While We're Seeing Good New Battleground State Polls And Encouraging Early Vote Data, Trump The Unfit And Unwell Ends Ugly, Really, Really Ugly

An absolute flood of red wave polls this week is a sign Trump thinks the election is slipping away from him. Means we need to keep working hard all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Friday all. 4 days of hard work left until victory. I ask two things of you today:

• If you haven’t voted yet, please vote this weekend. Voting early helps our campaigns move on to lower propensity voters earlier, helps us grow our vote, and helps us win. It’s really important!!!!!!

• Volunteer for the Harris-Walz campaign this weekend. Here’s the official volunteer link. We need to leave it all out there on the playing field in these final 4 days and go win this thing, together!!!!!

Here’s Jennifer Lopez introducing the Vice President last night in Las Vegas. It’s a must watch:

Here is the Harris-Walz campaign’s closing ad in Pennsylvania. It includes PA Gov. Josh Shapiro and it is great:

Here’s the other guy last night, once again hanging with a known Russian intelligence asset in the closing days of an American election, openly fantasizing about killing Liz Cheney:

And here’s the other guy, again, from an event on Wednesday. Watch this video slowly. Leg drag, stumble, scary shoulder twitch. I found this video shocking. It is clear that Trump is unwell, unfit and unhinged and needs to be anywhere but in the White House.

Yes the monthly jobs number today was a little low. 12,000 new jobs, the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%. The west coast port strike and two hurricanes slowed us down, but we got good GDP and inflation numbers this week. The strong US economy rolls on. And a fun Friday fact. The 12,000 jobs created last month is still higher than the average number of jobs created by the last 3 Republican Presidents over 16 years:

And a reminder of how much progress we’ve made under the able leadership of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris:

As a nation we should be very proud of how we came through the challenges of the economic carnage Trump left us, as today the American economy is without question the strongest advanced economy in the world, and one of the strongest in my lifetime.

I know we talk a lot about inflation, but I think we continue to overlook the significance of having such a low unemployment rate for so long. Here is how FDR talked about the dangers of unemployment (from his DC based Memorial). It is a sentiment I think about literally every day:

“No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.”

Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris we’ve had the longest period of low unemployment in a peacetime American economy since WWII and the best job market since the 1960s. The stock market is breaking records. GDP growth has been hovering around 3% for almost 4 years. We have the lowest uninsured rate in American history. The rate of formation of new businesses is at an all time high. Wage growth has been running ahead of inflation for some time now. The battle against inflation has been won. Gas prices have been down. The deficit is lower. Crime is down. Drug overdoses are down. Obesity is down. The flows to the border today are lower than at the end of Trump’s Presidency. We passed the first bi-partisan gun safety bill in 30 years. Domestic oil, gas, renewable production are higher than they’ve ever been and we are more energy independent today than we’ve been in decades. The three big Biden-Harris investment bills will be creating jobs and opportunities for American workers for decades to come, while accelerating the energy transition needed to keep the planet from warming.

My Latest Take On The 2024 Election - I Would Much Rather Be Us Than Them - Here’s my rough calculation of national polls released since Monday, October 14th broken down by independent polls and those affiliated with right-wing and Republican organizations.

• Independent Polls Harris +2.5

• 538 Natl Average Harris +1.2

• Right-Aligned Polls Trump +0.7 (3.2 pts more Trump than independent polls)

There has been a lot of battleground state polling this week, and most of it has been good for us. Yesterday I showed you encouraging battleground state polls from YouGov and CNN. This morning respected Marist released three new polls:

• Michigan Harris 51%-48% (+3)

• Pennsylvania Harris 50%-48% (+2)

• Wisconsin Harris 50%-48% (+2)

This afternoon the Times of London and YouGov released a series of good polls for us:

Many polls showed us tied or with leads in the battlegrounds this week:

• Arizona - 1 poll had us tied, 2 polls had us up 1, 1 had us up 2

• Michigan - 4 polls had us up 3, 1 had us up 4, 2 had us up 5 (big week!!!)

• North Carolina - 2 polls had us tied, 2 had us up 1

• Pennsylvania - 2 polls had us up 1, 1 had us up 2, 1 had us up 3

• Wisconsin - 2 polls had us 2, 1 had us up 3, 1 had us up 4, and another had us up 6 (big week!)

I ran out of room to show you the more rigorous Washington Post battleground state polling average graphic. Check it out. While they still have the Electoral College close, here we get to 270 and win the election.

Where is the election today? I still think we are up by 2-4 points nationally and in a stronger position in the Electoral College - despite what the averages and forecasters say. With all the new polling it’s clear we’ve had an encouraging closing week of polling in the battlegrounds. The VP is far better liked, and likeable, something that matters to late breaking voters. We’ve closed the gap on the economy with Trump - a huge campaign achievement - and while the jobs number was a little low today, we got very good GDP and inflation data this week. We are closing strong. They are closing ugly, really, really ugly.

A flurry of red wave polls pushed the polling averages down in the past few weeks and tipped them to Trump - illegitimately in my view. Since late August 32 right-affiliated organizations have released over 125 polls into the averages (this data comes from 538 and does not include any Rasmussen polling which would up the numbers significantly). In the last few days we’ve seen a huge escalation of these efforts, with 58 polls released since Sunday, a majority of all polls released this week. Here’s a breakdown of where they have focused:

• National - 10

• AZ - 6

• GA - 5

• MI - 10

• NC - 6

• NV - 5

• PA - 8

• WI - 8

Here’s the list of the 32 right-aligned orgs who've released polls this fall:

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, RealClear World, Redfield & Wilton, Remington, RMG, SoCal Data, The Telegraph, TIPP, Trafalgar, Victory Insights, University of Austin, and The Wall Street Journal.

