Vice President Harris Starts Her Campaign Strong, Confident and Kicking Ass

The Hopium Community Gathers Tonight at 7pm ET - Join Us!

Happy Tuesday all, and a good Tuesday it is. The transition from the President to the Vice President, though swift and sudden, has been seamless and wildly successful. The new Harris campaign has already raised and received in commitments over $250,000,000!!!!! Volunteer sign ups have surged. The party has embraced her candidacy enthusiastically, and last night she already - in little more than a day - received the public support of enough Convention delegates to secure the nomination. The Vice President is traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin today, already, to do her first event as the presumptive Democratic nominee. The campaign goes on my friends, the baton has been passed, and we cannot let up.

The Vice President went to the new Harris for President campaign headquarters in Delaware yesterday, met with the team, and offered a compelling set of remarks. Lawrence O’Donnell played her remarks, and those of the President’s, in this wonderful Last Word segment last night. The historic scene from the campaign headquarters begins at 9:18. If you watch one thing today let it be this….

We are gathering tonight at 7pm ET to talk about these remarkable events these past few days. You can register here. Excited to get together tonight - so much to talk about! Be sure to read my post about why Trump’s picking of JD Vance was such a huge mistake, and please read my big thank you to Joe Biden yesterday, our deeply consequential President, a proud patriot, a warrior for all of us, a true American Cincinnatus. His grit, courage and love of country continues to inspire us all.

While we need to be very careful about early polling, the little we’ve gotten in recent days from high quality pollsters is encouraging. Morning Consult and Echelon had the Vice President down 2 points to Donald Trump, Civiqs had her up 2, 48-46. And all this comes after the assassination attempt on the former President, the Vance pick, their convention, when Rs should be riding high and before - before - our successful transition, the rallying around the Vice President, her VP pick, our convention. Here is what the high quality Dem firm Civiqs posted on Twitter yesterday:

We @Civiqs started tracking Trump vs. Harris two weeks ago. Normally this info is paywalled, but this deserves sharing: - Through 7/21, Biden trailed Trump 46-44 nationally; Harris was ahead 48-46. Trump is stuck at a ceiling of 46. Harris gains from 3rd party/undecided voters.

Digging into the pres vote crosstabs: - Young voters (18-34) go from Biden 44-36 (+8) to Harris 57-37 (+20) - Independents go from Trump 48-32 (+16) to Trump 49-41 (+8) - Harris picks up 7pp among Black voters and 8pp among Hispanic voters, almost all from 3rd party/undecideds

Reminder this polling is from *before* Biden announced that he was exiting the race.

New Ipsos/Reuters poll has Harris up 2, 44-42, in the two way and up 4 (42-38) in the full field:

There is no way Republicans can be happy with this current polling as they threw everything they had at the electorate and are just not winning right now. For what this data tells us is the election remains close and competitive (remember all these polls have 2-4 points margin of error so -2 is tied) and if we do the work, rally around the Vice President and our candidates and state parties, we can win this thing. Make sure you do your part this week - donate, volunteer, help educate your communities about our new nominee and the dangers of MAGA. Not surprisingly the Hopium community is rallying. We’ve raised over $100,000 for the Vice President since Sunday. We’ve raised tens of thousands more for our other projects. In our paid subscriber chat it’s great to see everyone talking about how they are stepping up - the postcards they’ve ordered, the phone banks they’ve signed up for, the canvassing they’ve done. Folks are fired up, ready to go. This is a remarkable moment in the history of our great party, and friends we now just have to put our heads down, do the work and go out and win this thing for our democracy, our freedoms and our future, together.

House Dems Fighting Hard - The DCCC released a very encouraging memo this morning. Here’s the top:

To: Interested Parties
From: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 
Date: July 23, 2024
Subject: House Democrats Remain Well-Positioned to Win Back the Majority

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Despite a volatile month of ever-evolving political news, House Democrats remain well-positioned to win back the majority this fall. Thanks to our continued fundraising advantage, the individual strengths of our Frontliners and Red to Blue challengers, and a stark contrast between the forward-looking agenda of House Democrats and MAGA extremism, the DCCC is confident that we will retake the Majority and get the House back to work For the People. 

