I've been doing work with the DCCC texters for Janelle. It's unusual for the DCCC to weigh in during a primary but I understand the reason. I don't live in Oregon so it is weird texting people on something like this because everyone assumes that they are getting texted by a local person, not someone in rural New York. That's why I would be uncomfortable phone banking in such a situation. On text, I have time to consult with others or look things up. I haven't done this sort of thing before, but I have answered the call to do more wherever I can. Personally, I'm really not into the "state" thing. How people vote in Oregon, or New York, impacts everyone in the country. If I were in Oregon I'd be a Jamie supporter by personal affinity most likely, and I interacted with Jamie supporters during text banking. I did not like the way the scripts for that were written, so I told people both women are excellent candidates and would be great in Congress. The reason we are supporting Janelle is that she has bested the GOP incumbent in state races and is judged by those in the know of having the better chance of flipping the seat and striking a blow against MAGA. I wanted to be sure not to diss Jamie who doesn't deserve to be dissed even the tiniest bit as far as I can tell.
I am in Central NY and working on flipping the seat in my district NY22. Currently held by Brandon Williams.... I am voting in the primary next month for John Mannion, our current State Senator.
I'm in a red pocket where I live too. It can get discouraging. I sometimes vent here on substack and my rants are filled with doom anger and fear.
Then afterwards I donate a dollar to like 20 people running for congress. I get mad I donate.
I've had to pause writing postcards because o have tendinitis in my right hand. ( this is all done ny voice text here lol) so i recruit my buddies to write them for me.
I read Simon's Hopium Chronicles as well as others here and I feel replenished with hope.
Remember, you're doing your part. And that's what you can do. You only have to push the boulder so far. You don't have to convince everyone. You don't even have to convince most people right around you, just contribute to convincing/awakening enough people enough times in enough places to fill the oval the right way to get laws and personnel decided the right way. Beyond that, whatever wackiness, somebody else chooses, isn't too much to sweat about or get wrapped around the axle.
I live in a different geographic environment than you than you, the greater DC area, but work with groups of diverse and mixed political opinions, even going back to 2000, I had had a sweet feeling of serenity when I'd hear somebody spouting right-wing talking points but I would ask at the end, "now did you say you lived in Maryland again", thus knowing they'd have no impact beyond possibly local government or a single Congressional district.
Virginia's more contested, but even here at the Presidential level and the northern part of the state, since 2008 I can get that feeling more often when I hear MAGA garbage from Virginians.
Today is ELECTION DAY in Oregon, Kentucky and Georgia. 🗳 Hoping once we know OR CD 5 results that this great D candidate will be added to the mix of who Hopium supports. Lori Chavez DeRemer is horrible and we need to vote her out.
Oh I know! I did some post carding for him but I had to stop post carding because I can't afford postage. Just been waiting for when someone finally gets textbanking going for him. For NY 19 I will go GOTV phone banking. I live in the district next door so I can talk people with some understanding.
Have you tried buying "discounted" first class stamps at the various on-line sites? After the discount, they are as inexpensive as postcard stamps. The ads for them come up on many sites I visit, and discounts are 50% or so. And the stamps WORK.
I've purchased from several sites. On "good" ones, there's usually a statement saying they are authorized by USPS. The USPS itself often sells them. But I've used a lot that I've bought, and they've always worked.
Lyn, Postcards To Swing States sends you FREE post cards, with beautiful designs ,so a 💲 saver. !You have to commit to 200 but they don’t have to be mailed until Oct.
Please add Sarah McBride, running for the Delaware Congressional seat. She is fantastic, hopefully replacing the very well regarded Lisa Blount Rochester who is running for Carper's Senate seat. If LBR wins in Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks wins in Maryland, it will be historic -- first time two black women in the Senate 🤗 (and Sarah could be the first trans women in the House!)
I am not fond of Act Blue and the avalanche of desperate emails they generate, but I do trust your judgement and plan, and that you made it easy to support your selected candidates. Thanks, Simon!
