With 3 Weeks To Go, The Vice President Is Bringing The Joy, Trump Is Weak and Unwell, and I Would Much Rather Be Us Than Them
Call, Postcard for Tony Vargas (NE-02) This Thursday/Welcome New Subscribers!
Happy Monday all. We are three weeks out. Early voting begins in many more states this week. The election is very close, everywhere. The Vice President is hitting Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this week:
After having been taken off the trail to help manage the recovery from Helene and Milton, the Vice President and her campaign are barnstorming the battlegrounds now, bringing the energy, the joy, the crowds, the arguments we need to turn this close election into a victory. Here’s some fun video of people bringing the joy at her rally last night in Greenville, NC:
Here’s the video of her full rally last night. I strongly encourage all you to watch her entrance, listen to wild roar of the crowd, the infectious intensity, and then catch her full speech. I would start around minute 50:
I want to encourage all of you to subscribe to the Harris YouTube channel and catch these remarkable rallies as often as you can. They will bring you closer to the campaign in these closing weeks and lift your spirits for the energy in these rooms is incredible. As someone who has been around a long time what I see when I watch these rallies is a strong and confident candidate and a winning campaign.
As we set off to do our work this week a reminder that Donald Trump never had super powers, or some magical connection with the American people. He only won in 2016 due to extraordinary interventions by the Russian government and the FBI. The polls didn’t underestimate his support. They were changed at the end by James Comey. MAGA has had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and when we won the NY-03 special election earlier this year RNC Chair Romney McDaniel was fired for this long losing streak. Trump only received 46% and 47% in these last two elections, less than Mitt Romney received in 2012. He did overperform public polls in 2020, but with COVID it was such an anomalous election, and he and Republicans have underperforming polls since Dobbs. This repeated Republican and Trump underperformance mirrors the far-right underperformance we just saw in the European and French elections and suggests that Western voters are having a hard time pulling the lever at voting time for the fascists regardless of what they told pollsters.
Trump is getting badly outraised in this election. It is not clear he has any ground game at all. He has spent enormous sums of his campaign cash on his legal bills and not the election itself. The opposition he’s facing from important leaders in his own party is unprecedented in the modern era of US politics. He didn’t show up for the last debate in the 2020 election, and isn’t showing up for the last debate this time too after getting his ass kicked by Vice President Harris. Vance is the most unpopular VP candidate in history. There was so much doubt about Trump’s candidacy that Rs recruited three “independent” candidates to run this time, not just one. Every day Trump has to invent a party to run against because he can’t beat the one he actually faces. He is selling watches, bibles, crypto, a failed media company and other snake oil to line his pockets further diverting money from his campaign. He is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon. He badly bungled COVID and let hundreds of thousands of Americans die unnecessarily. The economy crashed on his watch, and he was the first President since Hoover to have seen net job loss. Crime rose while he was President, as did the deficit, the uninsured rate and overdose deaths.
Donald Trump is weak not strong. A loser not a winner. A baby man not a powerful man. A failure not a success. A criminal not a leader. A traitor not a patriot. He is unwell, unstable and deeply diminished. He and his failed extremist politics have had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and are about to have another one this year too. He is the ugliest political thing any of us has ever seen.
Here is an important clip of the Vice President from her rally last night in North Carolina. PLEASE WATCH THIS. No one in our party is better at talking about the ugliness of Trump than Kamala Harris:
In the last few weeks Republicans have dropped more than 60 polls into the polling averages to make it look like Donald Trump is winning an election he isn’t. They would only be going to these extraordinary lengths to game the polling averages if they believed he wasn’t winning. In a Twitter thread a few days back, I wrote this:
So, a short thread about why it is so important to Trump that it be perceived that he is leading in the polls when he isn't. In sum - it’s his campaign's primary strategy to obscure his historic ugliness.
Trump may be a rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon but he is leading in the polls and is strong. Trump may be a dangerous extremist, a bigot, misogynist and a racist but he is leading in the polls and is strong.
Trump may want to end the global economy which has made us prosperous, end the Western alliance which has kept us safe, end American democracy which has kept us free but he is leading in the polls and is strong.
Trump is leading in the polls and is strong is a way to make all his ugliness disappear. Which is why his campaign is working so hard to create a false impression that he's ahead. To Trump it is arguably the most important "issue" in the election
Their flooding the zone with these right wing polls is a sign of weakness, not strength, my friends. It is a tactic to help obscure his ugliness and extremism, and we should prepared for far more of it this week. We should also be prepared for:
the “hidden Trump vote” argument which may have been true in 2020 but has not been true for Trump or Republicans since Dobbs. We have been the party with the hidden vote of late as we’ve been overperforming polls for 2.5 years now.
Dems need to win by 4-5 points to win the Electoral College. Again, this is 2024 not 2016 or 2020. Every election is unique, and has it’s own dynamic. Thinking 2022 would be a like typical midterm caused people to miss the election that was in front of them. In this election, the polls remain steady, remarkably steady, and we are right now in my view favored to win the Electoral College even with a 2.4 point national popular vote lead. Here’s 538’s latest national popular vote average:
Trump is weak not strong. He was dragged over the finish line by Russia and James Comey in 2016. Trump and MAGA had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023, early 2024 and he underperformed public polls in 19 of his first 20 Republican primary elections. As so much of our commentary in 2022 started with the idea that election was going to behave like other recent mid-terms elections, so much of our commentary this year has been based on a belief this election would behave like 2016 or 2020 and Trump would overperform public polling. That he had super powers, and there was this secret Trump vote that would come out and red wave the Democrats. But this isn’t what happened in 2016; he lost the Presidency in 2020 (most incumbent Presidents are re-elected); and he and his party have really, really struggled since Dobbs. When looking at all this what we should have seen was Trumpian weakness, an uphill climb of a failed, extremist politics. Instead what we’ve gotten in the chatter is this lingering assumption of strength and power that was never actually there. He and his party have been far more losers than winners over these past nine years and this idea of “strength” when looking at that ugly thing is blustery, MAGA bullshit enabled by the right wing noise machine.