Steadily Increasing Fundraising and Cash-on-Hand Advantage for Democrats Across the Battlefield
Both Democratic Frontliners and challengers outraised their Republican opponents by an average of more than $440,000 in the most recent quarter.

In this same quarter, our Frontline Democrats, on average, raised $1,040,000 - which is roughly $600,000 more than their Republican challengers raised. These same Democratic Frontliners have an average of more than $2.6 million cash-on-hand, which is an average of nearly five times more than their Republican opponents. This cash-on-hand advantage will be imperative as communication begins in earnest. National House Republican IEs are seeing these fundraising disparities and, for the first time in recent cycles, haven't placed reservations in media markets such as Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Manchester, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, or Seattle – despite insisting they’re going on offense.

Democratic challengers are also winning the cash race against vulnerable House Republican incumbents. Candidates on the DCCC’s Red to Blue program outraised their Republican opponent by an average of more than $400,000 in Q2. In many races – Kirsten Engel in AZ-06, George Whitesides in CA-27, Will Rollins in CA-41, Christina Bohannan in IA-01, Tony Vargas in NE-02, Laura Gillen in NY-04, Mondaire Jones in NY-17, Josh Riley in NY-19, and Janelle Stelson in PA-10 – these Red to Blue candidates have already overtaken their Republican opponents in cash-on-hand. 

Additionally, the DCCC continues to outraise the NRCC – raising $7 million more in Q2 and having more than $17.1 million cash on hand as of the last filing. 

Democratic House Candidates Continue to Overperform 
In a June 2024 DCCC battleground poll, our pollsters found Democrats leading the generic ballot by one point. Once candidates were named in Frontline and Red to Blue districts, this advantage grew to three points. Specifically, our Frontliners now lead their named Republican opponents by +8 points. And before most of our Red to Blue candidates have begun making their case to the electorate in paid communications, they are within the margin of error.

Additionally, in district-specific polling in Frontline districts from early May to mid-July, the Democratic incumbent is leading by an average of +8 percentage points and has an average net +10 favorability rating. In Red to Blue races, Democratic candidates are leading or statistically tied with their Republican opponents in nearly all of the district-specific polls the DCCC has received or conducted, and have an average of +7 favorability. In the 19 district-specific polls conducted after the June 27th debate, Frontliners and Red to Blue candidates remained resilient, with no poll showing atrophy in their support from prior instruments. 

We anticipate this overperformance to continue throughout the rest of the election. We also anticipate renewed enthusiasm from Democratic and independent voters, voters of color, and younger voters (18-39) – a key driver for Democratic turnout up and down the ballot, which remains key to our success in November. 

Encouraging stuff from the House Democrats!!!!! Thank you to everyone here for what you are doing - and will do - to help us flip the House this November!

A Quick Report On My Exciting Trip to North Carolina - I spent the weekend in North Carolina, doing an event on Friday with the dynamic State Party Chair Anderson Clayton and attended their big Unity Dinner on Saturday night. All I can say is that people in North Carolina are fired up, working hard, determined to win. Be sure to watch a video I made with Chair Clayton thanking the Hopium community. We are the largest investor, in the whole country, in the North Carolina Democratic Party, and folks there was so so grateful. Here’s a picture of me with my college buddy Gerda Stein, and her brother, the next Governor of the Tar Heel State, Attorney General Josh Stein.

I will be sharing more form my trip to Raleigh in the coming days. It was so great to see so many in the Hopium community. And thank you all for all that you’ve done - and will do - to turn this critical battleground state blue!

Fired Up, Ready To Go - Let’s keep working hard for the Hopium-endorsed candidates and state parties:

• Harris For President - $705,000 raised today, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $705,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $100,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President. Note the new campaign released its first Harris for President merch this morning. Stuff looks good!

• Winning The House - $562,000 raised today, $600,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $50,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 12 or each one individually)

• North Carolina - $333,000 raised today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $296,000 raised today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $123,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s how you can do even more:

• Volunteer for the Harris campaign - never been more important to volunteer!

• Watch our interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) and Andrei Cherny (AZ-01)

• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in a few states on September 20th, less than 2 months away!

• Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, and this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election.

Finally help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber at this link. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack. We are now more than 94,000 strong - let’s keep the community growing and the Hopium flowing!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon