenfreude keeps growing as Trump’s demand for even-more-extreme Republican gerrymanders has totally imploded, leaving the GOP even worse off – and the Mad King raging like a spoiled infant.
What saved me was Simon's calm posts and my Hopium peeps. Oh and I stopped checking the results and I got off Bluesky ... until Yes was announced as passing. Salted chips also helped a lot.
Had the same experience except I managed to jumpstart my angst by trying to extrapolate early voting day turnout like I’m some kind of Virginia elections Nostradamus. Could have been, say, cleaning the garage or something constructive. All’s well that ends well though.
media and larry sabato doing their best to downplay the result; narrow win, damaging to spanberger, she wasted political capital etc. but tim miller and gang emphasized how this win was a big effin deal, period; people had to swing away from a recent nonpartisan redistricting vote a few years ago to this; an amazing rejection of trump and a willingness to fight back against republican shit housery. bout friggin time too. i guess dems were supposed to sit back and let their lunch money be taken again. instead they punched the bully in the nose and he is screaming like a stuck pig.
My heart fell when I saw No leading, but I immediately noticed it was only around 50% reported. So I left and didn't check till much later. It ended up making the Yes win even sweeter!
Friends, please stop dismissing the importance of important MAGA people turning on Trump. It matters. They are freaking out about it for these people can break into the MAGA bubble and get to places where we cannot go.
My reaction was Tucker was medically low ebb, sitting with his brother, and day-dreaming of edging out JD Vance next time. I’ll take it all … he is a very useful idiot.
Agree. Just as with MTG when she split with Trump and has been very public about the divorce. Taking hope from such actions doesn't mean we dismiss all the crap these folks have said and done before. It does mean we have to gratefully accept the split and do everything possible to promote more and deeper fractures.
100% You dont have to believe the authenticity of what they are saying, but appreciate the impact of their words as right wing influencers turning against the orange dumpsterfire. It means the winds are at our back and the rats are jumping ship.
Jeffries may be getting coaching from Newsom and I am here for it! He actually said ‘F around and found out’, the DeSantis ‘dummymander’, and ‘make my day’ in the same sentence. I’m a fan of Hakeem with the gloves off. He is feeling the momentum!
All the polling was welcome news. But what stuck out for me was Morris' poll question about impeachment and the result showing 21% of 2024 Trump voters now favor impeaching him! Not just that they don't like him or regret their vote, but they'd actually support taking Congressional action to get him out of office. That is what you call "the worm turning."
Of all the things we've been active in over the past couple of years, the thing I've been most excited about is building back up some of our state parties. I'm 48 now, and I was somewhat politically aware in my 20s....Bill Clinton won his first election my first year of high school, and his reelection my first year of college....and then W became president the fall after I graduated with my Bachelor's Degree, and was my first "adult" president.....his ineptitude, shameful exploitation of 9/11 to check the Neo-Conservative Iraq invasion fever dream off the wish list, and cynical elevation of the utter "bullshit/never gonna happen" idea of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in order to drive turnout in 2004, and the spike in violence and hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community it inspired REALLY solidified my own values and my affiliation with the Democratic Party.
But more than any other person at the time, the one who really invited me into politics in a more meaningful and participatory way was Howard Dean....not through his presidential bid actually...but through his chairmanship of the DNC and the 50 State Strategy. I was really inspired by the idea of focusing on more than just presidential races, but rather congressional, gubernatorial, state legislative....and even mayors, city councils, school boards, water/power district boards, county commissions, county clerks and recorders....everything. I was newly residing in Nevada, and while we failed to win either the governor's race or the US Senate race in 2006 there, I canvassed in Las Vegas on a few different occasions as part of a nationwide effort led by the DNC to get back to basics, and we started something. It wasn't a huge year for us...we picked up one seat in both legislative chambers, but the majorities stayed the same...Dems retained the Assembly, and Rs retained the State Senate. Incidentally, the candidate who lost the governor's race that year was Dina Titus, who went on to win a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2008 for a district in the Las Vegas area...lost two years later in the massive 2010 wipeout, but soldiered right back into office two years later in 2012 and still serves there today!
