Happy Wednesday all. Got a few things for you today:
Why I Am Optimistic We Will Win, Kamala Harris Edition - Last night I spoke to the Hopium community, offering my thoughts on where we are in the 2024 election. A video recording of our event is above. I start off with a 25 minute overview, and then took questions for another 30 minutes or so. I hope you will watch in the coming days, and share with others either by sending along this post or the recording from my YouTube channel.
Friends, this has been a remarkable and historic few days. The transition from President Biden to Vice President Harris has been seamless. The campaign hasn’t missed a beat. We are raising incredible amounts of money - hundreds and hundreds of millions - and over 100,000 have signed up to volunteer for the campaign. The party has coalesced around the Vice President organically and faster than anyone could have imagined. Our party, which had been struggling, is now united around the Vice President, fired up and ready to go!
Here’s some data the Harris campaign put out this morning:
$126 million raised since Sunday (and more than $150m in new commitments to the SuperPAC)
Over 1.4 million grassroots donors made donations since Sunday
Nearly 2,000 applied to work for the campaign in the first 24 hours, and
Over 100,000 people have signed up to volunteer since Sunday
You can donate to the new Harris campaign here, and sign up to volunteer here. Let’s do this people!
The Vice President’s initial narrative and message has been strong and clearly her own, not something cribbed from the Biden campaign. Her indictment of Trump is very powerful, as strong as we’ve seen from any candidate since Trump arrived on the scene in 2015. The story she tells about herself, her values and what she wants to do as President is remarkably compelling this early into this brand new campaign. She is confident, ready, experienced, and deeply in command of the moment. I particularly like her new “forward-backward” frame of the election which already become central to her stump. Watch:
It has been a very good few days for us, a remarkable few days. On a scale of 1 to 10 it’s been like 100. Tonight there will be another important moment in this new political day as the President will address the nation. I talk about the President and his courage and patriotism at lenght in my talk and in Monday’s post. Tonight he will do many important things, but chief among them will be to remind the world’s autocrats and wanna be autocrats like Trump and Netanyahu that in democracies there are no indispensable men or women. There are just citizens, taking their turn to lead when called, and handing over power peacefully when their time has come. In a time when democracy here and everywhere is being threatened, President Biden’s decision to pass the torch and step away was a dramatic and historic reaffirmation of democracy itself.
As I’ve written these past few days we will not know for some time what the public thinks of our new leader and newly unified and fired up Democratic Party. But some early polling from reputable firms with interviews after Sunday are encouraging. For it sure appears Trump has lost whatever he lead he had (Harris-Trump, Registered Voters)
44%-42% Reuters/Ipsos (42%-38% with Kennedy)
46%- 46% Yahoo/YouGov
45%-46% NPR/Marist (47%-47% among likely voters)
45%-47% Morning Consult
To be very clear, given margin of error in all these polls, what we are seeing here is a tied, jump ball election. But importantly this comes after the assassination attempt on the former President, their convention and their VP pick. That Republicans are tied after all this may be the reason the orange babyman has disappeared from the campaign trail these last few days and spent all day Monday madtruthing. They are not happy. And they shouldn’t be for while things are tied today, we still have a series of events underway and coming which should give the Vice President a polling boost - the President’s speech tonight, the very strong start to her campaign, her VP pick and our convention. It is reasonable to expect for her to gain a few points in the coming weeks from all this leaving us with a close but winnable election.
Another emerging story line in this tumultuous time is just what a huge mistake Trump made in picking JD Vance. From CNN’s Harry Enten:
Additionally, there are more and more disparaging comments Vance made about Trump back in 2016 coming to light. From CNN:
Vance’s defense of Trump marked a striking shift from his remarks in 2016 in the wake of the leak of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which showed the Republican presidential candidate making lewd and sexually aggressive remarks about women.
In October 2016, Vance tweeted, “What percentage of the American population has @realDonaldTrump sexually assaulted?”
The tweet, which was first reported in 2018, was later deleted, but its replies still exist on the platform, and the tweet was later compiled in an opposition report published by his own super PAC in 2022 to uncover his potential vulnerabilities as a candidate.
In deleted likes from his Twitter account, reviewed by CNN, Vance had also indicated he believed Trump’s accusers and those who criticized Trump as a “serial sexual assault[er].”
“Maybe the Central Park 5 could take out a full-page ad to condemn the coddling of thug real estate barons who commit serial sexual assault,” read the post, again posted just after the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced.
Another post liked in 2016 by Vance said, “I wish there was a 2nd Vice Presidential debate just to see @GovPenceIN deny that Trump said he grabbed p*ssy.”
And in October 2016, Vance shared on Facebook a Washington Post editorial by Russell Moore, then of the Southern Baptist Convention, criticizing Trump’s views on women.
The Trump campaign is weak, not strong. The Vance pick was a mistake. Trump gave one of the worst speeches in history at the convention. His debate performance was batshit crazy. They are hiding their candidate for he keeps damaging the campaign every time he speaks. He has returned to madtruthing. His vulnerabilities as a candidate - rapist, fraudster, traitor felon; crazy old man; his extremism - have become far more pronounced with Harris as our candidate. Elon Musk appears to have rescinded his endorsement of Trump (though this may be some ridiculous Muskian game). Republicans are no longer on offense, we are. We are driving this election now. We are unified. We are strong. We are raising tons of money and people are volunteering at record levels. Our candidate has come out of the box confident, authentic, clear. Her indictment of Trump is powerful and compelling. The Biden-Harris Administration has been a deeply consequential one, the country is clearly better off today and the Vice President can run on their many historic accomplishments. Our President, driven by love of country, elegantly and gracefully passed the torch to a new and capable generation. It’s been a remarkable few days and we just need to put our heads down and go win this thing, together.
With less than two months to go until voting begins, in every way imaginable, I once again would much rather be us than them. We can do this people!
Fired Up, Ready To Go - Let’s keep working hard for the Hopium-endorsed candidates and state parties:
Harris For President - $719,000 raised today, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $719,000 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 - $580,000 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 - $334,000 raised today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $298,000 raised today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $124,000 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.
Hopium endorsed candidates (clockwise from upper left) Will Rollins, Rudy Salas, Kirsten Engel and Mondaire Jones.
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 almost 95,000 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. We have an election to go win and a democracy to save - Simon
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