Voting on Day 1 is critical! We make sure to drop our ballots off as soon as we get them. Then the next step is to get everyone else we know out to the polls. (Often I'm the only one who knows what's going on with local races, which lets me encourage even more positive outcomes.)
I'm very glad for the instruction on the importance of day 1 voting. It's news to me. I don't know why, but I've always thought sending my ballot in close to election day was the way to go.( Question: aren't there some states that do not count mail ballots until election day?) I will take Simon's message to heart and get my ballot in on day 1. Also, of course glad for reminder that R's are trying to lie (and grab perpetual attention) their way to winning.
No state can start opening and counting votes until Election Day, but they do put out daily counts of how many ballots they have received, and some states provide info about how many ballots are received from registered Dems and from registered Republicans, which gives an early look at who is voting.
Who you vote for is private; whether you vote is public information. Knowing how many ballots have been "banked" either through mail-in or early in-person voting helps the party with which you are affiliated - you are taken off the canvassing, phone- and text-banking lists. This lets resources be used to GOTV for potentially less reliable voters.
Some states don't allow the ballots to be opened, but do allow election officials to check ballot for witnesses or signature match on the envelope. Some GOP states have "gotchas" and reject ballots for minor issues. If your ballot is returned early there may be time to "cure" it (i.e., fix the issues that led to its rejection). In addition, many GOP-led states have removed "grace periods" for mail-in ballots. For example in NC, as long as your ballot was postmarked by election day, it previously would have been counted if it arrived within 3 days past election day. Now it has to get there by 5pm(?) on election day. With the deteriorization in the USPS, those two factors combined could result in many more ballots being rejected.
Wonderful! I am too, but NC is my home state, so I have a "selfish" motive!
I am also writing postcards to register new women voters in NC-01 with a Field Team 6 campaign (ww.fieldteam6.org). They give you a choice of 3 messages: (1) MAGA threat to women's reproductive rights, (2) MAGA plan to reduce Social Security and Medicare in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and (3) MAGA chaos and threat to take away freedoms. FYI, FT6 still has close to 10K names and addresses unclaimed. You can use their postcards or your own. Mail as you go; suggested time frame 3 - 4 weeks.
In addition, I am writing postcards to BIPOC voter in NC for Reclaim Our Vote (https://www.centerforcommonground.org/reclaim-our-vote). Must use their postcards and requires brief training. These "pledge to vote" postcards are mail as you go with a final deadline of July 11. There will be another GOTV campaign later this summer, which will likely be a "hold until" campaign.
Thanks! I am toggling between these postcard campaigns and writing Vote forward letters. The ones with later "don't mail until dates" probably need more attention...
I like to write while listening to podcasts or attending zooms with grassroots groups.
Illegal border crossings reduced by more than half!
Reposting this because I think it is extremely relevant, and really ought to be near top of the news. Trump and Republicans have been screaming about "The Border!" Well, there is some really good news:
For what it's worth, on Face the Nation this morning, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said border crossings are down because Mexico is holding people back until June's presidential and gubernatorial elections. After that, he said, Mexico will resume letting people cross into the US:
REP. GONZALES: I think a large part of it- well, first off, it doesn't have to do with what Joe Biden has done. We're on pace for 1.3 million people to come over illegally. The numbers are down. The explanation is Mexico. A lot of people don't realize Mexico has an election next month for its presidency, nine governorships and its Congress. So in many cases, the- those that are running on security platforms are keeping the numbers down, but the cartels are like companies. So they're taking a loss in Q1 and Q2 in order to increase the volume in Q3 and Q4. So if any- in many- many ways this is just Mexico carrying Biden a couple rounds. Now Joe Biden wants to secure this thing long term, I think he needs to stop looking at the Senate for a solution and look to the House.
"…it doesn't have to do with what Joe Biden has done."
Well, lest we forget: Joe Biden has a constructive dialog with Amlo (President Obrador) of Mexico. Trump, on the other hand, consistently denigrated Mexicans and Mexico.
Virtually unknown fact: of the 455 miles miles of border wall that were built under Trump, only 49 miles previously had no barrier. Look at that number again: 49 miles. And we all know that Trump got Mexico to pay for every mile of it, right? /s
I always vote on Day 1 and thank the poll workers and feel profoundly the privilege and honor it is to BE ABLE TO VOTE IN A FREE AND FAIR ELECTION. We here at Hopium understand the stakes. Bravo to you/us all, and deep thanks to Simon for his stellar leadership.
Intentionally false polling has become a scourge of modern politics. Why the NYTs has joined the competition remains a mystery.
There is one person who has caused Joe Biden more headaches than any of his Republican enemies. That person is the New York Times charlatan polling "guru", Nate Cohn.
Cohn is responsible for the design and results of the monthly Times/Sienna presidential preference poll.
We should ignore the Times' polls and any journalist or news reporter comments about Biden's popularity based on these polls.
As a quantitative research tool, presidential political polls should be predictive of future elections results. However, like all quantitative consumer research, political polling requires a participant group reflective of the actual voting population and rejects any participants not likely to vote.
However, the Times/Sienna polls does the opposite. So as not to be accused of "liberal bias" the Times purposely includes an overly high proportion of low propensity, disengaged voters in its polling groups. Regardless of party affiliation, these "voters" tend to be unknowledgeable about issues and lean MAGA conservative. Cohn clearly admits his results are suspect in his latest NYTs article about the vagaries of political polling.
Because the Times is considered the authority of record for journalists and news reporters across all media, the Times has a greater responsibility to avoid biased polling. Unfortunately, the Times/Sienna results have undermined Biden's support for months and has been the primary data source driving efforts to get one of America's greatest presidents, not to run in Nov. resulting in serious damage to our democracy.
Thousands of lifetime subscribers to the Times have cancelled in disgust in the past 6 months. The Times' leadership pretends the paper is just being "objective" when in fact it's reporting is based on knowingly false data.
As Americans, we will keep pushing the Times to stop supporting Trump and correct its biased polling results. More than the 81 million Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 will be back in Nov.to give him the largest vote total in history.
The stock market is the best it's ever been, job market is the best since the 60s. COVID recovery for the US is by far better than any other country..... but in poll after poll a majority of Americans refuse to believe the economy is good.
How much of people's economic opinion is based off feeling instead of fact? Reminds me if when Trump was President -- a lot of MAGATs would brag about the stock market and the jobs report and how well they were doing. But none of them could explain how any of these macro figures actually affected their personal finances. They just "believed" their financial situation had improved.
How do you combat something like that? Simon's points are great, but only if a sizable chunk of the electorate recognizes objective reality in the next few months.
I wrote about this yesterday. In the 7 battleground states a large majority believe things have improved in their states. We should be able to connect the dots between their sense things are better and our policies, aided by Dem govs and other Dem leaders in the state.
Why aren’t primary elections considered "high-sample polls of each party’s candidates"? With a comparison between the number of voters who decide to participate in the "Republican Poll" or the "Democratic Poll"?
Isn’t that essentially what primary elections are: very-high-sample polls?
The new Biden ad is clearly heading in that direction. And we, all of us here, can talk about it all of the time with our own networks. No need to wait for Biden. We can get the ball moving...
This is the quote of the season: “I realize there are many in the game who are fighting for clicks. That’s fine. Here at Hopium we are fighting for our democracy.”
Re: voting on Day 1, Virginia has a great, relatively new program allowing for people who have voted by mail in the past to get our ballots automatically in the mail as soon as possible before each election. I don’t know how many states allow this - we were far behind on a lot of things until the Dems took over our General Assembly a few years back - but it makes voting so much easier and quicker, I encourage the practice to be spread to wherever it still is not happening, and encourage all who can to take advantage of it.
Check out this website for voting rules by state. If you click on the state name in the first column a detailed page will open up on each states rules, deadlines, etc.