Which leads me to all of you. A central reason I think we’ve been overperforming expectations in our elections since Dobbs is all of you. Millions of Americans have just decided that democracy was not going to slip away on their watch. They have gone to work. They’ve donated, info warriored, postcarded, canvassed, texted and phonebanked. Your passion, your intensity, your hard work has given us the most powerful campaigns we’ve ever had. The money we’ve had has allowed us to control the information environment in our races, and mitigate their clear information superiority in the day to day. This money has allowed our campaigns to build unprecedented capacity to channel your volunteering and work into touching voters which has repeatedly allowed us to perform at the upper end of what was possible in election after election. Our super power, particularly since Dobbs, has been all of you. You have built the most powerful grassroots political machine we’ve ever had. This year you’ve written 80 million - 80 million - postcards!!!!! And now my friends, we need to take these muscles, these capacities and super charge them and together turn these close elections into victories across the country. This work is more important than ever before for the VP doesn’t have a big October debate to engage voters and get them to turnout. We have to fill some of that void with our work and energy. As the Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon likes to say, “we can do hard things” and right now we have hard but very necessary and doable things we need to do all across the country.
A sign that we are doing it where it matters right now - again - and closing strong - again - is in the daily tally of the early vote in the seven battleground states. While it is still early, and this data is mostly from MI, PA and WI, I would much rather be us than them.
Heads down, let’s keep working hard all. Be sure to review my new post on our home stretch strategy to close strong and win the election. My one big ask today - please donate to Harris-Walz today and sign up for a shift of calls or canvassing. Beating Trump is job # 1 today, yesterday and tomorrow.
We are winning this election my friends, but have not won it yet. Winning it is up to us. We can do this people!
Harris-Walz For President - $1,227,000 raised, $1,500,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Merch | Subscribe to The Harris-Walz YouTube Channel
Our Presidential Checkmate States - Learn more about our “checkmate” strategy, and support Ruben Gallego and these three front-line state parties:
North Carolina - $810,000 raised, $1,000,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $465,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
Wisconsin Dem Party - $27,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch Our Recent Closing Strong Interview with the great Ben Wikler
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $256,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Be sure to watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb
Winning The House - Keeping very good vibes from our candidates and House Democratic leadership about flipping the House in a few weeks. We need to keep working it peeps!
Support All 15 With A Single Donation - $1,556,000 raised, $1,750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer, Learn More and Watch Interviews With Our Candidates
Support The 4 New House Candidates In Our Expanded Target List (Shah, Tran, Bohannan, Stelson, - $98,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More.
Donate Directly To A Candidate - You can donate to any of our 15 candidates directly here.
Winning The House Thursdays - This Thursday we gather for Tony Vargas (NE-02), Thursday, at 715pm ET. Register here to postcard or call for Tony and the blue dot. Watch my wonderful interview with him. Recent polls have Tony ahead and we just have to keep working it!
You Can Now Call Or Postcard Anytime, Not Just on Thursdays - I will be doing a broader update on our postcarding and phonebanking program for the home stretch tomorrow, Tuesday, still working on a few things. Friends, we have mailed over 90,000 postcards into these 15 races these last several months. Our last day for postcarding given that we are targeting the early vote is this Friday, October 18th. If you head here you can grab more addresses for any of the 15 and help us keep driving the early vote and winning the election in October. Help us get to 100,000 postcards mailed by this Friday - it will be an amazing achievement! A big hearty, Hopium shout out to our partners in our Winning The House Thursday events - Markers for Democracy, Postcards4VA, Grassroots Democrats HQ and the DCCC. This has been a wonderful and rewarding project.
Keeping The Senate Blue - this is a brawl my friends, and we just have to keep working it:
Arizona/Ruben Gallego - $465,000 raised, $750,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Montana/Jon Tester - $135,000 raised, $200,000 goal (new stretch goal!) - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Ohio/Sherrod Brown - $92,000 raised, $100,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Nebraska/Blue Dot - $256,000 raised, $300,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer | Learn More
Growing The Hopium Community - We’ve set some goals for the growth of our community with the goal of having more of us doing more and worrying less in the home stretch:
Hopium Subscribers - 107,232 this morning, 125,000 goal
Paid Subscribers - 12,477 this morning, 14,000 goal (we added 150 paid subscribers since yesterday - thank you all!)
Hopium paid subscribers will get access to a weekly live home stretch political briefing and Founding Members will have their own small gathering with me on Fridays in these final weeks. Tom Bonier will be joining this Wednesday night at 7pm. You can become a paid subscriber and help us hit our goals by clicking on the link below:
Winning It In October - Finally, we just need to keep educating folks in our networks about the importance of Voting on Day 1, voting early and winning the election in October. On Friday my daughter and I filled out our DC ballots together and dropped them off on the first day our drop boxes opened. It was her first time voting, and while I don’t know who she voted for I have an idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
Currently standing in line to early vote in Ohio! Is about a 15-20 minute line.
Dropped off my batch of 25 vote forward letters to NC voters. Going back for more!