Why I'm Optimistic About November (Video), We've Beaten Inflation and Achieved A Soft Landing, Biden's Historic Presidency
Thanks everyone for coming by our Thursday night call/postcarding session for Janelle Bynum - it was a lot of fun and we reached a lot of voters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy Friday all. Got a few things for you today:
It’s A New, Bluer Election - Yesterday I wrote here about the very encouraging polling data we’ve gotten in these past two weeks. This morning I send along a discussion with Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch we recorded yesterday about what I’m seeing now in the 2024 election and why I would much rather be us than them. It’s 18 minutes long and will be a good weekend watch or listen.
The Harris campaign announced all sorts of good news about its fundraising this morning. My favorite stat:
More than 3 million donors made over 4.2 million contributions – with more than 2 million donors making their first donation this cycle
Here’s more:
Today, Team Harris announced that it raised $310 million in July, the biggest haul of the 2024 cycle. July’s haul, powered by the best grassroots fundraising month in presidential history, is more than double what the Trump campaign and RNC raised in July, and includes more than $200 million in the week following President Biden's endorsement of Vice President Harris’ candidacy.
With today’s announcement, Team Harris has already raised over $1 billion this cycle, the fastest a presidential campaign has crossed the $1 billion threshold in presidential history.
Team Harris is also reporting $377 million in cash on hand – the largest ever war chest at this point in the cycle and $50 million more than the Trump team’s post-July cash on hand. This July, Team Harris grew its historic war chest while also significantly expanding its footprint and operations both at HQ and across the key states – building the capabilities needed to win a close election.
July’s $310 million haul was also the strongest grassroots month in presidential campaign history and powered by a surge in new support. Two-thirds of the record-shattering haul came from first-time donors, further proof of the tremendous support for Vice President Harris that powers our historic fundraising operation. Additionally, the vast majority of July’s raise came from grassroots donors, and eight of the campaign’s ten best grassroots fundraising days came in July.
As I wrote yesterday last week Harris gained a few points in national polling and caught up with Trump. This week she gained a bit more and oped up a modest lead.
538 released their first poll average of this new election this morning, and it found Harris up 1.5 points, confirming the movement I’ve been writing about this week:
Exciting stuff everyone. We have a far better candidate, better arguments, a far more powerful campaign and if we do the work we can and should win this November!
Hostages Come Home, Russian Democracy Advocates Freed - Another landmark achievement for the Biden-Harris team. Watch this video from the Oval Office last night. Very moving stuff:
July Jobs Report A Bit Slower Than Expected. We Achieved A “Soft Landing” and Beaten Inflation. It’s Time For The Fed To Cut Interest Rates - The July jobs report came in at 114,000, a bit slower than expected. With inflation falling and at the Fed target rate for the past six months, and the great American jobs machine clearly slowing now, it is time - past time - for the Fed to cut interest rates. We have successfully achieved the economic “soft landing” everyone was hoping for - strong growth, inflation falling and now back to 2% over the past six months - and it is time now for the Fed to act.
Here are updates to some of our core economic graphs:
And yes, my favorite of all. Since 1989 and a new age of globalization began 52 million jobs have been created in America. 50m of those, 96%, have been created under Democratic Presidents. Essentially all of them, over 36 years.
Simone Biles, American Hero, Weighs In From Paris About What She Thinks of Trump’s Deeply Racist Claim There Are “Black” Jobs in America -
Fired Up, Ready To Go/Thursday Hopium “Winning The House” Volunteer Nights - I want to thank the almost 300 people who came by last night for our initial phonebanking and postcarding session for our 11 endorsed Hopium House candidate. We got to hear from Janelle Bynum, and folks went to work and wrote over 1,000 postcards and made over 10,000 calls to prime Democrats in OR-5 encouraging them to Vote Early/On Day 1. Hopium was in abundance last night and it was great to be with all of you.
We kicked it off last night some wonderful words from Janelle. Do watch:
As folks with us last night experienced, we had some bumps in our execution and we will be spending time today discussing ways we can streamline and improve these in the future. More on that tomorrow.
I also want to thank Susan Wagner and Robbin Warner for pulling all this together. I will have a longer list of thank yous tomorrow as there was a remarkable team behind that all that work last night, particularly given the initial technical challenges we had.
Also note that we have now raised $800,000 for both the Biden & Harris campaigns and our endorsed House candidates, and almost $800,000 for our “checkmate” targets AZ, NC and NE-2. Tens of thousands of you are working on campaigns across the country and many have you have been given many hours to Democrats over these last years. We are strong as a party because of all of you and this vital work we are doing, together - thank you all.
If you are looking for ways to contribute here are our ongoing campaigns:
Harris For President - $797,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $797,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $194,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President
Winning The House - $741,000 raised, $1m goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $56,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 11 or each one individually). Watch my recent interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It will get you all fired up to help make him our next Speaker
North Carolina - $353,000 raised today, $400,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $308,000 raised today, $350,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $128,000 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) Will Rollins (CA-41), Laura Gillen (NY-04) and Rudy Salas (CA-22). 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
The only primary candidate we endorsed this year, Andrei Cherny in AZ-01, lost on Tuesday night in a very close election decided by less than 2,000 votes. So we are now 11 House candidates, not 12, and it’s a reminder how close elections can be and how important our work is. Thanks to all of you who contributed to Andrei’s race. He remains a dear, dear friend and one of the best and smartest people I’ve ever worked with. Much love to Andrei and his family today!
With the new political landscape we find ourselves in I will be reviewing our current strategy in the coming days and consider making adjustments. Our current strategy boils down to this:
Win AZ, NC, NE-2 and Vice President Kamala Harris becomes President
Win our 11 House races and the House flips and Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker
For the Senate, whose candidates usually do not have a hard time raising money, we got into the Gallego race in AZ the day Sinema dropped out. Sinema’s delay in getting meant Ruben was behind financially and organizationally, and we stepped in to help make up for lost time. AZ is also top tier swing state in the Presidential with 2 competitive House seats. So big bang for the buck here.
The recommendations I’ve made to you are where I’ve believed your money and time were best spent. But as the election is changing now it is a good time to re-evaluate all this and make adjustments if needed. More on that soon.
Help Hopium Get to 100,000! - 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.
The Hopium community is now over 98,000 strong - help us get to 100,000 this week!
Keep working hard all. It’s how we win - Simon
Breaking: Kamala Harris formally secures Democratic Presidential Nomination.
Dear Simon, I want to share with you an idea I have to target Hispanic voters in Florida, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. I wrote this to a fundraising acquaintance and as a comment on WaPo under a Maduro illegitimate election win article. I think this could stick. I figure you know the right people to pass it along to. Thank you.
“Today I was listening to NPR to a report about the illegitimate election of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. I was married to a Dominican man for twenty-four years. We were together since I was fourteen, he sixteen. I am fluent in Spanish and well-versed in South American and Latin American dictators as my father-in-law and aunt-in-law were on Rafael Trujillo’s student agitator list. My father-in-law had to leave the Dominican Republic because he could have been disappeared like so many Dominicans. Fast forward to now and Maduro. I have always thought this, but upon listening to Maduro’s hyperbolic, inflexible comments after the “election”, I was struck by just how his simplistic and authoritarian speech sounds exactly like Donald Trump’s rhetoric.
An idea for a VP Harris ad : a side by side of Maduro rhetoric alongside Trump rhetoric comparing just how frighteningly similar they are. The ad is in Spanish. The message — ¿No es por eso por lo que Ud dejó su país? / Isn’t this why you left your country? Trump es el mismo que Maduro. Son intercambiables. / Trump is the same as Maduro. They are one and the same.”