Work To Do In NY-3, Republicans Want The Border in Chaos, Putin to Win and America To Lose

Welcome New Subscribers!/7 Days To Go In NY-3 - Let's Do This People!

Happy Tuesday all. Got a few things today:

7 Days To Go In NY-3, Need All Hands on Deck Now - We have 7 days left of voting and if you planning on giving or volunteering it’s time now. Please take an action for Tom today!

Donate - Learn More - Canvass - Make Calls

Here’s what we know about the race. Remember that George Santos won this district by 7.5 pts in 2022 - so it’s a tough district. Tom has a slight lead in the only public poll, 45-42. Encouraging but close. Our friend Tom Bonier reports:

After the first weekend of early in person voting, we have 17,565 early votes reported. They are +8.8D by party reg. The EV in '22 was +7.8D. 8,982 mail votes are reported in, they are +32D, the mail in '22 was +26D.

This is a good and encouraging performance so far, but we can and need to do better. It should be enough to win as Tom will get crossover GOP and indie votes, but its too close for comfort - and it’s clear now that the difference between winning and losing is going to be determined by how much work we all do in the next 7 days for in this era we win our elections in the early vote not on Election Day. The GOP has a serious local political machine in this district and it’s showing up in the early in person voting. So, friends, it’s up to us - please grab a shift of calls, get those final postcards in, make one last donation and if you live in the NY area try to come to the district and canvass.

Here’s an on the ground report sent to me from Hopium community member Ann Dorman:

Good morning Simon. I wanted to echo what your NY CD-03 canvassers told you. Fortunately I only had to drive 5 minutes to canvas as I live in the district. I live in Woodbury and canvassed in nearby Plainview. Plainview is a traditionally Democratic area, with a large Jewish population, though the Democratic candidate for state legislature lost in 2022, but that’s a different story. 

Here’s my analysis. The media are reporting that the traditional Dem/Jewish voters are torn between Suozzi and Pilip. That’s not what I was getting from my canvassing on Saturday. The vast majority of people I spoke with (I had 53 homes and I would say 75% were home) were fired up to vote for Suozzi. I got no pushback at all. I got a few people who weren’t that tuned in (though given the tv ads and lawn signs all over I don’t know how that’s possible!) but even the unaffiliated voters were likely Suozzi voters. The closest early voting location is the Mid-Island Y JCC (on whose board I have served since 2007). People I spoke with described long lines. I drove through myself to see and at 3:00 there were indeed a lot of people lined up. As I was still cold from my canvassing, I decided to wait. (As an aside, I channeled all of your advice about the importance of early voting and shared that with a number of people I canvassed. Interestingly, some still love Election Day voting). My husband voted first thing Sunday and said people were waiting. I voted at 3:00 and stood on line for 15 minutes. When I dropped my daughter off this morning, there was a line of people waiting for the 10:00 voting. As a point of reference, my experience canvassing in 2022 (in a different area but same CD) was entirely different. Very low Dem interest or excitement. 

A few other points. Several people, including a good friend from Plainview, mentioned all the calls, visits, postcards, etc. they’ve received. I explained how important it is for GOTV. I assure you there isn’t a Dem voter who hasn’t been reached. Another positive - I met a guy named John who was canvassing nearby me. He was a retired cop from Suffolk county, hardly a bastion of liberal or progressive politics, and he loves Tom and hates Trump. Finally, we need to keep the pressure on. Tom is on the receiving end of awful commercials. The Jewish vote isn’t a given. It’s a very difficult district as presently drawn. Thanks so much for highlighting this race and all you do. I’ve recently turned some friends on to you. They’re big fans as well. Looking forward to the next Hopium event Thursday. 

As we’ve done in Wisconsin, and Ohio, and Florida, and Virginia, and so many other places over the past few years if we put our heads down and do the work we can win NY-3 next Tuesday.

Remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope we will win in NY-3, we put our heads down, do the work and make it so. Let’s do this people!!!!!!!!

Upcoming Events

• Thursday, February 8th, 7pm EST - The monthly gathering of Hopium Paid Subscribers. Register here, and subscribe today if you want to become part of this wonderful community. A video recording of this event will be available to Hopium paid subscribers who cannot make it live.

• Thursday, February 15th, 7pm EST - The Monthly Gathering of the entire Hopium community, now 37,000 strong! I will kick it off with 20 minutes of opening remarks about our current political moment and then take your questions. Register here. Hopefully we will be celebrating a big Suozzi win, together! A video recording of this event will be available to all members of the Hopium community who cannot make it live.

The 2024 Elections - Posts, Presentations, Interviews and Pods

• Hopium Posts - Another Huge Jobs Report, Notes on Recent Polling, The Democratic Party Is Strong, Republicans Are Taking An Enormous Risk With Trump, Voting on Day 1 and Building The Most Powerful Democratic Machine We’ve Ever Had, Not Clear Israel-Hamas War Is Hurting Biden

• Video Interviews - MSNBC’s Last Word, MeidasTouch, David Pakman

• Podcasts (Audio) - The Ezra Klein Show, Deep State Radio w/David Rothkopf and Tara McGowan, Rick Wilson’s Enemies List

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - In our 2024 spirit of growth and expansion, I’m encouraging members of the Hopium community to get involved and take an action in four campaigns and projects, below. A hearty thank you to the thousands here who’ve already donated, volunteered and spread some Hopium:

• Flip NY-3 - Tom Suozzi leads in the early polls and will win if we give Tom the resources and volunteers he needs. The election is Feb. 13th and early in person voting has begun so please take an action to help Tom today! If you want to learn more watch my recent interview with Tom, and take an action here:

  Donate - Learn More - Get Updates - Canvass - Make Calls - Write Postcards

• Elect Joe And Kamala, Beat Trump - Please donate to Biden-Harris today, join the campaign and start planning for what you will do to help them spread their message through your networks and win the core 7 battlegrounds AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI. Beating Trump is Job 1 this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Get Early Resources to North Carolina, Our Most Important 2024 Expansion State - Our number one Presidential battleground expansion opportunity this year is North Carolina, and I am encouraging the Hopium community to support the Democratic Party of North Carolina and its dynamic new chair, Anderson Clayton. Watch my recent interview with Anderson and learn how to donate and volunteer here. Help us turn Carolina blue!

• Spread Hopium - Help me bring Hopium to more people this year. Our goal is to get to 50,000 total subscribers by March 31st (we are at 37,000 today). Please encourage others in your network to sign up and become part of this wonderful community of proud patriots and info warriors today!

Republicans Want The Border in Chaos, Putin to Win and America To Lose - We should understand what the Republicans are doing now as desperate, the acts of a party that is losing and has been overtaken by extremists and political madness. Trump cannot be happy with his electoral performance either in IA or NH. Turnout was anemic in Iowa, he underperformed public polling by 10-15 points in NH. Polls show a big chunk of Republicans - 20%-30% - are going to struggle to vote for him and will be open to us. The RNC is broke and broken, GOP state party officials are being indicted across the US for insurrection, and state party organizations are in shambles. He spent more money last year than he took in (super yikes!!!!). Nikki Haley isn’t going away and is drawing blood. Things are not going well for him in the courts - he’s a verified rapist now, is about to get slapped with a huge penalty from New York State, he owes E. Jean Carroll almost $100, Rudy owes families in Georgia almost $150m, his team failed to mount a serious argument in the Supreme Court against his possible disqualification and he just lost his ridiculous immunity appeal. In election after election all across the country we keep overperforming and winning and they keep struggling.

But the more serious threat to Trump now is the success of the Biden Presidency which is causing all of their core indictments of Biden to evaporate. The economy is strong, not in recession. Inflation is down and prices are failing, not soaring. There is no “crime wave” - crime and murder rates are plummeting across the US, and are a fraction of what they were a generation ago. Nor is there a “war on energy” - all forms of domestic energy production including oil and gas set records. Recession! Inflation! Crime! War on Energy! is where they’ve been living these last few years and it’s all going away now.

Which left them to double down on the one issue they still felt they had an advantage on - border and immigration. And yesterday, in a moment of extraordinary desperation and Trumpian madness, they came out against a serious, bipartisan bill to tackle our border challenges and give Israel and Ukraine the tools they need to fight the Russia-Iran-Hizbollah-Hamas alliance. We should not for a moment believe this is smart politics, being driven by polling and grand strategy - it’s an impulsive and reckless act by a desperate, deranged and diminished man - and it is committing Republicans now to a policy that will make America and the world less safe, keep our border in chaos, immigrants arriving in our cities, allow Putin to win and Iran and its proxies to gain regional advantage against the Gulf Arab states, Israel and the West. It is the most reckless act by a Congress in modern American history, and there is just no way they can sell this to the public. It also means that this last big indictment they had to prosecute against Biden is now in the process of evaporating too, leaving them even weaker now and less likely to win in 2024.

The Border Patrol Union, which endorsed Trump in 2020, has endorsed the Senate bill. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has endorsed the bill. Look at how easy it is to point out how craven, desperate and dangerous the blocking of the Senate bill is - Nikki Haley, on Fox News:

All that’s left for them to sell now to the American people now is Trumpian madness. It’s all they have now. Consider what their emerging agenda is now:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. The economy to crash. Women, people of color to lose more freedoms and rights. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist's baby to term, and for more women to die on an operating room table. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Big tax cuts for their donors, higher deficits and less for everyone else. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to get pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

That’s who they are. That’s we are here, and doing the work. Let’s respond to their madness and desperation by pouring everything we got into NY-3 and taking more stuff away from them at a moment when it really matters.

Here’s a clip from my appearance on Lawrence last night where I make this argument about their talking points evaporating, and having nothing to run on in 2024:

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - S