VP Harris And Her Campaign Are Working Hard And Closing Strong, Trump Is Unfit, Unwell and Unraveling

Rs working hard to redwave 2024. They'd only be doing it if they were losing

Happy Saturday all. The VP and her campaign have had another good week. She is vigorously barnstorming the battlegrounds, drawing huge crowds. She is wrapping up a two week long media blitz that allowed her to talk to audiences of all kinds, ranging from Call Her Daddy and Charlamagne tha God to 60 Minutes and Fox News. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Governor Walz, Doug Emhoff, Gwen Walz and Republican for Harris surrogates are hitting states and media markets where she is isn’t, allowing the campaign to be in many places at once, bringing enormous intensity to the election just as early voting takes off and folks really tune in.

It’s been great to see the huge early vote in Georgia and North Carolina. Hopefully the news coverage of so many people so enthusiastically voting will encourage others to do so across the country. Now that we are getting so many people voting I will be diving into the early vote data a bit more in coming days. While we should be encouraged by what we see so far, Republicans are voting in higher numbers at this point than 2020 in many places, something we knew would happen as Rs are no longer actively dissuading their voters to vote early (listen to Trump below). We should be encouraged by what we are seeing but it is a dogfight out there. All indications are that this is going to be a close election and we just have to keep making every day a good day, and leave it all out there on the playing field, together.

I think the most significant thing that happened this week is that Trump’s erratic performances, cancelling of events and clear fatigue and diminishment became the biggest story in the election. The Vice President and her campaign did a very good job seizing the opportunity his repeated stumbles offered, and are now driving this new national narrative about Trump clearly being unable to do the job.

Here is the Vice President yesterday in Michigan:

Here is Barack Obama in Tuscon last night:

And here’s my old boss Bill Clinton in Durham, North Carolina reminding us that he is younger than Trump, who is the oldest man to ever be the nominee of an American political party:

Meanwhile, yesterday Trump fell asleep at one of his events, his mike failed for 17 minutes at his rally in Detroit, and CNN reported that they were held up going into his Detroit rally for 2 hours while the campaign re-arranged the venue to hide anemic turnout. Not only is the candidate unraveling, but the Trump campaign itself struggled to put on a single rally without significant logistical problems yesterday (compared to our many events across the battleground):

The Vice President and her campaign are on the front foot now, driving the national narrative, barnstorming the battlegrounds, bringing the joy, working the early vote along with all of us. Meanwhile, Trump, the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon, continues to unravel. Here he is yesterday, an even darker shade of burnt orange, slurring his words, making a pitch for folks to vote early and describing his own supporters as “fat pigs” -

Last Sunday I talked to a prominent political operative who told me that concerns about Trump’s erratic performances and clear diminishment - his ability to do the job - were beginning to show up in focus groups, frequently, unprompted. In other words, Trump’s repeated stumbles this week are going to be a very serious problem for him in the home stretch of the campaign, and the campaign has been smart to lean in hard on what we’ve all seen with our own eyes.

Yet another strong week for us and yet another bad week for them are even more reasons why with a little more than two weeks to go I would much rather be us than them.

Red Waving And Hacking The Polling Averages - I’ve written to you about the return of red wave polling this year on Sept 26th, Sept 29th and Oct 5th. In that last post I wrote:

As I wrote in my last look at this rancid project, it is time for those who analyze polls to start acknowledging that there is now a third type of poll - the red wave, right-aligned narrative polling that only exist for a single purpose - to move the polling averages to the right. They are exploiting the “toss it in the averages and everything will work out philosophy” of these sites to once again launder these polls and game the averages - and thus our understanding of the election. Party leaders should expect them to keep these polls coming, and keep working the averages until it looks like Trump is winning in all polling averages. It is what they did in 2022, and it worked. They are doing it again this time, and once again it is working as the averages are moving and everyone is treating this movement like an organic rather than a deeply corrupt process.

Since late August more than 70 right-aligned polls have been dropped into the polling averages. The two states that have been worked the hardest are North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In October of the 27 Presidential polls released in Pennsylvania, 16 are from right-aligned pollsters, a majority. Since August 31st of the 41 Presidential polls released in North Carolina, 21, a majority have home come from right aligned pollsters.

At least 31 right-aligned pollsters and sponsoring organizations have released polls in the last 7 weeks:

American Greatness, American Pulse Research and Polling, Daily Mail, co/efficent, Cygnal, Echelon, Emerson, Fabrizio, Fox News, Hunt Research, Insider Advantage, J.L. Partners, McLaughlin, Mitchell Communications, Napolitan Institute, Noble Predictive, On Message, Orbital Digital, Public Opinion Strategies, Quantus, Rasmussen, Redfield & Wilton, Remington, RMG, SoCal Data, The Telegraph, TIPP, Trafalgar, Victory Insights, University of Austin, and The Wall Street Journal.

There is also a case to be made that HarrisX should be counted, as its lead, Mark Penn, actively worked against Joe Biden and the Democrats earlier this year. ActiVote, AtlasIntel and FocalData polls were not counted in either category.

The red wave campaign this year is on a much greater scale than 2022. It started much earlier, has many more actors and has produced far more polling. It needed to be bigger for in general election years there is more polling. So to move the averages more polls were needed, and they got to work earlier doing so. And this is important. In 2022 the campaign began late, in mid-October. They had less time to move the averages so their polls were often 3-4 points to the right of the polling as they needed these bigger margins to move the averages in a shorter time period. This time, because they started earlier and are producing more polls their polls are often only 1-2 points to the right of the polling average or independent polls. They are working the averages more carefully this time, over using the time and volume to move them gradually so the op is not as crude and as easy to see as last time. If Harris leads by 2.5 points and you drop 5 polls showing the race tied or her ahead by 1 or even 2 points the averages moves and it looks like she is losing altitude.

Consider this Tweet from one of the top analysts at 538. It is part of a thread referring to what was a very junky PA poll by TIPP.

So here is 538 admitting that even something they consider a bad poll could move the average in PA by a tenth of a point. OK, red wave pollsters say, got it. Appreciate the tip! So I just need to produce more polls to move the average by a meaningful amount. Which is what they’ve done. If each of these polls moves the average by a tenth of a point then 16 of them in October in PA could have moved the average by 1.6 points - and poof a Harris lead becomes a tied race.

The red wave 2024 campaign also includes a major new entrant, Polymarket, an off-shore crypto-based betting market whose lead investor is Peter Thiel, former business partner to Elon Musk and primary political patron of JD Vance. Polymarket is buying product placement on sites and with influencers for their 2024 American election results even though NO AMERICAN CAN LEGALLY PARTICIPATE IN PROCESS THAT DETERMINES THE DATA. Polymarket is everywhere. Harry Enten higlights their data on CNN. Right wing influencers pump Polymarket maps showing Trump “winning” everyday. Nate Silver is an advisor to Polymarket. Elon and Twitter of course are pumping this stuff, hard.

The Wall Street Journal had a major piece on Polymarket yesterday, writing:

Over the past two weeks, the chances of a Trump victory in the November election have surged on Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market. Its bettors were giving Trump a 60% chance of winning on Friday, while Harris’s chances were 40%. The candidates were in a dead heat at the start of October. 

Trump’s gains on Polymarket have cheered his supporters, and they have been followed by the odds shifting in Trump’s favor in other betting markets. Elon Musk flagged Trump’s growing lead on Polymarket to his 200 million X followers on Oct. 6, praising the concept of betting markets. “More accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line,” Musk posted.

But the surge might be a mirage manufactured by a group of four Polymarket accounts that have collectively pumped about $30 million of crypto into bets that Trump will win. 

There is no end to the fuckery. And of course Trump is now not just lying about leading in the polls he is citing this rancid Polymarket campaign as proof of his electoral “strength:”

Finally, while the red wave campaign has largely focused on state polls, this week it started focusing on the national polling averages. TIPP launched a daily poll tracker which will be able to be used to push down the averages every day. Yesterday 4 right-aligned national polls dropped, and the 538 national poll average went from 2.6 Harris to 2.1 in 48 hours. This movement then tipped the 538 forecast to Trump, and if they keep working it all averages and forecasts will very soon show Trump winning the election and the national narrative will change.

As I am running out of space, a few final points: 1) yes the media and Democrats should be talking about this more, and electoral analysts need to be far more honest about what is going on 2) yes it is likely that red waved maps showing Trump winning will be used as a central argument for him to contest the election. And yes therefore we should be challening all this a bit more forcefully 3) all this bs and fuckery is why we just have to put our heads down, keep working hard and ignore the noise. It is a close election today and will be on election day 4) they would only be doing all this if they thought they were losing. You only cheat when you are losing.

Heads down peeps. Let’s make this a big weekend and go out and win this thing, together.

For more on the 2024 election in the home stretch:

• My “Working Hard and Closing Strong” election video update with special guests Tom Bonier and Ruben Gallego. In this video Tom and I do a deep dive on the latest, very encouraging data on voter reg and the early vote. We also hear from Ruben who explains to us why he and the Vice President will carry Arizona.

• Two MeidasTouch appearances - On Wednesday I talked about why I am optimistic we will win and dove into the red wave pollster and Polymarket voodoo fuckery. On Thrusday Tom and I talked about the early vote, voter reg and more.

• Our new episode of Closing Strong dropped yesterday. You can find it on the COURIER Newsroom YouTube channel if you want to watch/listen this weekend. In addition to our interview with Olivia Troye, Tara and I talk to Tom Bonier and do a deep dive on the VP’s closing strong media blitz over the past few weeks. It is a really good episode and I am proud of the quality of the content we’ve produced in this series. Tara is an extraordinarily talented emerging leader, and it has been a fun and rewarding collaboration.

Doing More And Worrying Less/Working Hard And Closing Strong In The Home Stretch - Friends, you just keep bringing it here. Your comments in the group chat about your early voting and all the work you are doing are deeply inspiring. Our last Winning The House Thursday series had it’s biggest night of the year, and we are now over 110,000 postcards written for our 15 intrepid House seat flippers. The money we are raising here continues to be incredible, way beyond anything I could have imagined. Thank you all. For the very early days of our work together here at Hopium when called you all have answered.

My one big ask today - donate to and volunteer for the Harris-Walz campaign. Beating Trump remains Job One. Millions of people are voting now. We have to help the campaign be loud and proud at this critical moment. Donate, sign up for a shift of calls this weekend, travel into a battleground state to catch a rally and do some canvassing. We need to have a big weekend all and everyone here should be taking one concrete action for Harris-Walz this weekend. They are busting their ass for us and we need to bust our ass just as hard for them!

Let’s get to it!

Harris-Walz For President - $1,259,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Subscribe to The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel and watch her inspiring rallies live

Our Presidential Checkmate States and Wisconsin - Learn more about our “checkmate” strategy, and support Ruben Gallego and these three front-line state parties:

• North Carolina - $841,000 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $519,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego.

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $296,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

• Wisconsin Dem Party - $65,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch Our Recent Closing Strong Interview with the great Ben Wikler

Winning The House - Keeping getting very good vibes from our candidates and House Democratic leadership about flipping the House this year. We need to keep working it peeps!

• Support All 15 Hopium-Backed Candidates With A Single Donation - $1,643,000 raised, $1,750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates (for our higher net worth donors note that you can give up to $49,500 split 15 ways for this group)

• Donate Directly To A Candidate - You can donate to any of our 15 candidates directly here.

• Winning The House Thursdays - We have completed our Winning The House Thursday series. Our team completed more than 100,000 postcards into these 15 winnable House seats - thank you all. We will have an update on our plans to keep phonebanking in the home stretch tomorrow. We will be making calls together the next two Tuesdays and next Thursday night.

Keeping The Senate Blue - this is a brawl my friends, and we just have to keep working it:

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $519,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Montana/Jon Tester - $147,000 raised, $200,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $101,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Wisconsin Dem Party/Tammy Baldwin - $65,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $296,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

Growing The Hopium Community - We’ve set some goals for the growth of our community so more of us can be doing more and worrying less in the home stretch:

• Hopium Subscribers - 109,686 this morning, 125,000 goal

• Paid Subscribers - 12,812 this morning, 14,000 goal

This new effort is off a great start everyone - thank you! Keep working it. Hopium paid subscribers get access to a weekly live home stretch political briefing and Founding Members will have their own small gathering on Fridays. You can become a paid subscriber and help us hit our goals by clicking on the link below or following this link. The subscription tab includes options for gift and group subscriptions, all 10% off through Election Day!

Keep working hard all. It is how we win! - Simon