Then text or email all your friends and family who might vote by mail a reminder to request their ballot, the link to get one, and the date they will start to be mailed out. I would also include a link to the Blue Voter guide (https://bluevoterguide.org/) and remaind them to vote up and down the ballot!
Do the same thing for early in-person voting if available in your state and the EV locations.
Also post on social media. Become the "expert" your friends and family look to on voting-related matters.
TY, Simon, for reviewing the ‘22 polling just before the election that was Republican instigated… and they’ll be trying the same tactic again! So vote early and get friends to the polls with you. Remember our friendly Dem states as well as the Battleground ones!
Saw you on Washington Journal last week… good job, especially with the Republican callers🙃
I will post that interview this week....yes the engagement with Republicans was clearly the best part, and a reminder of just how badly they've been lied to by their leaders.
Voting on Day 1 is critical! We make sure to drop our ballots off as soon as we get them. Then the next step is to get everyone else we know out to the polls. (Often I'm the only one who knows what's going on with local races, which lets me encourage even more positive outcomes.)
I'm very glad for the instruction on the importance of day 1 voting. It's news to me. I don't know why, but I've always thought sending my ballot in close to election day was the way to go.( Question: aren't there some states that do not count mail ballots until election day?) I will take Simon's message to heart and get my ballot in on day 1. Also, of course glad for reminder that R's are trying to lie (and grab perpetual attention) their way to winning.
No state can start opening and counting votes until Election Day, but they do put out daily counts of how many ballots they have received, and some states provide info about how many ballots are received from registered Dems and from registered Republicans, which gives an early look at who is voting.
Who you vote for is private; whether you vote is public information. Knowing how many ballots have been "banked" either through mail-in or early in-person voting helps the party with which you are affiliated - you are taken off the canvassing, phone- and text-banking lists. This lets resources be used to GOTV for potentially less reliable voters.
Some states don't allow the ballots to be opened, but do allow election officials to check ballot for witnesses or signature match on the envelope. Some GOP states have "gotchas" and reject ballots for minor issues. If your ballot is returned early there may be time to "cure" it (i.e., fix the issues that led to its rejection). In addition, many GOP-led states have removed "grace periods" for mail-in ballots. For example in NC, as long as your ballot was postmarked by election day, it previously would have been counted if it arrived within 3 days past election day. Now it has to get there by 5pm(?) on election day. With the deteriorization in the USPS, those two factors combined could result in many more ballots being rejected.
When IS Day 1?
It varies by state- they all have different early vote timelines. Vote.org has the start of early voting for each state.
thank you!
Writing postcards to North Carolina through Postcards to Swing States!
Writing postcards to Pennsylvania through Postcards to Swing States, too! Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you for posting this info. I was not familiar with this organization until I read this. I plan to sign up as well.
You can sign up here: https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/
Awesome awesome awesome, thank you! Signing up!
You are very welcome!
Signed up. thank you Cheryl Johnson.
What Organization?
Thanks,
Naomi
Postcards to Swing States, https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/.
thank you!
Wonderful! I am too, but NC is my home state, so I have a "selfish" motive!
I am also writing postcards to register new women voters in NC-01 with a Field Team 6 campaign (ww.fieldteam6.org). They give you a choice of 3 messages: (1) MAGA threat to women's reproductive rights, (2) MAGA plan to reduce Social Security and Medicare in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and (3) MAGA chaos and threat to take away freedoms. FYI, FT6 still has close to 10K names and addresses unclaimed. You can use their postcards or your own. Mail as you go; suggested time frame 3 - 4 weeks.
In addition, I am writing postcards to BIPOC voter in NC for Reclaim Our Vote (https://www.centerforcommonground.org/reclaim-our-vote). Must use their postcards and requires brief training. These "pledge to vote" postcards are mail as you go with a final deadline of July 11. There will be another GOTV campaign later this summer, which will likely be a "hold until" campaign.
Good for you! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks! I am toggling between these postcard campaigns and writing Vote forward letters. The ones with later "don't mail until dates" probably need more attention...
I like to write while listening to podcasts or attending zooms with grassroots groups.