But...the sense of community and commitment to making our state competitive was created. Two years later, we were an early caucus state, so I got to see both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and shake their hands (Bill's too...he was still very much my political hero at the time)....and when Obama became the nominee, I canvassed for him in my smaller community of Mesquite....and we flipped the state blue for him! In addition, we flipped the state senate blue by winning 3 seats, and strengthened our assembly majority by another seat. And then we kept both chambers, which was really important because they helped guard against a couple of REALLY shitty GOP Governors while I was there (mail in voting became automatic, abortion rights were protected, medicaid expansion was immediately accepted for ACA, etc...cannot overstate how important our success in the state legislature was in those years), and Obama got our electoral votes again in 2012....AND, Congressman Steve Horsford was elected to represent my district in congress (I performed at a party for him we had in Mesquite and got to chat with him for a bit...good politician)....like Dina, he got defeated in a republican wave year (2014), but a couple years later in the 2018 blue wave, he got his seat back, and served as chairman of the congressional black caucus for a couple years from 2023 - 2025. In addition, we helped keep Harry Reid in his US Senate seat (and Majority Leader role) during the catastrophic 2010 "shellacking", and helped succeed him with Catherine Cortez Masto, and then beating R spineless coward Dean Heller in 2018 with Jackie Rosen, both of whom remain in office to this day.
I was devastated like everyone else on election day of 2016, but was proud that we showed up in Nevada for Hillary and maintained our legislative majorities, and then delivered a Dem Governor in Steve Sisolak in 2018 (he waged a hell of a battle and lost very narrowly in 2022 for his reelection after having to make some incredibly difficult decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic....and Nevada was disproportionately crushed by the impacts on the tourism and hospitality industries), and then we helped elect Joe Biden of course in 2020...all while maintaining our control of both legislative chambers, which the state still maintains today, even with the disappointments of Joe Lombardo's ascent to the governorship in 2022, and Trump's electoral college victory there in 2024.
My point is....when cycles like this one come up, and you have someone at the top of the organizational pyramid who cares about the WHOLE bench...like Ken Martin does, and understands how important it is for there to be an infrastructure made up by people OF the communities that will be represented at every level, like Ken Martin does, it is SOOOOO exciting what you can do with the wind at your back. And when you do it, that momentum can carry forward with you for many cycles to come, even when you face headwinds....because the state gains comfort voting for Democrats, and starts to realize some benefit from Democratic values being represented in local decision making.....and the brand improves because at the local level it's easier to think beyond national ideological pie fights.....and suddenly the Democratic Party isn't just the most recent Dem president....it's also Dave that you know from the local Rotary Chapter who sits on the City Council or the County Commission. And here we are 20 years later....we haven't have a 100% control of everything in Nevada that whole time, but when I started canvassing there in 2006, there was a Republican Governor, a Republican State Senate, Republican Attorney General, Republican Secretary of State, one Republican US Senator, and 2 out of 3 of our US House Reps were Republicans....AND George W. Bush had won our Electoral votes in both 2000 and 2004.....think about that for a moment....if we'd had our act together in Nevada in 2000 and had gone for Gore, our history would be dramatically different.
But with that being the sate of things in 2006, by the time I moved back to Nebraska in 2022, we had given our electoral votes to Democrats in 4 consecutive elections, had 2 US Senators, we added a seat in the census and have 3 of 4 districts in the US House, we control the Attorney General's and Secretary of State's offices, put the first Democratic Governor in place since 1994, and gained control of the full state legislature and held on to it for 18 years and counting.
We are poised to do similar things in several new places (and a few old ones we let slip away for a while) if we play our cards right, so when Simon announced the chance to support Anderson Clayton in North Carolina, and then our expansion parties....I was as giddy as a schoolboy. I know now that the "50 State Strategy" was more of a vision and rallying cry than something that was fully implemented....I remember it being jeered at by pundits I knew and liked in Democratic circles at the time....but it was what made me excited to get involved, and I was lucky to be a part of something that over the course of time became an enormous success for the party (even though it has never gotten as much attention as other states)....and I got to meet a lot of senators, presidential candidates, and other big names in the party because of our successes and my involvement....but as cool as that was, it was being part of creating something and watching Nevada improve as a place to live that was the real satisfaction...and feeling like I was an early investor in Nevada stock when it was selling for a couple bucks per share, and watching it grow astronomically.
I've only in the last couple years learned that Simon also ran for DNC chair in 2005 against Howard Dean, and would have worked to implement something like what Chairman Martin is doing now. Simon, some time on the other side of all this, I hope you will indulge me in looking backward at that magical period between the disappointment of Bush's reelection and Obama's 2008 landslide and tell the story as you lived it. I'll pop popcorn for everyone! :-)
Great work all....very excited to see what we can reap in this upcoming AND future harvests from the seeds we are sowing today.
I think about it all the time! In fact, and I wanna be careful how I say this because I’m not trying to drag on the party… But there are things I don’t understand, and I would love Simon‘s perspective on this, but I also recognize that it’s not really the most productive conversation to have right now, because we’re in the middle of a crisis and we have to focus on the task at hand. But I have always wondered what the hell happened to the party at the organizational level after President Obama took office in 2009. I mean I know that it’s typical for whichever party is in power in the White House to suffer losses down ballot, but we just got the shit kicked out of us… Like 1000 legislative seats or something, and I feel like this massive organizing effort that had formed to get Barack Obama elected, and these massive gains all the way up and down the ticket over two cycles in 2006 in 2008 just kind of disappeared. And I’ve never understood if that was just the result of a complacent grassroots community, or if that was caused by decisions made by greedy people at the top of the party pyramid, who were being shortsighted about growing our down ballot bench? But maybe it was both… I just hope we don’t make that mistake again.
Right there with you Steve. '08 was the first election where I could vote (after being so pissed I was too young to vote AGAINST W in '04). It wasn't until several years later that I realized just what a bloodbath 2010 was for us. Basically ever since then we've been clawing our way out of that hole.
“and suddenly the Democratic Party isn't just the most recent Dem president....it's also Dave that you know from the local Rotary Chapter who sits on the City Council or the County Commission.”
Nicely stated!! I’m getting a similar experience after joining our local Dem party group and hearing from local candidates who speak at the monthly meetings. Really engaging in a different and meaningful way.
It’s essential… And I just have this fundamental belief that if we continue to focus at the root level like that, the rest of the ecosystem will kind of take care of itself
It great to see reasons for hope. Thanks, Simon. I will continue to make strategic donations to democratic candidates and continuously contact my Trump sycophant GOP representatives.
Wow, dt's plunging 32% favorability from American Research Group (ARG) !
Today Leader Jeffries did a fine job of conveying to NPR what sounds a lot like the Hopium agenda. “All of our candidates have been talking about our commitment to lowering the high cost of living, to fixing our broken healthcare system, to making sure we get ICE under control and have immigration enforcement in this country that's fair, just and humane and to stopping this costly and reckless war of choice in the Middle East.” I sure hope our leadership will emphasize the importance of saving Our Democracy as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=609H527GOKI
I hope they will also talk about corruption. It looks as if this is the issue that so united and motivated Hungarians across the political spectrum.
Focus on the corruption has been my mantra since 2024. With gas prices and inflation going up while people are losing jobs it has to finally sink in to Trump's base that soon the only people faring well are he, his family and the oligarchs.
This is so on point. It's linking the corruption, selling out government to the private sector, so that things done by our government are done by corporations instead for profit, directly to the declining standard of living (prices, wages, jobs, healthcare), that we can have real success.
People may not like government always, but they'll like it a lot less when the corrupt, greedy oligarchs rule every aspect of our lives. From privacy concerns to putting up virtual toll booths to all our economic activity (technofeudalism), and privatizing government functions so they can loot our treasury, there is plenty there to make political headway.
I think people see the corruption. They don't like it, but I also don't think they see the connection to their lives and their own personal struggles.
Lately I keep hearing messages like, “The Trump family gets richer while you pay more.” I think it is getting some steam finally.
Most corruption is hard to explain because it involves at least two things. Like a conflict of interest means at least two interests. And people usually at least try to hide it. So it usually takes time to reveal and explain.
Now the corruption is easy to see and understand, like bribes from foreign governments, ignoring court orders, violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, violating due process, committing war crimes, kicking out the press, lying to Congress about obvious things, threatening universities and law firms and broadcasters. There is no nuance.
It isn’t just the orange one, either. I don’t understand why they got so sloppy, but I am glad of it.
Looting the Treasury, handing out contracts and privatizing government, so someone is getting rich off of your tax dollars, is what people will understand and what needs to be highlighted.
A lot of the corruption, like bribes to build the ballroom, people don't like, but they also don't connect it to enabling tech billionaires and others to exert control over our economic lives, and to engage in destroying our right to privacy. It is a hard connection to make.
Looting the Treasury is a great example.
I agree with your argument, but privatizing government as a form of corruption is hard to explain. Or at least it is hard for me to explain. It is legal, for one thing. The same services will - they claim - be available. The GOP has spent decades insisting corporations are more efficient than government, and that government doesn't do anything useful.
That narrative is hard to overcome.
Bribes are simpler, and not hard to connect to people's lives. Trump takes bribes to let companies rip you off. Trump takes bribes to spend American tax dollars in foreign countries. Trump takes bribes to cut billionaires' taxes and cut your health care. Trump takes bribes to pardon criminals.
We should certainly be talking about why privatizing government is corrupt and destructive. But easy-to-understand sound bytes are also important.
Just want to boost the good thread that's sort of hidden under Annette's comment. Corruption (anti-) has some Hopium passion. Love it!
Need to add I think "stopping corruption and illiberal, antidemocratic government"
Keep doing the work everyone! Worth it!!!
Anyone else think that Trump’s decision to invade Iran is just like his decision to force TX to redraw its maps? In both cases he only thought through the first step, never contemplating the response his actions might prompt, which likely doom his efforts to failure.
I see a pattern of limited brain capacity.
I’ve said this before, but: "Trump’s single redeeming trait is that his malevolence is tempered by massive incompetence."
Not tempered enough, unfortunately. Look at opening up MN wilderness opened to mining, gutting USAID, opening coasts to oil drilling, stalling support to Ukraine, blocking wind energy installation, etc. He has destroyed our nation’s reputation as a force for good.
The sooner he and his MAGA enablers are repudiated, the better!
Does anyone know if the House is still pushing ahead with the Epstein files? The legacy media has practically stopped reporting on Epstein since the cheeto started the war. Meanwhile in the UK, the prime minister is in trouble over his appointment of an Epstein guy. Justice in the US has to be top of our list, along with everything else at the top of the list!
Absolutely they are pushing ahead, especially Democrats on The House Oversight Committee and the Democratic Women's Caucus!!! https://democraticwomenscaucus.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=738
Here is Rep. Stansbury speaking last week on the floor of the House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4LhWTUHNtQ
and you can hear more testimony on CSPAN's channel https://www.c-span.org/person/melanie-stansbury/130668/
NM has its own investigation into Epstein's Zorro Ranch. NBC reported about it yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4IB_XGUXI
Thank you, she is really impressive.
SO exciting! Thank everyone for all your hard work!
I'm gearing up for the new Postcards to Swing States campaign, which kicks off next week. We're also going to hear the data on their news boosting postcarding campaign.
Today I'm representing NJ Moms Demand Action at a symposium in Asbury Park for National Crime Victims' Rights Week, and this evening, I'm going to be presenting on data security, AI and the 2026 election. Phew! Keep going, folks - the tide is turning!
Amazing!
Lisa--you are like the Energizer Bunny. You just keep going and doing more all the time. Thanks for all your hard work and for inspiring others here to step up our games!
back atcha!
Wow!
Thanks for all of your activism, Lisa. I am involved in a few postcard writing campaigns. I think it's a great way to reach voters and those who need to register.
I will be sending 100 postcards to NC next Tuesday; "Tariffs Have Cost American Households $1,000."
Posts from all over the country were on Threads last night cheering the YES vote in Virginia!
The State and local opposition to this failed administration is pushing back: https://www.denverpost.com/2026/04/21/border-patrol-officer-assault-colorado-ice/?share=
Hopefully, all of Tump's lackeys will take notice.
Yes to the Rule of Law!!! Thank you for sharing this article about ICE officers being arrested in CO and MN for assaulting members of local communities.
Must admit I was really nervous last night when I saw No leading 54.8–45.2 in Virginia. Had it not been for the more experienced election watchers I was reading, I would have been very despondent.
Fortunately the needle swung decisively back to Yes as "truckloads" of ballots arrived from Fairfax and northern Virginia!
/s
My schadenfreude keeps growing as Trump’s demand for even-more-extreme Republican gerrymanders has totally imploded, leaving the GOP even worse off – and the Mad King raging like a spoiled infant.
What saved me was Simon's calm posts and my Hopium peeps. Oh and I stopped checking the results and I got off Bluesky ... until Yes was announced as passing. Salted chips also helped a lot.
Had the same experience except I managed to jumpstart my angst by trying to extrapolate early voting day turnout like I’m some kind of Virginia elections Nostradamus. Could have been, say, cleaning the garage or something constructive. All’s well that ends well though.
media and larry sabato doing their best to downplay the result; narrow win, damaging to spanberger, she wasted political capital etc. but tim miller and gang emphasized how this win was a big effin deal, period; people had to swing away from a recent nonpartisan redistricting vote a few years ago to this; an amazing rejection of trump and a willingness to fight back against republican shit housery. bout friggin time too. i guess dems were supposed to sit back and let their lunch money be taken again. instead they punched the bully in the nose and he is screaming like a stuck pig.
My heart fell when I saw No leading, but I immediately noticed it was only around 50% reported. So I left and didn't check till much later. It ended up making the Yes win even sweeter!
I really enjoyed Hakeem Jeffries talk with NPR earlier. Thank you Deborah.
Simon, Thank you for all the Great Polls!!! Love it!!!!
It really feels like this thing is unravelling fast.
Trump is finished with people, real people.
All that remains to prop up this rancid regime, is the billionaires and large parts of the legacy media.
For now....
For now... small cracks become bigger cracks
RE: Tucker Carlson. Please do not believe a word out of his mouth. He is political weather vane and the winds have shifted.
To quote Maya Angelou, "When someone tells you who they are the first time believe them.".
Friends, please stop dismissing the importance of important MAGA people turning on Trump. It matters. They are freaking out about it for these people can break into the MAGA bubble and get to places where we cannot go.
I listened to what he said and I thought it was pretty remarkable and not something I would ever have expected.
You might not like the guy, or his beliefs, but don't downplay the significance of the moment.
My reaction was Tucker was medically low ebb, sitting with his brother, and day-dreaming of edging out JD Vance next time. I’ll take it all … he is a very useful idiot.
Agree. Just as with MTG when she split with Trump and has been very public about the divorce. Taking hope from such actions doesn't mean we dismiss all the crap these folks have said and done before. It does mean we have to gratefully accept the split and do everything possible to promote more and deeper fractures.
100% You dont have to believe the authenticity of what they are saying, but appreciate the impact of their words as right wing influencers turning against the orange dumpsterfire. It means the winds are at our back and the rats are jumping ship.
Keep pushing.
Exactly! You can spread the word that rats are fleeing the sinking ship without being a rat lover!
Jeffries may be getting coaching from Newsom and I am here for it! He actually said ‘F around and found out’, the DeSantis ‘dummymander’, and ‘make my day’ in the same sentence. I’m a fan of Hakeem with the gloves off. He is feeling the momentum!
All the polling was welcome news. But what stuck out for me was Morris' poll question about impeachment and the result showing 21% of 2024 Trump voters now favor impeaching him! Not just that they don't like him or regret their vote, but they'd actually support taking Congressional action to get him out of office. That is what you call "the worm turning."
Yeah agree, that one is wild. When impeaching the “President” (or whatever he is) is basically a mainstream issue . . .
The win in VA is especially nice in light of all the money Peter Thiel spent on downright deceptive advertising.
Of all the things we've been active in over the past couple of years, the thing I've been most excited about is building back up some of our state parties. I'm 48 now, and I was somewhat politically aware in my 20s....Bill Clinton won his first election my first year of high school, and his reelection my first year of college....and then W became president the fall after I graduated with my Bachelor's Degree, and was my first "adult" president.....his ineptitude, shameful exploitation of 9/11 to check the Neo-Conservative Iraq invasion fever dream off the wish list, and cynical elevation of the utter "bullshit/never gonna happen" idea of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in order to drive turnout in 2004, and the spike in violence and hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community it inspired REALLY solidified my own values and my affiliation with the Democratic Party.
