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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeah and all of this also has to be taken with the consideration that Harris is only just now the official nominee, and there’s still running mate selection and the convention coming up (along with a lot more campaigning). I know some in the media are treating this as just a temporary “honeymoon” phase, but I see things differently; if Harris is doing this well right out of the gate, imagine how these future positive boons to polling (at least they usually are for candidates historically) will pan out.
On top of that, short of a literal miracle, there are no more set events in the timeline for Trump’s campaign that would be likely to benefit him, like I guess there’s the debate *in theory*, but let’s be real, if Trump even ends up going through with it, how do you *really* think it’s likely to go for him?
However, what Trump’s campaign definitely does have “to look forward to” are him being sentenced for the hush money trial, and the start of the classified documents case right before election day. Definitely not the sort of potential “October surprises” that any candidate would want.
A phenomenon of which no person has experience, groundswell of Harris support has no modern-day precedent. So who knows what is next? No one. Also, Harris’s phenomenal momentum is accelerating. That has to end? Well, someday.
No one is willing to guess the exact day for fear of being wrong and losing reputation points. It is not my trade lane, so I don’t mind predicting November 6, 2024. (I may gain a reputation if I am right, but as my wife says, that has NEVER HAPPENED.)
In key states and nationally, Harris has gained the lead. In some states, in just one week, composite 538 polls from Nate Silver show she gained 3.9 points. Unheard of! That chart cannot yet measure her gains over a month. All I can say is, “Holy shit!” She’s got some moves.
We need a large margin in the popular vote. We need, like Simon said, “huge” and “big”, because electoral college Republican bias must be overtaken. That to some is so well understood that they forget to tell us neophytes what is going on. Do you think Republican gerrymandering led to them having more delegates than they are due? It did. Think red-state Wyoming (population 0.6 million) should get 2 senator-delegates like the 2 that California (population 39 million) gets? No, it should be much more equitable. Our electoral college has tremendous Republican bias baked in. (The framers made this deal with the devil in a difficult negotiation to get ratification of our republic, such that it is.)
How much Republican bias is there in the electoral college as a function of the popular vote? That has been measured over time. It has been modeled. Democrats have to win by a good margin for the electoral college to swing over to the Democrats. This chart will explain we need greater than 2.5 points popular-vote margin. If we get to 3.1-3.5 points, we have won. But not big. If we can get to 5 points nationwide, no one will ever admit they were MAGA. We have to work hard to get to this 5% margin.
No one can predict the future but we can extend the lines, the slopes of trend lines from past polls. This 1-month poll-tracking chart shows the Harris historical line’s upward path and the intersection point at which the Harris slope crosses Trump’s historical downward-sloping line.
I am optimistic and can extend the path of these lines based on current trends. But rather than doing that, hard work is my best path, and I lean my pen and researching as hard into that as I can. The lines will take care of themselves. Pundits will opine Harris’s groundswell must end some day. I already knew November 6 was coming.
Russell, the data is not mine. I Google’d Silver Bulletin and got to Nate Silver’s intro page where there were 2 free charts before the paywall starts. I think Kennedy is included. I don’t see the value in not having Kennedy’s impact included, but the nuances of this are way far out of my knowledge base.
Hate to say it, but Nate SIlver silver ain’t credible anymore. His analytics indicate he now has a heavy Republican thumb on the scale. Nate founded 538, but for whatever reason he’s no longer associated with the site. It does seem Mr Silver is desperate to stay relevant and in the news. I think we can safely ignore him.
Consider this: Nate Silver led the pack of pundits in mocking our Simon Rosenberg when Simon predicted "The data does not indicate a Red Wave in the 2022 Midterm Elections."
In fact, Nate accused Simon of "smoking hopium". Lo and behold, Nate was very very wrong and Simon was right!
Daniel, do you have any numbers of successfully registered / re-registered voters in this cycle? Preferably sorted by state and updated? Or is FT6 keeping those figures under wraps?
How many of those 9 million voters do you think Field Team 6 and allies will eventually succeed in registering?
I don't. But they usually hit the same person three times before it works efficiently. We are starting our primary in Florida so we're in limbo.....
I sent you the stats for 2022,
I'm also involved with Movement Labs, that has the data contract with Fladems.. They use other means to identify people who were cut from the rolls and new voters, people who relocated, GenZ.
I was on a zoom a few minutes ago when we discussed Ohio. Blue Ohio. Trump won by 8% in 2020. They are not a "swing" state, so FT6 is not concentrating on it. But I did thousands of texts on behalf of Sherrod Brown via FT 6 software.... He is leading in the polls. Conceivably Harris can draft on his wind.
First: Pointing out how Nate Silver got his 2022 midterm predictions woefully wrong is NOT an ad hominem. Whereas Nate’s attacks against Simon most definitely were!
Second: Nate Silver is not presenting data – mostly he is giving us his opaque analysis. And true to form, Nate’s predictions always includes a solid dose of his "secret sauce", the recipe of which he never shares. In short, this means no-one else can reproduce his calculations or analysis.
Third: 538, which is no longer associated with Mr Silver, *does* present its data and reasoning. Which is why it’s my preferred polling aggregate. Here is some excellent detailed explanation by 538:
Nate Silver has the race at very nearly 50/50 today. If he has the thumb on the scale for Republicans (I'm not convinced, but regardless), and he's still at 50/50, that's very good news for us.
We also need a large margin to get working majorities in the House and Senate so that we can put in place the pro-democracy reforms necessary to insure we can focus on the huge challenges our nation and the world face instead of just trying to keep our heads above water against the latest waves of fascist lies, dirty tricks, and suppression.
Love following you, Simon. I'm glad you are going to reevaluate where our money can be best spent. Clearly Harris will raise plenty, and it seems all of the Senate candidates are in good shape. If they lose, it will be for reasons aside from money. Even most of the Dem House candidates are way outraising most of their opponents. The newly chosen House nominees in AZ will need help, as will those in MI and WI after their August primaries. Let's put our money there. Funding some of the state legislative races could make a big difference, especially in the battegrounds where we can flip control: AZ and PA. Supreme Court Justice races in NC. And finally, some of the on-the-ground grassroots groups that do year-round work. My group has a slate of recommendations for underfunded competitive races: crimsongoesblue.org/donate. Hope folks will take a look.
I'm surprised how well the Dem senate campaigns are funded relative to their Gop opponents, particularly in the most contentious battleground races. I assume the huge sums of PAC money donated by wingnut billionaires is leveling the playing field significantly though.
Yeah, but bear in mind that Tim Sheehy’s "total net worth, buoyed by between $16 million and $44 million in dividends from investments, is between $74 million and $200 million".
Me too Stef- I’ve backed him and Sherrod ( it feels like always) based on James Carville recommendations. Now Jacky Rosen too; would hate to see us lose the Semate 🇺🇸🇺🇸
Harris leads by 1.5 percent. I think we’ll soon see this move 2–3 additional points toward Harris! Another positive development is that RFK Jr’s candidacy has tanked, and deservedly so.
Speaking of polls, my favorite satirist, Andy Borowitz, nails it!
"POLL: One Hundred Percent of Democrats Support Vance Remaining on Ticket"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a welcome piece of good news for the embattled vice-presidential nominee, a new poll released on Thursday shows that a hundred percent of likely Democratic voters favor JD Vance remaining on the GOP ticket.
Vance’s strong showing with Democratic voters stands in sharp contrast with his performance among Republicans, only 17 percent of whom support his continuing as nominee.
Among those Democrats surveyed, a hundred percent agreed with the statement “JD Vance should receive more airtime” while a hundred percent concurred with the statement “Just let JD be JD.”
On the campaign trail, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris echoed her party’s passionate support for Vance.
“JD Vance has shown himself to be a very giving person,” she said, “and I want him to keep on giving.”
I don't think pollsters as a whole are useless or hopelessly biased in favor of their data-driven approach, but their attempt to bracket all the non-quantifiable factors like enthusiasm and energy make them unable to really talk about the reality of this race, even though the shift in their data is pointing in the same direction: Trump is losing. It's not "tightening," he started losing as soon as she stepped up to the microphone after Biden endorsed her and he's got no plan to stop it. No one in the media ever talks about the fact that the 2024 election was a repeat of the 2020 election up until July and then it wasn't. Presidential rematches aren't supposed to happen. When a candidate loses, their party does a post-mortem and picks a new message. The fact that that didn't happen in the GOP points to a stagnant party. Biden's age and inflation were hurting him, but Trump was hurting him just as much because Trump's presence made everyone associate this election with 2020. Looking at the presidential race and seeing the same exact people saying the same exact things they said four years before made everyone feel like they had been walking for miles through the woods and just figured out they had gone in a big circle. Nikki Haley and Jon Stewart put their finger on this in different ways earlier this year. When the Dems put up a new candidate, Trump's invincibility wore off.
Hi AC: I’m not sure if you saw my question before - I just told an RFK Jr supporter that he had applied for a position in the Trump administration, and was turned down. Meanwhile, our friend say RFK Jr was asked about this application and absolutely denied he ever applied for a position.
You are correct. I clearly remember that – and it was headline news. RFK wanted a position related to healthcare and vaccines (go figure!). The Trump Campaign was livid that RFK Jr’s campaign had released audio of the conversation. I think the culprit may have been RFK’s son.
Here is the link to a major article in the Washington Post. (Do you have access?)
"RFK Jr. floated a job in a Trump White House as he weighed endorsing Trump"
"The independent candidate suggested being given a senior job overseeing a portfolio of health and medical issues, an idea that the Trump campaign rejected."
The +5 for Harris in the Rasmussen poll is truly impressive considering that Scott Rasmussen is a Republican and his poll results typically skew right.
Given the results in the AZ primary, I think we should shift support to Amish Shah, the Democrat who defeated our guy.
In hindsight it was kind of crazy to support a candidate, as laudable as Cherny is, who had not cleared the primary hurdle.
Rasmussen normally skews hard to the blue right before the election in order to maintain any "integrity" he has as a pollster. (It's no shock that my friends on the rights are always sending me Rasmussen polls during any election season.) The fact that he's got her up by five three months out is significant in and of itself.
they just mean that Rasmussen shifts from a bias toward republicans to a bias toward democrats shortly before election day in order to look like they’re not biased.
That is how I read it. Rephrased, perhaps something like this:
"skews back towards blue immediately before the election". I suspect lots of pollsters do this, because all most people (and most pundits) remember is their final pre-election prediction.
I am not calling today (three months away) "immediately before". That was a reference to when certain Republican-leaning polls corrected to a more balanced prediction; historically that has happened one or two weeks before election day.
Thanks, Simon. It was great to listen to your inspirational words while writing postcards for Janelle with Hopium Winning the House last night. Can't wait for next week's session for my state of Arizona!
Despite the hiccups, it was a lot of fun last night. I really enjoy postcarding Zooms and attend several on a regular basis. And it is great to associate faces with names from the Hopium comments section!
If anyone wants to join us next week and doesn't already have postcards, please order postcards NOW! Unlike some other postcard writing programs, you need to source your own. Our target last night was 10 postcards/person but who knows, that may increase in the future.
There isn't a specific postcard design required, so you can order whatever GOTV postcard design you want to use (or get creative and make your own postcards by cutting up cardstock and decorating them)`. I tend to buy most of my postcards from Etsy (I think I have enough to last me several election cycles, lol!!). This search (https://www.etsy.com/market/postcards_to_voters) will give you a flavor for what's available on Etsy. I generally like uncoated matte postcards and prefer ones with a blank back leaving more room to write. Other people prefer a full image on the front to grab the recipient's attention.
However, part of the messaging we're using is about voting on day 1, so if you want to get a "Vote on Day 1" postcard, I suggest creating an account here:
There are several designs for "Early Vote on Day 1" including the jackrabbit that Simon uses on the Hopium site. You will also need postcard stamps, but since we won't be mailing the psotcards for a while, you don't need to have them on hand like you do the postcards if you want to write them on the zoom.
They set up a separate webpage leveraging the Markers for Democracy P2P postcard site. I just checked and got this message:
Site is currently unavailable. Come back Thursday between 7pm and 9pm ET!
So you will need to join next Thursday's Zoom session to get names and addresses for Kristen Engel. (Simon indicated the sign up link will be in Monday's newsletter).
You'll be able to use the credentials for this account on the special webpage Thursday. Postcards4VA is also a sponsor, so I believe you can use your credentials from that website as well (but I didn't try it).
While you are at, check out the postcard campaigns that are active on the MFD website. We're writing for a FL statehouse primary where the incumbent "Democrat" is an anti-choice DINO (Democrat in name only). There are still a LOT of names and addresses and a very short time frame with the Primary coming up soon (Aug. 20).
Thank you Cheryl. I’m usually not available Thursday nights, but if I am some week, I’ll definitely check this out. I’m already writing postcards for blue wave and postcards to swing states, but I know Thursday is geared toward out special house races. I’ll keep this info just in case I can join you. Thank you!
The time for complacency is a few minutes after noon on the 20th of January 2025, after Kamala Harris has been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States of America.
Andrei Cherny (21.3%) lost narrowly to Amish Shah (23.6%). There were six candidates in the Democratic primary, which led to a very split vote. I’m surprised and disappointed that Cherny didn’t win, for he was a great candidate.
And, unlike Trump’s campaign, the vast majority of the money came from small donors. Every single one of those donors is going to vote, as well as do their utmost to bring others to the voting booths!
Anyone anticipating the slow down in job growth and higher unemployment will be grabbed up and distorted by MAGA?
More important: Will the news get out to RFK Jr supporters - the ones who claim to be anti Trump - that he applied for a position in the Trump administration, and if the word gets out, will this drastically reduce his support?
Well, it’s certainly reduced my support for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. He should already be reducing interest rates, which a number of his Fed colleagues wanted to do at their recent closed-doors meeting.
As Robert Kuttner and other economists have pointed out, the Fed’s high interest rates are, in fact ... inflationary!
PS. I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren: Biden should not have re-appointed Powell.
Yes, I was obviously bummed by the economic news yesterday, everything has been going swimmingly. I'm just hoping that means the Fed will cut rates sooner (does anyone know if they HAVE to wait until September??? ((says the person who really understands nothing about economics ha ha)). Either way, let's keep our heads down, keep working. If the Fed cuts rates, which seems like a near certainty now, it seems it will really play positively and we'll be closer to voting time? Others' thoughts?
The NY Post just published a smear article on Kamala (shocking I know) how she’s a mean boss and has a high turnover rate. This is the same NY Post that didn’t have any problem with Trump’s turnover rate and doesn’t want to talk about Trump’s role on January 6th and “hang Pence.”
All this does is make me want to work harder for VP Harris and donate again!
This line of attack is desperate and transparent, given that Trump got famous pretending to fire people on a reality show. It's kind of like J.D. Vance (AKA James David Hamel AKA "Never Trump Guy") calling Kamala a "chameleon." Bottom line: Trump has outstayed his welcome, and once the public is sick of someone, they stay sick of them. Kamala's stump speech is perfect. She is staying on message and deflecting Trump's attacks (which seem infantile, whereas her "weird" comments seem to be genuine reactions and to come from a position of strength) by using Trump's attacks to remind people that he has become like the last tedious season of a sitcom everyone wished had been cancelled years before. The "weird" attacks are also getting in Trump's head, making him unable to ignore that J.D. Vance has become nothing but a punchline, and making him aware that people are seeing his schtick on the stump with the sharks and the "late, great Hannibal Lecter" in a new light. He loved going out there and doing his stream-of-consciousness thing. Now he knows people are using it against him effectively, he will reluctantly and half-heartedly try to stay on message. And he will fail because he is undisciplined and lazy and always suspects that people who try to talk him out of what he wants to do are trying to destroy him or are not as smart as him. He will also be hyper conscious about his slurring and malapropisms, which is guaranteed to make them more frequent. Also, I want Simone Biles at the DNC.
Like I think I said before, one small positive for me that came out of the whole post-debate Biden calamity was a lot of people who are not as far left as me finally recognizing something I’ve seen in the NYT for years now; that they’re actually a (at least) somewhat right-leaning publication. Sure, they’re no Fox News or Breitbart, but they’ve had a pretty clear agenda for a while now, and I don’t think almost anyone can convince themselves anymore that it’s just them trying to stay impartial (because if they were, they wouldn’t be wearing the kid gloves when handling Trump so much, for starters). Someone high up in the organization has an ideological leaning to the right, and has been subtly but surely steering the paper’s content that way for quite some time now.
Like for a while it manifested mostly with them being hyper-critical of not only the progressive wing of the DNC, but the honestly pretty substantial portion of the party that cares about stuff like basic rights for LGBTQ people (like they ran op-eds this spring blaming Biden’s slumping polling numbers on him championing such absolutely *radical* policies as trying to keep trans kids from being denied lifesaving healthcare, also because he said some Gaza protestors “had a point”. Funny how Harris is both if anything even more openly pro-LGBTQ than Biden, and more sympathetic to the struggles of Palestinians, and yet she’s doing way better than Biden, almost like it wasn’t Biden’s “progressivism” that was the issue, hmm…), but ever since the debate it became more clear to a lot of people that, no they don’t actually want the democrats to win, if they did they wouldn’t be playing devil’s advocate and pushing for a chaotic open convention “because it would be exciting”, and they wouldn’t be finding every way possible to attack Harris right now while still largely giving Mango Mussolini a free pass on all kinds of insane behavior.
I’m telling you all, something is up with their editorial staff. I think maybe it’s been less noticeable because the mainstream of the GOP is no longer conservative, they are fascists, thus people pay less attention to a historically liberal newspaper shifting further and further into conservatism.
yeah and all of this also has to be taken with the consideration that Harris is only just now the official nominee, and there’s still running mate selection and the convention coming up (along with a lot more campaigning). I know some in the media are treating this as just a temporary “honeymoon” phase, but I see things differently; if Harris is doing this well right out of the gate, imagine how these future positive boons to polling (at least they usually are for candidates historically) will pan out.
On top of that, short of a literal miracle, there are no more set events in the timeline for Trump’s campaign that would be likely to benefit him, like I guess there’s the debate *in theory*, but let’s be real, if Trump even ends up going through with it, how do you *really* think it’s likely to go for him?
However, what Trump’s campaign definitely does have “to look forward to” are him being sentenced for the hush money trial, and the start of the classified documents case right before election day. Definitely not the sort of potential “October surprises” that any candidate would want.
A phenomenon of which no person has experience, groundswell of Harris support has no modern-day precedent. So who knows what is next? No one. Also, Harris’s phenomenal momentum is accelerating. That has to end? Well, someday.
No one is willing to guess the exact day for fear of being wrong and losing reputation points. It is not my trade lane, so I don’t mind predicting November 6, 2024. (I may gain a reputation if I am right, but as my wife says, that has NEVER HAPPENED.)
In key states and nationally, Harris has gained the lead. In some states, in just one week, composite 538 polls from Nate Silver show she gained 3.9 points. Unheard of! That chart cannot yet measure her gains over a month. All I can say is, “Holy shit!” She’s got some moves.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OYvXP/15/
This link will update the data (if you save it).
We need a large margin in the popular vote. We need, like Simon said, “huge” and “big”, because electoral college Republican bias must be overtaken. That to some is so well understood that they forget to tell us neophytes what is going on. Do you think Republican gerrymandering led to them having more delegates than they are due? It did. Think red-state Wyoming (population 0.6 million) should get 2 senator-delegates like the 2 that California (population 39 million) gets? No, it should be much more equitable. Our electoral college has tremendous Republican bias baked in. (The framers made this deal with the devil in a difficult negotiation to get ratification of our republic, such that it is.)
How much Republican bias is there in the electoral college as a function of the popular vote? That has been measured over time. It has been modeled. Democrats have to win by a good margin for the electoral college to swing over to the Democrats. This chart will explain we need greater than 2.5 points popular-vote margin. If we get to 3.1-3.5 points, we have won. But not big. If we can get to 5 points nationwide, no one will ever admit they were MAGA. We have to work hard to get to this 5% margin.
https://files.constantcontact.com/815f4bd1801/3e53b8f0-83ce-4803-9add-0204cb138fed.png?rdr=true
No one can predict the future but we can extend the lines, the slopes of trend lines from past polls. This 1-month poll-tracking chart shows the Harris historical line’s upward path and the intersection point at which the Harris slope crosses Trump’s historical downward-sloping line.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wB0Zh/12/
I am optimistic and can extend the path of these lines based on current trends. But rather than doing that, hard work is my best path, and I lean my pen and researching as hard into that as I can. The lines will take care of themselves. Pundits will opine Harris’s groundswell must end some day. I already knew November 6 was coming.
Russell, the data is not mine. I Google’d Silver Bulletin and got to Nate Silver’s intro page where there were 2 free charts before the paywall starts. I think Kennedy is included. I don’t see the value in not having Kennedy’s impact included, but the nuances of this are way far out of my knowledge base.
Hate to say it, but Nate SIlver silver ain’t credible anymore. His analytics indicate he now has a heavy Republican thumb on the scale. Nate founded 538, but for whatever reason he’s no longer associated with the site. It does seem Mr Silver is desperate to stay relevant and in the news. I think we can safely ignore him.
Consider this: Nate Silver led the pack of pundits in mocking our Simon Rosenberg when Simon predicted "The data does not indicate a Red Wave in the 2022 Midterm Elections."
In fact, Nate accused Simon of "smoking hopium". Lo and behold, Nate was very very wrong and Simon was right!
Which is how this wonderful website got its name!
Fundamentals.
Biden won by 7 million. FT 6 has identified 9 million unregistered folk who trend heavily Democratic. The polls don't survey these folks.
Register Democrats, get them to the polls and we can hit Simon's 55%.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Daniel, do you have any numbers of successfully registered / re-registered voters in this cycle? Preferably sorted by state and updated? Or is FT6 keeping those figures under wraps?
How many of those 9 million voters do you think Field Team 6 and allies will eventually succeed in registering?
I don't. But they usually hit the same person three times before it works efficiently. We are starting our primary in Florida so we're in limbo.....
I sent you the stats for 2022,
I'm also involved with Movement Labs, that has the data contract with Fladems.. They use other means to identify people who were cut from the rolls and new voters, people who relocated, GenZ.
They also identify "persuadable" voters.
But all that relates to GOTV. If you're really interested NDTC has courses.... https://traindemocrats.org/
I was on a zoom a few minutes ago when we discussed Ohio. Blue Ohio. Trump won by 8% in 2020. They are not a "swing" state, so FT6 is not concentrating on it. But I did thousands of texts on behalf of Sherrod Brown via FT 6 software.... He is leading in the polls. Conceivably Harris can draft on his wind.
The data today is what the data is today. Ad hominems are not data. Just give me the facts, Olav. Lol
First: Pointing out how Nate Silver got his 2022 midterm predictions woefully wrong is NOT an ad hominem. Whereas Nate’s attacks against Simon most definitely were!
Second: Nate Silver is not presenting data – mostly he is giving us his opaque analysis. And true to form, Nate’s predictions always includes a solid dose of his "secret sauce", the recipe of which he never shares. In short, this means no-one else can reproduce his calculations or analysis.
Third: 538, which is no longer associated with Mr Silver, *does* present its data and reasoning. Which is why it’s my preferred polling aggregate. Here is some excellent detailed explanation by 538:
https://abcnews.go.com/538/harris-trump-tied-538s-new-polling-averages/story?id=112494481
While there are problems with all these aggregators and prediction sites I trust 538 the most, and I will continue to feature it here on Hopium.
Nate Silver has the race at very nearly 50/50 today. If he has the thumb on the scale for Republicans (I'm not convinced, but regardless), and he's still at 50/50, that's very good news for us.
Agree about Nate Silver
I love a guy who knows he's NEVER RIGHT!
Beth laughed out loud on that one, Alondra!
We also need a large margin to get working majorities in the House and Senate so that we can put in place the pro-democracy reforms necessary to insure we can focus on the huge challenges our nation and the world face instead of just trying to keep our heads above water against the latest waves of fascist lies, dirty tricks, and suppression.
Great stuff-thanks!🇺🇸🇺🇸
You better broke me from suggesting summary executions to just presenting the facts, ma’am.
🤣👏🏻
This morning I was sent a picture of Ivana Trump’s grave site. Going to make small poster. This is how I am going to remember him.
Love following you, Simon. I'm glad you are going to reevaluate where our money can be best spent. Clearly Harris will raise plenty, and it seems all of the Senate candidates are in good shape. If they lose, it will be for reasons aside from money. Even most of the Dem House candidates are way outraising most of their opponents. The newly chosen House nominees in AZ will need help, as will those in MI and WI after their August primaries. Let's put our money there. Funding some of the state legislative races could make a big difference, especially in the battegrounds where we can flip control: AZ and PA. Supreme Court Justice races in NC. And finally, some of the on-the-ground grassroots groups that do year-round work. My group has a slate of recommendations for underfunded competitive races: crimsongoesblue.org/donate. Hope folks will take a look.
I believe Tester's Senate run in Montana needs help.
Add three zeros and this is where Tester's fundraising is as of June 30 (the last time there was a report). You can see the whole chart at this link : https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/17/2254790/-Daily-Kos-Elections-2Q-2024-Senate-fundraising-reports-roundup
State Name Party 2Q Raised Self-Fund Spent Cash Raised CTD Self-Fund CTD
MT Jon Tester (D-inc) $10,396 $0 $12,190 $10,882 $42,920 $0
MT Tim Sheehy (R) $4,168 $1,000 $3,912 $3,242 $10,576 $2,603
I'm surprised how well the Dem senate campaigns are funded relative to their Gop opponents, particularly in the most contentious battleground races. I assume the huge sums of PAC money donated by wingnut billionaires is leveling the playing field significantly though.
Yeah, but bear in mind that Tim Sheehy’s "total net worth, buoyed by between $16 million and $44 million in dividends from investments, is between $74 million and $200 million".
https://montanafreepress.org/2023/11/03/taking-a-look-at-tim-sheehys-finances/
In other words, Sheehy can easily inject whatever money his campaign needs.
I donated $250 to
Jon last night. Everyone, please donate whatever you can afford.
Me too Stef- I’ve backed him and Sherrod ( it feels like always) based on James Carville recommendations. Now Jacky Rosen too; would hate to see us lose the Semate 🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thank you. I myself have contributed a lot to Senator Tester’s reelection. Holding this seat is critical.
Thank you for the link, Janet. Nice to see some entities I've been donating to.
FiveThirtyEight finally has enough polls to publish a National Average for the Presidential Race.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/
Harris leads by 1.5 percent. I think we’ll soon see this move 2–3 additional points toward Harris! Another positive development is that RFK Jr’s candidacy has tanked, and deservedly so.
Speaking of polls, my favorite satirist, Andy Borowitz, nails it!
"POLL: One Hundred Percent of Democrats Support Vance Remaining on Ticket"
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a welcome piece of good news for the embattled vice-presidential nominee, a new poll released on Thursday shows that a hundred percent of likely Democratic voters favor JD Vance remaining on the GOP ticket.
Vance’s strong showing with Democratic voters stands in sharp contrast with his performance among Republicans, only 17 percent of whom support his continuing as nominee.
Among those Democrats surveyed, a hundred percent agreed with the statement “JD Vance should receive more airtime” while a hundred percent concurred with the statement “Just let JD be JD.”
On the campaign trail, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris echoed her party’s passionate support for Vance.
“JD Vance has shown himself to be a very giving person,” she said, “and I want him to keep on giving.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/poll-one-hundred-percent-of-democrats
Love Andy Borowitz! 😂
Let’s hope. Then 3-4 and then 5. This shouldn't be this close.
I don't think pollsters as a whole are useless or hopelessly biased in favor of their data-driven approach, but their attempt to bracket all the non-quantifiable factors like enthusiasm and energy make them unable to really talk about the reality of this race, even though the shift in their data is pointing in the same direction: Trump is losing. It's not "tightening," he started losing as soon as she stepped up to the microphone after Biden endorsed her and he's got no plan to stop it. No one in the media ever talks about the fact that the 2024 election was a repeat of the 2020 election up until July and then it wasn't. Presidential rematches aren't supposed to happen. When a candidate loses, their party does a post-mortem and picks a new message. The fact that that didn't happen in the GOP points to a stagnant party. Biden's age and inflation were hurting him, but Trump was hurting him just as much because Trump's presence made everyone associate this election with 2020. Looking at the presidential race and seeing the same exact people saying the same exact things they said four years before made everyone feel like they had been walking for miles through the woods and just figured out they had gone in a big circle. Nikki Haley and Jon Stewart put their finger on this in different ways earlier this year. When the Dems put up a new candidate, Trump's invincibility wore off.
Hi AC: I’m not sure if you saw my question before - I just told an RFK Jr supporter that he had applied for a position in the Trump administration, and was turned down. Meanwhile, our friend say RFK Jr was asked about this application and absolutely denied he ever applied for a position.
Do you have any links to the facts about this?
You are correct. I clearly remember that – and it was headline news. RFK wanted a position related to healthcare and vaccines (go figure!). The Trump Campaign was livid that RFK Jr’s campaign had released audio of the conversation. I think the culprit may have been RFK’s son.
Here is the link to a major article in the Washington Post. (Do you have access?)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/22/rfk-jr-floated-job-trump-white-house-he-weighed-endorsing-trump/
"RFK Jr. floated a job in a Trump White House as he weighed endorsing Trump"
"The independent candidate suggested being given a senior job overseeing a portfolio of health and medical issues, an idea that the Trump campaign rejected."
Don, here are two articles on this in The Guardian, news media that is not paywalled:
"RFK Jr reportedly held Trump talks about endorsement and possible job"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/22/rfk-jr-trump-talks
"RFK Jr apologises after leaked phone call in which Trump seems to offer deal"
"Independent candidate’s son posts video online in which Republican also rambles about vaccines, horses and babies"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/16/rfk-jr-trump-phone-call-video-recording
The +5 for Harris in the Rasmussen poll is truly impressive considering that Scott Rasmussen is a Republican and his poll results typically skew right.