Hi Cheryl. What are 'Vote forward' letters and how do you get involved with that?
You rock! Thanks for all you're doing!
Illegal border crossings reduced by more than half!
Reposting this because I think it is extremely relevant, and really ought to be near top of the news. Trump and Republicans have been screaming about "The Border!" Well, there is some really good news:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/24/us-mexico-border-crossings
For what it's worth, on Face the Nation this morning, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said border crossings are down because Mexico is holding people back until June's presidential and gubernatorial elections. After that, he said, Mexico will resume letting people cross into the US:
REP. GONZALES: I think a large part of it- well, first off, it doesn't have to do with what Joe Biden has done. We're on pace for 1.3 million people to come over illegally. The numbers are down. The explanation is Mexico. A lot of people don't realize Mexico has an election next month for its presidency, nine governorships and its Congress. So in many cases, the- those that are running on security platforms are keeping the numbers down, but the cartels are like companies. So they're taking a loss in Q1 and Q2 in order to increase the volume in Q3 and Q4. So if any- in many- many ways this is just Mexico carrying Biden a couple rounds. Now Joe Biden wants to secure this thing long term, I think he needs to stop looking at the Senate for a solution and look to the House.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tony-gonzales-texas-congressman-face-the-nation-transcript-05-26-2024/
"…it doesn't have to do with what Joe Biden has done."
Well, lest we forget: Joe Biden has a constructive dialog with Amlo (President Obrador) of Mexico. Trump, on the other hand, consistently denigrated Mexicans and Mexico.
Virtually unknown fact: of the 455 miles miles of border wall that were built under Trump, only 49 miles previously had no barrier. Look at that number again: 49 miles. And we all know that Trump got Mexico to pay for every mile of it, right? /s
I always vote on Day 1 and thank the poll workers and feel profoundly the privilege and honor it is to BE ABLE TO VOTE IN A FREE AND FAIR ELECTION. We here at Hopium understand the stakes. Bravo to you/us all, and deep thanks to Simon for his stellar leadership.
Thank you Naima! Voting on Day 1 is so important this year.
Intentionally false polling has become a scourge of modern politics. Why the NYTs has joined the competition remains a mystery.
There is one person who has caused Joe Biden more headaches than any of his Republican enemies. That person is the New York Times charlatan polling "guru", Nate Cohn.
Cohn is responsible for the design and results of the monthly Times/Sienna presidential preference poll.
We should ignore the Times' polls and any journalist or news reporter comments about Biden's popularity based on these polls.
As a quantitative research tool, presidential political polls should be predictive of future elections results. However, like all quantitative consumer research, political polling requires a participant group reflective of the actual voting population and rejects any participants not likely to vote.
However, the Times/Sienna polls does the opposite. So as not to be accused of "liberal bias" the Times purposely includes an overly high proportion of low propensity, disengaged voters in its polling groups. Regardless of party affiliation, these "voters" tend to be unknowledgeable about issues and lean MAGA conservative. Cohn clearly admits his results are suspect in his latest NYTs article about the vagaries of political polling.
Because the Times is considered the authority of record for journalists and news reporters across all media, the Times has a greater responsibility to avoid biased polling. Unfortunately, the Times/Sienna results have undermined Biden's support for months and has been the primary data source driving efforts to get one of America's greatest presidents, not to run in Nov. resulting in serious damage to our democracy.
Thousands of lifetime subscribers to the Times have cancelled in disgust in the past 6 months. The Times' leadership pretends the paper is just being "objective" when in fact it's reporting is based on knowingly false data.
As Americans, we will keep pushing the Times to stop supporting Trump and correct its biased polling results. More than the 81 million Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 will be back in Nov.to give him the largest vote total in history.