But more than any other person at the time, the one who really invited me into politics in a more meaningful and participatory way was Howard Dean....not through his presidential bid actually...but through his chairmanship of the DNC and the 50 State Strategy. I was really inspired by the idea of focusing on more than just presidential races, but rather congressional, gubernatorial, state legislative....and even mayors, city councils, school boards, water/power district boards, county commissions, county clerks and recorders....everything. I was newly residing in Nevada, and while we failed to win either the governor's race or the US Senate race in 2006 there, I canvassed in Las Vegas on a few different occasions as part of a nationwide effort led by the DNC to get back to basics, and we started something. It wasn't a huge year for us...we picked up one seat in both legislative chambers, but the majorities stayed the same...Dems retained the Assembly, and Rs retained the State Senate. Incidentally, the candidate who lost the governor's race that year was Dina Titus, who went on to win a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2008 for a district in the Las Vegas area...lost two years later in the massive 2010 wipeout, but soldiered right back into office two years later in 2012 and still serves there today!
But...the sense of community and commitment to making our state competitive was created. Two years later, we were an early caucus state, so I got to see both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and shake their hands (Bill's too...he was still very much my political hero at the time)....and when Obama became the nominee, I canvassed for him in my smaller community of Mesquite....and we flipped the state blue for him! In addition, we flipped the state senate blue by winning 3 seats, and strengthened our assembly majority by another seat. And then we kept both chambers, which was really important because they helped guard against a couple of REALLY shitty GOP Governors while I was there (mail in voting became automatic, abortion rights were protected, medicaid expansion was immediately accepted for ACA, etc...cannot overstate how important our success in the state legislature was in those years), and Obama got our electoral votes again in 2012....AND, Congressman Steve Horsford was elected to represent my district in congress (I performed at a party for him we had in Mesquite and got to chat with him for a bit...good politician)....like Dina, he got defeated in a republican wave year (2014), but a couple years later in the 2018 blue wave, he got his seat back, and served as chairman of the congressional black caucus for a couple years from 2023 - 2025. In addition, we helped keep Harry Reid in his US Senate seat (and Majority Leader role) during the catastrophic 2010 "shellacking", and helped succeed him with Catherine Cortez Masto, and then beating R spineless coward Dean Heller in 2018 with Jackie Rosen, both of whom remain in office to this day.
I was devastated like everyone else on election day of 2016, but was proud that we showed up in Nevada for Hillary and maintained our legislative majorities, and then delivered a Dem Governor in Steve Sisolak in 2018 (he waged a hell of a battle and lost very narrowly in 2022 for his reelection after having to make some incredibly difficult decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic....and Nevada was disproportionately crushed by the impacts on the tourism and hospitality industries), and then we helped elect Joe Biden of course in 2020...all while maintaining our control of both legislative chambers, which the state still maintains today, even with the disappointments of Joe Lombardo's ascent to the governorship in 2022, and Trump's electoral college victory there in 2024.
My point is....when cycles like this one come up, and you have someone at the top of the organizational pyramid who cares about the WHOLE bench...like Ken Martin does, and understands how important it is for there to be an infrastructure made up by people OF the communities that will be represented at every level, like Ken Martin does, it is SOOOOO exciting what you can do with the wind at your back. And when you do it, that momentum can carry forward with you for many cycles to come, even when you face headwinds....because the state gains comfort voting for Democrats, and starts to realize some benefit from Democratic values being represented in local decision making.....and the brand improves because at the local level it's easier to think beyond national ideological pie fights.....and suddenly the Democratic Party isn't just the most recent Dem president....it's also Dave that you know from the local Rotary Chapter who sits on the City Council or the County Commission. And here we are 20 years later....we haven't have a 100% control of everything in Nevada that whole time, but when I started canvassing there in 2006, there was a Republican Governor, a Republican State Senate, Republican Attorney General, Republican Secretary of State, one Republican US Senator, and 2 out of 3 of our US House Reps were Republicans....AND George W. Bush had won our Electoral votes in both 2000 and 2004.....think about that for a moment....if we'd had our act together in Nevada in 2000 and had gone for Gore, our history would be dramatically different.
But with that being the sate of things in 2006, by the time I moved back to Nebraska in 2022, we had given our electoral votes to Democrats in 4 consecutive elections, had 2 US Senators, we added a seat in the census and have 3 of 4 districts in the US House, we control the Attorney General's and Secretary of State's offices, put the first Democratic Governor in place since 1994, and gained control of the full state legislature and held on to it for 18 years and counting.
We are poised to do similar things in several new places (and a few old ones we let slip away for a while) if we play our cards right, so when Simon announced the chance to support Anderson Clayton in North Carolina, and then our expansion parties....I was as giddy as a schoolboy. I know now that the "50 State Strategy" was more of a vision and rallying cry than something that was fully implemented....I remember it being jeered at by pundits I knew and liked in Democratic circles at the time....but it was what made me excited to get involved, and I was lucky to be a part of something that over the course of time became an enormous success for the party (even though it has never gotten as much attention as other states)....and I got to meet a lot of senators, presidential candidates, and other big names in the party because of our successes and my involvement....but as cool as that was, it was being part of creating something and watching Nevada improve as a place to live that was the real satisfaction...and feeling like I was an early investor in Nevada stock when it was selling for a couple bucks per share, and watching it grow astronomically.
I've only in the last couple years learned that Simon also ran for DNC chair in 2005 against Howard Dean, and would have worked to implement something like what Chairman Martin is doing now. Simon, some time on the other side of all this, I hope you will indulge me in looking backward at that magical period between the disappointment of Bush's reelection and Obama's 2008 landslide and tell the story as you lived it. I'll pop popcorn for everyone! :-)
Great work all....very excited to see what we can reap in this upcoming AND future harvests from the seeds we are sowing today.
Imagine where we might be today if Howard Dean's 50-state strategy had been in place all these years.
I think about it all the time! In fact, and I wanna be careful how I say this because I’m not trying to drag on the party… But there are things I don’t understand, and I would love Simon‘s perspective on this, but I also recognize that it’s not really the most productive conversation to have right now, because we’re in the middle of a crisis and we have to focus on the task at hand. But I have always wondered what the hell happened to the party at the organizational level after President Obama took office in 2009. I mean I know that it’s typical for whichever party is in power in the White House to suffer losses down ballot, but we just got the shit kicked out of us… Like 1000 legislative seats or something, and I feel like this massive organizing effort that had formed to get Barack Obama elected, and these massive gains all the way up and down the ticket over two cycles in 2006 in 2008 just kind of disappeared. And I’ve never understood if that was just the result of a complacent grassroots community, or if that was caused by decisions made by greedy people at the top of the party pyramid, who were being shortsighted about growing our down ballot bench? But maybe it was both… I just hope we don’t make that mistake again.
Right there with you Steve. '08 was the first election where I could vote (after being so pissed I was too young to vote AGAINST W in '04). It wasn't until several years later that I realized just what a bloodbath 2010 was for us. Basically ever since then we've been clawing our way out of that hole.
I imagine what might have been if Sandra Day O'Connor had voted differently in Bush v Gore...
...but these are things that didn't happen, and so we learn hard lessons...
I've supported Dr. Dean since he ran for prez way back when. SIGH.
“and suddenly the Democratic Party isn't just the most recent Dem president....it's also Dave that you know from the local Rotary Chapter who sits on the City Council or the County Commission.”
Nicely stated!! I’m getting a similar experience after joining our local Dem party group and hearing from local candidates who speak at the monthly meetings. Really engaging in a different and meaningful way.
It’s essential… And I just have this fundamental belief that if we continue to focus at the root level like that, the rest of the ecosystem will kind of take care of itself
Thanks Piano Man. The long arc of justice, as seen through your eyes...
We are writing a new chapter now ...
It great to see reasons for hope. Thanks, Simon. I will continue to make strategic donations to democratic candidates and continuously contact my Trump sycophant GOP representatives.
I gather from that NORC poll that Sen. Fetterman makes up 2-3% of the Democrats
Is Fetterman really a Dem at this point?
Not unless he votes for War Powers for Congress...
I guess he's carrying on the blue dog legacy. I guess he wasn't content to let selfish, buzzkill Manchin be the last!