Given the results in the AZ primary, I think we should shift support to Amish Shah, the Democrat who defeated our guy.
In hindsight it was kind of crazy to support a candidate, as laudable as Cherny is, who had not cleared the primary hurdle.
Rasmussen normally skews hard to the blue right before the election in order to maintain any "integrity" he has as a pollster. (It's no shock that my friends on the rights are always sending me Rasmussen polls during any election season.) The fact that he's got her up by five three months out is significant in and of itself.
Not sure what you mean by “the blue right.” In any event, it’s very encouraging.
they just mean that Rasmussen shifts from a bias toward republicans to a bias toward democrats shortly before election day in order to look like they’re not biased.
That is how I read it. Rephrased, perhaps something like this:
"skews back towards blue immediately before the election". I suspect lots of pollsters do this, because all most people (and most pundits) remember is their final pre-election prediction.
The election is three months away. I wouldn’t call this immediately before.
I am not calling today (three months away) "immediately before". That was a reference to when certain Republican-leaning polls corrected to a more balanced prediction; historically that has happened one or two weeks before election day.
Thanks, Simon. It was great to listen to your inspirational words while writing postcards for Janelle with Hopium Winning the House last night. Can't wait for next week's session for my state of Arizona!
Despite the hiccups, it was a lot of fun last night. I really enjoy postcarding Zooms and attend several on a regular basis. And it is great to associate faces with names from the Hopium comments section!
If anyone wants to join us next week and doesn't already have postcards, please order postcards NOW! Unlike some other postcard writing programs, you need to source your own. Our target last night was 10 postcards/person but who knows, that may increase in the future.
There isn't a specific postcard design required, so you can order whatever GOTV postcard design you want to use (or get creative and make your own postcards by cutting up cardstock and decorating them)`. I tend to buy most of my postcards from Etsy (I think I have enough to last me several election cycles, lol!!). This search (https://www.etsy.com/market/postcards_to_voters) will give you a flavor for what's available on Etsy. I generally like uncoated matte postcards and prefer ones with a blank back leaving more room to write. Other people prefer a full image on the front to grab the recipient's attention.
However, part of the messaging we're using is about voting on day 1, so if you want to get a "Vote on Day 1" postcard, I suggest creating an account here:
https://markersfordemocracy.org/postcarding/mfd-postcard-shop.
There are several designs for "Early Vote on Day 1" including the jackrabbit that Simon uses on the Hopium site. You will also need postcard stamps, but since we won't be mailing the psotcards for a while, you don't need to have them on hand like you do the postcards if you want to write them on the zoom.
Great reply! Thanks for all the additional information. Hopefully we can double our numbers next week!
Where do you get the names and addresses from?
They set up a separate webpage leveraging the Markers for Democracy P2P postcard site. I just checked and got this message:
Site is currently unavailable. Come back Thursday between 7pm and 9pm ET!
So you will need to join next Thursday's Zoom session to get names and addresses for Kristen Engel. (Simon indicated the sign up link will be in Monday's newsletter).
However, you can streamline the process by creating an account on the regular Markers website: https://postcards.markersfordemocracy.org/
You'll be able to use the credentials for this account on the special webpage Thursday. Postcards4VA is also a sponsor, so I believe you can use your credentials from that website as well (but I didn't try it).
While you are at, check out the postcard campaigns that are active on the MFD website. We're writing for a FL statehouse primary where the incumbent "Democrat" is an anti-choice DINO (Democrat in name only). There are still a LOT of names and addresses and a very short time frame with the Primary coming up soon (Aug. 20).
Thank you Cheryl. I’m usually not available Thursday nights, but if I am some week, I’ll definitely check this out. I’m already writing postcards for blue wave and postcards to swing states, but I know Thursday is geared toward out special house races. I’ll keep this info just in case I can join you. Thank you!
The polls are encouraging... and let's not get complacent. Let's keep doing the work! (And I know this is Simon's message.)
The time for complacency is a few minutes after noon on the 20th of January 2025, after Kamala Harris has been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States of America.
Yes! And yet, if this hopefully does happen, the backlash will be enormous, and we will all need to remain vigilant.
Correct date!
what happened to Andrei in AZ-1? does the Dem have a chance in that district?
Andrei Cherny (21.3%) lost narrowly to Amish Shah (23.6%). There were six candidates in the Democratic primary, which led to a very split vote. I’m surprised and disappointed that Cherny didn’t win, for he was a great candidate.
Yes, Biden carried the district in 2020
What makes Harris’s fundraising outperformance in July especially noteworthy is it was accomplished in the month of the GOP convention !
And, unlike Trump’s campaign, the vast majority of the money came from small donors. Every single one of those donors is going to vote, as well as do their utmost to bring others to the voting booths!
Also, Harris has only been running at the top of the ticket for 2 weeks - well almost two weeks. Crazy but in a terrific way!