Merrill Weingrod
401-480-8003
A gift from George Conway on this Memorial Day Weekend.❤️🤍💙
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/23/2242427/-Ex-GOPer-puts-up-Vote-For-Joe-Not-The-Psycho-billboard-near-Mar-a-Lago-ahead-of-holiday-weekend
The 5th way to do more, worry less. Florida! Abortion and marijuana on the ballot. https://adoptflorida.substack.com/p/chop-wood-carry-florida-524?utm_source=substack&publication_id=785847&post_id=144959148&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=zc69i&triedRedirect=true
Register Democrats to flip Florida.... and North Carolina too,
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
The stock market is the best it's ever been, job market is the best since the 60s. COVID recovery for the US is by far better than any other country..... but in poll after poll a majority of Americans refuse to believe the economy is good.
How much of people's economic opinion is based off feeling instead of fact? Reminds me if when Trump was President -- a lot of MAGATs would brag about the stock market and the jobs report and how well they were doing. But none of them could explain how any of these macro figures actually affected their personal finances. They just "believed" their financial situation had improved.
How do you combat something like that? Simon's points are great, but only if a sizable chunk of the electorate recognizes objective reality in the next few months.
I wrote about this yesterday. In the 7 battleground states a large majority believe things have improved in their states. We should be able to connect the dots between their sense things are better and our policies, aided by Dem govs and other Dem leaders in the state.
Simon, I have a question:
Why aren’t primary elections considered "high-sample polls of each party’s candidates"? With a comparison between the number of voters who decide to participate in the "Republican Poll" or the "Democratic Poll"?
Isn’t that essentially what primary elections are: very-high-sample polls?
This is a very good question, and it deserves a more complete answer than I can give right now. I will address it in the coming days....
Thank you!
We have 165 days until the election. When are we going to start talking about the six things that will hurt Trump?
The new Biden ad is clearly heading in that direction. And we, all of us here, can talk about it all of the time with our own networks. No need to wait for Biden. We can get the ball moving...
This is the quote of the season: “I realize there are many in the game who are fighting for clicks. That’s fine. Here at Hopium we are fighting for our democracy.”
Your post and quote definitely deserve my Like-click!
Thanks gang.
Yes! That line struck me as well.
Re: voting on Day 1, Virginia has a great, relatively new program allowing for people who have voted by mail in the past to get our ballots automatically in the mail as soon as possible before each election. I don’t know how many states allow this - we were far behind on a lot of things until the Dems took over our General Assembly a few years back - but it makes voting so much easier and quicker, I encourage the practice to be spread to wherever it still is not happening, and encourage all who can to take advantage of it.
Check out this website for voting rules by state. If you click on the state name in the first column a detailed page will open up on each states rules, deadlines, etc.
https://www.vote411.org/voting-rules
Then text or email all your friends and family who might vote by mail a reminder to request their ballot, the link to get one, and the date they will start to be mailed out. I would also include a link to the Blue Voter guide (https://bluevoterguide.org/) and remaind them to vote up and down the ballot!
Do the same thing for early in-person voting if available in your state and the EV locations.
Also post on social media. Become the "expert" your friends and family look to on voting-related matters.
TY, Simon, for reviewing the ‘22 polling just before the election that was Republican instigated… and they’ll be trying the same tactic again! So vote early and get friends to the polls with you. Remember our friendly Dem states as well as the Battleground ones!
Saw you on Washington Journal last week… good job, especially with the Republican callers🙃
I will post that interview this week....yes the engagement with Republicans was clearly the best part, and a reminder of just how badly they've been lied to by their leaders.
Very helpful info on polling in today’s Hopium, Simon. Thank you.
Great to hear Mary Anne!
Wanted to make sure you saw this re Haley voters. : https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/30/trump-gop-primary-voters-exurbs
Julie, would you be so kind as to check that link? It doesn’t work for me.
I think Julie cropped off the end of that URL. Try this one:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/30/trump-gop-primary-voters-exurbs-00149822
That works. Many thanks!
By the way, Politico just ain’t the same after they dropped readers’ comments some years ago. There used to be some good, lively discussions.
Is it possible that some polls being skewed toward DT are a strategy to contest and distrust the election when Joe Biden wins?
The magas will point to the DT leaning polls and use them as “proof” the election was rigged/stolen?