I agree, Wendy! I get tired of the desperate emails. They fill up my inbox and I find them irritating. I'd much rather donate this way with Simon's menu on hand...
Great to see Hopium’s list of House Candidate Endorsements! Let’s flip these seats and the House!
Decisive election in Georgia today! Hopefully Democrats will be able to flip a seat on the State Supreme Court. Although this officially is a nonpartisan race, there is strong hope that John Barrow will unseat the conservative Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson. Please encourage *all Georgians* to vote today!
It really, really matters who controls the state supreme courts! After Republicans captured the highest court in North Carolina, they undid all sorts of reasonable decisions by the former, more liberal, court.
Bolts Magazine has a great guide to this year’s supreme court elections, and info on their roles.
Note: "No incumbent justice has been unseated in Georgia since 1922, but Barrow is hoping that his ardent opposition to the state's six-week abortion ban will help him make history." (DailyKos Elections team)
I live in Georgia and the Supreme Court race has had very little push. I live in a major suburb and I have seen no signs and received no emails texts or phone calls for John Barrow. And basically no one I’ve talked to knows about this race. So I don’t see how he wins.
Barrow lost, and lost big – a tragic and unnecessary loss. According to other sources, that is partly because of dismal campaigning and dismal ground game in the major cities and suburbs. Just look at the detailed results for Fulton County, for example; yes, Barrow won there but just barely, when it should have been a blow-out.
I was going to ask you about Will Rollins, so this email made me really happy! I’m part of the ca41dems arm of campaign support. We have a solid, well organized team, while up against someone with 30 years of name recognition.
We came really close last year, and plan to retire Calvert in ‘24 🙌🏻
Simon and friends: please also consider a tax deductible contribution to the most productive nonpartisan voter registration and turnout org run by brilliant Harvard Students in 1,300 high schools and 348 Community Colleges but only in 78 truly “competitive” CDs (such as identified here) and in 14 key Senate states…www.TurnUp.US based on three issues: protecting reproductive rights, improving gun safety regulations, and fighting climate change effectively! Please take a look at what they are doing; thanks.
These Harvard students are spectacular and they distinctly focus only on 78 truly “competitive” CDs and 14 Senate election states! Because of their nonpartisan focus on abortion, they are uniquely able to register hundreds of thousands of young voters for whom this issue plus guns and climate are PERSONAL ISSUES not policy issues! Game changer! Please give them a helping hand as they uniquely pay $100 to a high school student to run an effective VR drive and $250 to a community college student to run a provable effective drive AND GET THEM OUT in November
Thank you thank you thank you for introducing us to folks running for the House. I am very much looking forward to who you think would be good for us folks in Florida. Thank you again!
I've met the two people who are going to be in the primary to see who will run against Vern Buchanan. Neither one of them was particularly impressive or inspiring, but I have decided which one I'll vote for based on their qualifications, and their demeanor. But I haven't heard anything about anyone who I could vote for in the general election, not even names.
Simon: FT6 has been involved in the Salas and Whitesides campaigns; sent texts, calls and postcards to unregistered folks in their districts. Please ask the other candidates to partner.
I second that! FT6 BYOP texters are also doing NJ7 right now. We are also doing Rollins and Gray. We finished our AZ lists already so if someone will partner with us to send more we'd love to do it. Working on NC too. Buy us phone numbers and we will text. Last week we sent 73K texts! FT6 number crunchers say 1 out of three people we contact go on to register as Blue or Purple (undeclared) voters. FT6 new registrants voting exceeded the margin of victory for Biden in Wisconsin in 2020. Registering voters is a good thing to do now. Then later, we get them out to vote. But if they aren't registered, you can't get them out to vote!!!!
BYOP is Field Team 6’s free textbanking option! You will need to set up a couple things on your own computer and attend a Boot Camp training session. After that, you will be able to send texts anytime between 9am-9pm in the time zone you’re texting.
I’ve been doing Text Arcades:
A Text Arcade is a super-fast text bank that costs $25 a ticket. 100% of your ticket price goes to funding your 1,400 texts. (To put this in perspective, it costs a volunteer $1,300 to send 1,400 postcards!) We pay for about half of those texts in order to keep the ticket price reasonable, so shout-outs (shouts-out?) to our donors who enable us to do that!
I join Teri and Diana in the crucial OR CD5 race to take back the House seat currently held by Chavez Deremer. Our primary is today, so we will know which of the strong candidates will take her out. Bynum is fabulous, accomplished, well spoken and has beaten Chavez Deremer TWICE for the state legislature. I urge you and the Hopium community to join us in our all out campaign to send a Dem to DC
Love the list : We Field Team 6 texters have been working on all the CA races, and NJ 7 (as a generic remove Tom Kean) , I know the FT6 post carders are doing NY 19 and likely others . Vote Forward letter writers are doing all the NY races you mentioned. DCCC texters have a regular bank Monday and Weds eve working on Calif house races and also on Oregon 5. Just a few of many other ways for the community here to work on these targeted races. I mention these only because I have personal knowledge and have been working with these groups on these races in this way.
I appreciate what you’re doing here. I have a question about the best way to give. Most of my current donations go through Act Blue. I am also part of a giving circle. My donations are modest but I’d like to make them effective. Is it better to continue to spread my donations around or consolidate them
A fully caffeinated "decafecta"!
I've been doing work with the DCCC texters for Janelle. It's unusual for the DCCC to weigh in during a primary but I understand the reason. I don't live in Oregon so it is weird texting people on something like this because everyone assumes that they are getting texted by a local person, not someone in rural New York. That's why I would be uncomfortable phone banking in such a situation. On text, I have time to consult with others or look things up. I haven't done this sort of thing before, but I have answered the call to do more wherever I can. Personally, I'm really not into the "state" thing. How people vote in Oregon, or New York, impacts everyone in the country. If I were in Oregon I'd be a Jamie supporter by personal affinity most likely, and I interacted with Jamie supporters during text banking. I did not like the way the scripts for that were written, so I told people both women are excellent candidates and would be great in Congress. The reason we are supporting Janelle is that she has bested the GOP incumbent in state races and is judged by those in the know of having the better chance of flipping the seat and striking a blow against MAGA. I wanted to be sure not to diss Jamie who doesn't deserve to be dissed even the tiniest bit as far as I can tell.
I'm in rural ny too
I am in Central NY and working on flipping the seat in my district NY22. Currently held by Brandon Williams.... I am voting in the primary next month for John Mannion, our current State Senator.
This is a contact sport, but no tear-downs among our own. I like it.
I'm in a red pocket where I live too. It can get discouraging. I sometimes vent here on substack and my rants are filled with doom anger and fear.
Then afterwards I donate a dollar to like 20 people running for congress. I get mad I donate.
I've had to pause writing postcards because o have tendinitis in my right hand. ( this is all done ny voice text here lol) so i recruit my buddies to write them for me.
I read Simon's Hopium Chronicles as well as others here and I feel replenished with hope.
I worry less and do more
hugs!
❤️❤️
Remember, you're doing your part. And that's what you can do. You only have to push the boulder so far. You don't have to convince everyone. You don't even have to convince most people right around you, just contribute to convincing/awakening enough people enough times in enough places to fill the oval the right way to get laws and personnel decided the right way. Beyond that, whatever wackiness, somebody else chooses, isn't too much to sweat about or get wrapped around the axle.
I live in a different geographic environment than you than you, the greater DC area, but work with groups of diverse and mixed political opinions, even going back to 2000, I had had a sweet feeling of serenity when I'd hear somebody spouting right-wing talking points but I would ask at the end, "now did you say you lived in Maryland again", thus knowing they'd have no impact beyond possibly local government or a single Congressional district.
Virginia's more contested, but even here at the Presidential level and the northern part of the state, since 2008 I can get that feeling more often when I hear MAGA garbage from Virginians.
Rob thank you 😊
Today is ELECTION DAY in Oregon, Kentucky and Georgia. 🗳 Hoping once we know OR CD 5 results that this great D candidate will be added to the mix of who Hopium supports. Lori Chavez DeRemer is horrible and we need to vote her out.
So glad to see that the Hopium community will be supporting Josh Riley in NY CD 19. He is a great candidate and will be a great Representative!
Oh I know! I did some post carding for him but I had to stop post carding because I can't afford postage. Just been waiting for when someone finally gets textbanking going for him. For NY 19 I will go GOTV phone banking. I live in the district next door so I can talk people with some understanding.
Have you tried buying "discounted" first class stamps at the various on-line sites? After the discount, they are as inexpensive as postcard stamps. The ads for them come up on many sites I visit, and discounts are 50% or so. And the stamps WORK.
Funny you should mention that. I got an email flogging stamps "on sale." I figured it was a phishing thing and was afraid to click on it.
I've purchased from several sites. On "good" ones, there's usually a statement saying they are authorized by USPS. The USPS itself often sells them. But I've used a lot that I've bought, and they've always worked.
Lyn, Postcards To Swing States sends you FREE post cards, with beautiful designs ,so a 💲 saver. !You have to commit to 200 but they don’t have to be mailed until Oct.
https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/
Donated to the ActBlue page. Fingers crossed!
Please add Sarah McBride, running for the Delaware Congressional seat. She is fantastic, hopefully replacing the very well regarded Lisa Blount Rochester who is running for Carper's Senate seat. If LBR wins in Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks wins in Maryland, it will be historic -- first time two black women in the Senate 🤗 (and Sarah could be the first trans women in the House!)
I am not fond of Act Blue and the avalanche of desperate emails they generate, but I do trust your judgement and plan, and that you made it easy to support your selected candidates. Thanks, Simon!
This is why I never give out my email address or phone number when I donate anywhere – nor do I ever sign a petition where I have to provide this.
I agree, Wendy! I get tired of the desperate emails. They fill up my inbox and I find them irritating. I'd much rather donate this way with Simon's menu on hand...
Whew! Nothing like a big ol' cup of hopium to get you going in the morning! Thanks for the inspirational call to action, Simon!
Great to see Hopium’s list of House Candidate Endorsements! Let’s flip these seats and the House!
Decisive election in Georgia today! Hopefully Democrats will be able to flip a seat on the State Supreme Court. Although this officially is a nonpartisan race, there is strong hope that John Barrow will unseat the conservative Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson. Please encourage *all Georgians* to vote today!
It really, really matters who controls the state supreme courts! After Republicans captured the highest court in North Carolina, they undid all sorts of reasonable decisions by the former, more liberal, court.
Bolts Magazine has a great guide to this year’s supreme court elections, and info on their roles.
https://boltsmag.org/your-state-by-state-guide-to-the-2024-supreme-court-elections/
https://boltsmag.org/what-to-know-about-state-supreme-courts/
Note: "No incumbent justice has been unseated in Georgia since 1922, but Barrow is hoping that his ardent opposition to the state's six-week abortion ban will help him make history." (DailyKos Elections team)
I view this GA election as starting point to start contesting these races, not free passes. Will be interesting to see the results.
I live in Georgia and the Supreme Court race has had very little push. I live in a major suburb and I have seen no signs and received no emails texts or phone calls for John Barrow. And basically no one I’ve talked to knows about this race. So I don’t see how he wins.
Barrow lost, and lost big – a tragic and unnecessary loss. According to other sources, that is partly because of dismal campaigning and dismal ground game in the major cities and suburbs. Just look at the detailed results for Fulton County, for example; yes, Barrow won there but just barely, when it should have been a blow-out.
I was going to ask you about Will Rollins, so this email made me really happy! I’m part of the ca41dems arm of campaign support. We have a solid, well organized team, while up against someone with 30 years of name recognition.
We came really close last year, and plan to retire Calvert in ‘24 🙌🏻
Also, I just donated. Let's DO this!
Simon and friends: please also consider a tax deductible contribution to the most productive nonpartisan voter registration and turnout org run by brilliant Harvard Students in 1,300 high schools and 348 Community Colleges but only in 78 truly “competitive” CDs (such as identified here) and in 14 key Senate states…www.TurnUp.US based on three issues: protecting reproductive rights, improving gun safety regulations, and fighting climate change effectively! Please take a look at what they are doing; thanks.
Thanks for mentioning this. I was unaware of this group. There are so many groups which is GREAT!
These Harvard students are spectacular and they distinctly focus only on 78 truly “competitive” CDs and 14 Senate election states! Because of their nonpartisan focus on abortion, they are uniquely able to register hundreds of thousands of young voters for whom this issue plus guns and climate are PERSONAL ISSUES not policy issues! Game changer! Please give them a helping hand as they uniquely pay $100 to a high school student to run an effective VR drive and $250 to a community college student to run a provable effective drive AND GET THEM OUT in November
Thank you thank you thank you for introducing us to folks running for the House. I am very much looking forward to who you think would be good for us folks in Florida. Thank you again!
Our primary isn't until August. https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Florida,_2024
I've met the two people who are going to be in the primary to see who will run against Vern Buchanan. Neither one of them was particularly impressive or inspiring, but I have decided which one I'll vote for based on their qualifications, and their demeanor. But I haven't heard anything about anyone who I could vote for in the general election, not even names.
Simon: FT6 has been involved in the Salas and Whitesides campaigns; sent texts, calls and postcards to unregistered folks in their districts. Please ask the other candidates to partner.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/partner
I second that! FT6 BYOP texters are also doing NJ7 right now. We are also doing Rollins and Gray. We finished our AZ lists already so if someone will partner with us to send more we'd love to do it. Working on NC too. Buy us phone numbers and we will text. Last week we sent 73K texts! FT6 number crunchers say 1 out of three people we contact go on to register as Blue or Purple (undeclared) voters. FT6 new registrants voting exceeded the margin of victory for Biden in Wisconsin in 2020. Registering voters is a good thing to do now. Then later, we get them out to vote. But if they aren't registered, you can't get them out to vote!!!!
Many opportunities to text with FieldTeam6!
BYOP is Field Team 6’s free textbanking option! You will need to set up a couple things on your own computer and attend a Boot Camp training session. After that, you will be able to send texts anytime between 9am-9pm in the time zone you’re texting.
I’ve been doing Text Arcades:
A Text Arcade is a super-fast text bank that costs $25 a ticket. 100% of your ticket price goes to funding your 1,400 texts. (To put this in perspective, it costs a volunteer $1,300 to send 1,400 postcards!) We pay for about half of those texts in order to keep the ticket price reasonable, so shout-outs (shouts-out?) to our donors who enable us to do that!
https://www.fieldteam6.org/actions
I join Teri and Diana in the crucial OR CD5 race to take back the House seat currently held by Chavez Deremer. Our primary is today, so we will know which of the strong candidates will take her out. Bynum is fabulous, accomplished, well spoken and has beaten Chavez Deremer TWICE for the state legislature. I urge you and the Hopium community to join us in our all out campaign to send a Dem to DC
Love the list : We Field Team 6 texters have been working on all the CA races, and NJ 7 (as a generic remove Tom Kean) , I know the FT6 post carders are doing NY 19 and likely others . Vote Forward letter writers are doing all the NY races you mentioned. DCCC texters have a regular bank Monday and Weds eve working on Calif house races and also on Oregon 5. Just a few of many other ways for the community here to work on these targeted races. I mention these only because I have personal knowledge and have been working with these groups on these races in this way.
I appreciate what you’re doing here. I have a question about the best way to give. Most of my current donations go through Act Blue. I am also part of a giving circle. My donations are modest but I’d like to make them effective. Is it better to continue to spread my donations around or consolidate them