I can hear hear the one-liner now:
"I have been hiking the mountains for two weeks. Anything happen while I was away?"
yup!
The photo BELIEVE on your email is powerful and should be a part of your organization and Harris’.
That’s a Ted Lasso reference. Great show if you haven’t watched it.
Two questions:
Anyone anticipating the slow down in job growth and higher unemployment will be grabbed up and distorted by MAGA?
More important: Will the news get out to RFK Jr supporters - the ones who claim to be anti Trump - that he applied for a position in the Trump administration, and if the word gets out, will this drastically reduce his support?
Well, it’s certainly reduced my support for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. He should already be reducing interest rates, which a number of his Fed colleagues wanted to do at their recent closed-doors meeting.
As Robert Kuttner and other economists have pointed out, the Fed’s high interest rates are, in fact ... inflationary!
PS. I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren: Biden should not have re-appointed Powell.
Yes, I was obviously bummed by the economic news yesterday, everything has been going swimmingly. I'm just hoping that means the Fed will cut rates sooner (does anyone know if they HAVE to wait until September??? ((says the person who really understands nothing about economics ha ha)). Either way, let's keep our heads down, keep working. If the Fed cuts rates, which seems like a near certainty now, it seems it will really play positively and we'll be closer to voting time? Others' thoughts?
"Do more, worry less."
Here comes Musk...
https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/08/02/elon-musk-pac-voter-data-trump-harris.html
This link isn't working.
Fingers crossed the feds cut rates soon .....
The NY Post just published a smear article on Kamala (shocking I know) how she’s a mean boss and has a high turnover rate. This is the same NY Post that didn’t have any problem with Trump’s turnover rate and doesn’t want to talk about Trump’s role on January 6th and “hang Pence.”
All this does is make me want to work harder for VP Harris and donate again!
This line of attack is desperate and transparent, given that Trump got famous pretending to fire people on a reality show. It's kind of like J.D. Vance (AKA James David Hamel AKA "Never Trump Guy") calling Kamala a "chameleon." Bottom line: Trump has outstayed his welcome, and once the public is sick of someone, they stay sick of them. Kamala's stump speech is perfect. She is staying on message and deflecting Trump's attacks (which seem infantile, whereas her "weird" comments seem to be genuine reactions and to come from a position of strength) by using Trump's attacks to remind people that he has become like the last tedious season of a sitcom everyone wished had been cancelled years before. The "weird" attacks are also getting in Trump's head, making him unable to ignore that J.D. Vance has become nothing but a punchline, and making him aware that people are seeing his schtick on the stump with the sharks and the "late, great Hannibal Lecter" in a new light. He loved going out there and doing his stream-of-consciousness thing. Now he knows people are using it against him effectively, he will reluctantly and half-heartedly try to stay on message. And he will fail because he is undisciplined and lazy and always suspects that people who try to talk him out of what he wants to do are trying to destroy him or are not as smart as him. He will also be hyper conscious about his slurring and malapropisms, which is guaranteed to make them more frequent. Also, I want Simone Biles at the DNC.
Like I think I said before, one small positive for me that came out of the whole post-debate Biden calamity was a lot of people who are not as far left as me finally recognizing something I’ve seen in the NYT for years now; that they’re actually a (at least) somewhat right-leaning publication. Sure, they’re no Fox News or Breitbart, but they’ve had a pretty clear agenda for a while now, and I don’t think almost anyone can convince themselves anymore that it’s just them trying to stay impartial (because if they were, they wouldn’t be wearing the kid gloves when handling Trump so much, for starters). Someone high up in the organization has an ideological leaning to the right, and has been subtly but surely steering the paper’s content that way for quite some time now.
Like for a while it manifested mostly with them being hyper-critical of not only the progressive wing of the DNC, but the honestly pretty substantial portion of the party that cares about stuff like basic rights for LGBTQ people (like they ran op-eds this spring blaming Biden’s slumping polling numbers on him championing such absolutely *radical* policies as trying to keep trans kids from being denied lifesaving healthcare, also because he said some Gaza protestors “had a point”. Funny how Harris is both if anything even more openly pro-LGBTQ than Biden, and more sympathetic to the struggles of Palestinians, and yet she’s doing way better than Biden, almost like it wasn’t Biden’s “progressivism” that was the issue, hmm…), but ever since the debate it became more clear to a lot of people that, no they don’t actually want the democrats to win, if they did they wouldn’t be playing devil’s advocate and pushing for a chaotic open convention “because it would be exciting”, and they wouldn’t be finding every way possible to attack Harris right now while still largely giving Mango Mussolini a free pass on all kinds of insane behavior.
I’m telling you all, something is up with their editorial staff. I think maybe it’s been less noticeable because the mainstream of the GOP is no longer conservative, they are fascists, thus people pay less attention to a historically liberal newspaper shifting further and further into conservatism.
Simon can you share a link to the Oval Office video? I haven't been able to save it here or from other sources. THank you.
I right clicked on the image and was able to copy the address and paste it into another browser window:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe6db9a1e-4d34-4dd2-9d32-ef2d99db0f96_1998x2498.jpeg
Thank you for the link. I am still looking for the video.