VP Harris Is Just Bringing It, Encouraging Polls, New Harris Border Video, The Ugliness of Trump-Vance

Thursdays With Hopium - We Are Making Calls, Postcarding for Janelle Bynum (OR-5) Tomorrow at 730pm - Join Us!

Happy Wednesday all. Got a few things for you today:

The Vice President Is Just So Strong Right Now, Bringing It - I send along the video of the Vice President’s 10,000 person raucous campaign rally in Atlanta last night. I watched it live. And friends, we are witnessing a candidate in command, confident in her arguments, powerful in her presentation - she is so strong right now, kicking ass. It is so great to see. Take the time to watch it today - you will be glad you did. She comes out at minute 18. Enjoy!

Polls last week showed Vice President Harris making it a competitive race nationally and in the battlegrounds. This week we’ve had a series of polls showing her with a modest lead (all via 538, and updated since posting this am):

• 49%-45% (+4) Civiqs

• 49%-46% (+3) Leger (was +7 Trump)

• 48%-46% (+2) FAU/Mainstreet (was +5 Trump)

• 46%-44% (+2) Economist/YouGov (was +3 Trump last week)

• 45%-43% (+2) Redfield & Wilton

• 44%-42% (+2) Angus Reid Global

• 43%-42% (+1) Reuters/Ipsos

• 47%-46% (+1) Morning Consult

Bloomberg/Morning Consult, a poll has been rough for us this year, has her up 48%-47% in the 7 battleground states, and ahead in AZ, MI, NV, WI:

Friends, this is a vastly improved polling environment for the Vice President, and Democrats more broadly. We are in a new election now, a new, bluer election. And a whole series of things that will likely benefit us haven’t happened yet - the full effect of the rallying around her, the VP pick and 7 state campaign tour to follow, a celebratory Convention and the power of what will be the biggest early vote/GOTV operation in history. I talked about this good polling, the VP’s amazing start and our new, bluer election on MSNBC last night:

Today is the July filing deadline for the Harris campaign. If you haven’t yet donated please donate today, and let’s make July the biggest fundraising month in American political history. And be sure to sign up to volunteer for the Harris campaign, and become part of the biggest grassroots operation our party has ever seen.

Yes my friends we have a lot of work to do to have the election we all want to have. But today, in every way imaginable, I much rather be us than them.

Exciting times all - let’s keep working hard!

Harris Campaign Comes Out Swinging On The Border - Watch this great new video from the Harris campaign:

And here’s a fact sheet the campaign released along with the video:

FACT: Vice President Harris was never the border “czar.” Her role was focused on addressing the root causes of migration.

• PolitiFact labeled Trump’s claim that Harris was in charge of border security as “false.”

• Border city mayors just announced their support for the VP, citing her tireless work of delivering for their communities and solutions at the border

• Vice President Harris visited the border shortly after taking office.

FACT: Under the Biden-Harris administration, border crossings are falling. Donald Trump is lying about border crossings and migrant crime.

• Migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under the Biden-Harris administration.

• Axios: The myth of a U.S.-Mexico “open border”

• PolitiFact: “The border is not open.”

• Politico: “The number of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has plummeted 40 percent since President Joe Biden clamped down on asylum earlier this month, administration officials said Wednesday.”

• Washington Post: “Illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border have declined more than 50 percent in the six weeks since President Biden used emergency measures to curb asylum access, the White House said Tuesday, highlighting the drop ahead of a Republican National Convention evening program whose planned focus was crime and security.”

FACT: Trump sided with drug traffickers and criminals to kill a bipartisan bill to make our borders more secure – all because he thought it would help him politically.

• This agreement would have made our country safer, made the border more secure, and treated people fairly and humanely – and was supported by the Border Patrol Union – which endorsed Trump’s campaign for president twice – and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as ⅔ of Americans.

• After Trump demanded Republicans block the strongest border security bill in decades, the Biden-Harris administration took executive action – resulting in border crossings falling to 2020 levels.