I am now counting AtlasIntel (33rd org) as part of this effort, and there is a strong argument that Forbes and HarrisX should be counted too. Note that Insider Advantage has released 26 polls since August, Trafalgar 28.

Read more about this illicit effort in this recent New Republic article, a new NYT piece, my recent post and catch Trump admitting that some of these red wave polls showing him ahead are fraudulent. As I wrote here, it is long past time for commentators and analysts to acknowledge that there is a new, third category of polling, right-aligned (in addition to independent and partisan polling) and remove them from the polling averages of independent polls.

Our daily reminder:

Rs would only be working so hard to shape the national narrative to make it look like Trump is winning if they believed he wasn’t. These red wave polls are a sign of desperation, weakness and a campaign that knows it’s losing.

Heading into the final days we should be pleased with what we are seeing in the early vote. Using TargetEarly’s late afternoon update from yesterday, we know that despite a huge new Republican commitment to driving the early vote this year we are now running even with them vs. 2020 in the aggregate vote of the 7 battleground states, and ahead of 2020 in AZ, GA, MI, NE-2 and WI.

The aggregate of the 7 battleground states, 10/31/24 evening

Republicans were supposed to outperform their 2020 results in the early vote this year, and in the battlegrounds that just isn’t happening. Our superior campaign and ground operations has overwhelmed their efforts and their early vote strategy has failed. Look at these gains we’ve made in the Sunbelt states this week:

• Arizona - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 7.9 percentage points. Today Democrats lead in AZ by 0.3 points.

• Georgia - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 2.6 percentage points. Today Democrats lead in GA by 1.1 points.

• Nevada - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 13.1 percentage points. Dems have cut this lead to 6.2 points.

• North Carolina - On 10/23 Rs were outperforming the 2020 early vote by 11.1 percentage points. Dems have cut this lead to 3.4 points.

4 days out we are running 5 points better vs. 2020 in the battleground states than the national early vote, suggesting we are seeing the two elections dynamic we saw in 2022; we are even in the aggregate battleground vote vs. 2020, something no one thought was possible; and we are now up over 2020 in AZ, GA, MI, NE-2 and WI. And it is getting better every day now as our superior ground operation turns to GOTV and pushes our voters to the polls.

If there is any party who is “winning” the early vote today, it is clearly us.

If you want evidence of how our work is helping us win the election - 80m postcards, calls, texting, canvassing - it is there in this data. We are moving the election towards us each day, as we all hoped would happen. We are winning the election my friends, but have not won it yet and need to keep working.

It’s clear that now that many Dems in PA have chosen to skip the mail-only system and vote in person on Election Day. So the early vote data in a state which unusually does not have early person voting, only mail, isn’t all that helpful there this year. We are doing fine so far, but PA is going to be an Election Day state, like the old days. Rs are playing silly games here with the data.

As encouraging as all this data is, we have to keep in mind that it is almost certain that both the R and unaffiliated vote will run more D this year than 2020. It means that in all these battleground states we are doing even better than the D/R/unaffilated data tells us today. This is confirmed by recent polling of the early vote, which consistently has Harris up by 20-30 points over Trump with those who have voted in an overal electorate this is currently only +2 Dem. This strong performance in the early vote polling suggests there has been significantly crossover votes from Rs and unaffiliated already, which means that all this early vote data, as bad as it looks today for the Rs, is actually much worse. This data also suggests that some of that early surge Rs got in some states were Republicans enthusiastically voting for Kamala Harris, not the other guy. And that, my friends, breaks my heart.

For a deeper dive on all this data catch my Hopium presentation from Wednesday night with special guest Tom Bonier. Tom and I also joined the MeidasTouch crew yesterday for a very indepth conversation.

Our last pre-election edition of Closing Strong has dropped. It includes interviews with Dan Pfeiffer on the decline of legacy media and Jessica Mackler on the reproductive freedom and the women’s vote. It is a great and informative episode. You can watch it below:

Doing More and Worrying Less/Working Hard And Closing Strong In The Home Stretch - 4 days of voting left everyone - let’s keep working it!

My one big ask today - invest in either Ruben Gallego/Arizona or Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. We need to keep that second pathway to 270 open in case any of the core three - MI, PA, WI - falls. We were tied or ahead in both states this week in most polling and need to close strong now.

I want to thank all of you who are self-reporting on all your remarkable work across the country in our paid subscriber daily chat Postcards, canvassing, back yard phonebank parties - you all are doing the work we need to do to win. 80m postcards are hitting now, and NYC has a postcard shortage because of all of you. Thank you everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some have asked - are donations this late useful? Yes they are. My advice is that whatever you are going to give this year give it no later than Saturday night. Late money goes directly into augmenting paid advertising and reaching more voters. So yes it matters. Let’s keep working it people!

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

• Harris-Walz, The Mothership - $1,397,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Subscribe to The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel and watch her inspiring rallies live

• North Carolina - $1,013,000 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $620,000 raised, $700,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego

• Wisconsin Dem Party - $131,000 raised, $200,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch Our Recent Closing Strong Interview with the great Ben Wikler

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $317,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb.

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 - $1,835,000 raised, $2,000,000 goal (new stretch 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). You can donate to any one of our 15 candidates directly here.

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

• Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $614,000 raised, $700,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Montana/Jon Tester - $192,000 raised, $200,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $131,000 raised, $150,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Wisconsin Dem Party/Tammy Baldwin - $131,000 raised, $200,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More

• Nebraska/Blue Dot - $317,000 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 - 117,810 this morning, 125,000 goal

• Paid Subscribers - 13,750 this morning, 14,000 goal

Great work everyone. We are making real progress here. 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. Proud to be in this fight with all of you.

Let’s bring it home, together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Simon