FACT: The Biden-Harris administration seized more fentanyl last year than any other administration in history, while Trump’s record is defined by him making the opioid crisis worse and siding with drug traffickers.

• DEA: “In calendar year 2023, DEA seized more than 77 million fentanyl pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. This is the most fentanyl seized by DEA in a single year.”

• NPR: “Researchers also say fentanyl has continued to spread fast, despite interdiction efforts, contributing to more overdose deaths in the western United States where the synthetic opioid had been scarce. In December [2019], the Government Accountability Office issued a report blasting the [Trump] administration for failing to come up with a coherent national opioid strategy as required by law.”

Just last week, the Biden-Harris administration captured two of the most notorious and dangerous drug lords in Mexico.

Meanwhile Over in Trumpworld, Chaos, Extremism, Batshit Crazy - One of the central dynamics of our new, bluer election is that the ugliness of Trump and Vance, obscured by Joe Biden’s own struggles, are now far more exposed, out in the open, impossible to ignore - and it is becoming a very big problem for Republicans up and down the ballot.

Vance, the pro-Russian, pro-Project 2025 extremist from the Handmaid’s Tale wing of the GOP, is the most unpopular VP in modern polling history, and has already become an extraordinary drag on Trump and on Republican candidates across the battlegrounds:

Could it get worse for Vance? Yep. Here’s the AP this morning:

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, praised the vision of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts in the foreword of a forthcoming book that could conflict with the Trump campaign’s effort to distance itself from Heritage’s Project 2025 transition effort.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the foreword to Roberts’ forthcoming book “Dawn’s Early Light” on Tuesday, the same day of a shakeup at Project 2025, which has become an important election-year issue as Democrats and others argue that the nearly 1,000-page vision it set out is extreme.

“Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,” Vance writes in his foreword. “The Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.”

Vance’s words, which echo Roberts’ frequent calls to tear down U.S. institutions entirely to start anew, show the overlap between Trump’s closest allies and the people fueling Project 2025.

Could it get worse for Trump? Yep. From ABC News this morning:

NEW YORK -- The director of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 vision for a complete overhaul of the federal government stepped down Tuesday after blowback from Donald Trump's campaign, which has tried to disavow the program created by many of the former president's allies and former aides.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Paul Dans’ exit comes after the project “completed exactly what it set out to do." Roberts, who has emerged as a chief spokesman for the effort, plans to lead Project 2025 going forward.

"Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels — federal, state, and local — will continue,” Roberts said.

What started as an obscure far-right wish list is now a focal point in the 2024 campaign. Democrats for the past several months have made Project 2025 a key election-year cudgel, pointing to the ultraconservative policy blueprint as a glimpse into how extreme another Trump administration could be.

Fired Up, Ready To Go For Hopium-Backed Candidates and Party Committees - Our Thursday nights with Hopium kicks off this week! We will be postcarding and phonebanking for Janelle Bynum (OR-5) from 730 to 9pm ET. Join us by signing up here, learn more about this new grassroots collaboration project to win the House, and please consider giving us a shift or two in the weeks ahead. We can do this people!!!!

Here are additional ways to do more and worry less in the days ahead:

• Harris For President - $757,000 raised today, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $757,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $147,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President.

• Winning The House - $719,000 raised today, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $54,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 12 or each one individually). Watch my interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries

• North Carolina - $348,000 raised today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $310,000 raised today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $126,000 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 Winning The House interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Andrei Cherny (AZ-01) and Will Rollins (CA-41) and Laura Gillen (NY-04). Great candidates all!

• 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, this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election and my latest take on the 2024 election recorded on Monday, July 29th

As last night’s primary in AZ-01 is still too close to call, I have taken Andrei Cherny off our 12 way split for House contributions until we have a clear winner there. Thanks to all of you who have supported Andrei. He is a close friend, and truly one of the smartest and best people I’ve ever worked with. More on this tomorrow.

Finally, please help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Use this link to sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber. 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 over 97,000 strong - let’s keep the community growing and the Hopium flowing!

Keep working hard all. Lot’s to be excited about right now. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon