Winning The House w/Rudy Salas (CA-22), Good Week Of Polling For Harris, Trump Is The Ugliest Thing We’ve All Ever Seen by Simon Rosenberg

Join Us To Make Calls and Write Postcards for Janelle Bynum Tonight at 730pm ET Read on Substack

Happy Thursday all. Been a really good week for us. Got a few things for you today:

It’s A New, Bluer Election – 8 polls have been released this week showing Vice President Harris leading (all polls via 538):

• 49%-45% (+4) Civiqs
• 49%-46% (+3) Leger (was +7 Trump)
• 48%-46% (+2) FAU (was +5 Trump)
• 46%-44% (+2) Economist/YouGov (was +3 Trump last week!!!!!!)
• 45%-43% (+2) Redfield and Wilton
• 50%-48% (+2) American Pulse Research and Polling
• 44%-42% (+2) Angus Reid Global
• 47%-46% (+1) Morning Consult

Yesterday we discussed that a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll had Harris leading in the battlegrounds 48%-47%, ahead in AZ, NV, MI, WI, tied in GA and only down 2 in NC. A new set of polls by GOP/DeSantis pollster Public Opinion Strategies found good news in the battlegrounds, Harris-Trump:

• WI 48-45
• PA 48-46
• MI 45-45
• NV 45-46
• AZ 43-48 (note Harris leads by 2 pts in AZ in the Bloomberg/MC poll)

We also learned yesterday that the Trump campaign has started buying ads in North Carolina, meaning they view it as in play (which it is!) and we saw very good polls in both MN and NH, consistent with Harris having modest national popular vote leads.

Let’s discuss what this all means. Right now the Vice President appears to be opening up a modest lead in the national popular vote. Battleground state polls this week have her leading in AZ, NV, MI, PA, WI and close in GA, NC. We still have not yet seen the full effect of the rallying around her, a week of campaigning next week with the new VP pick, our joyous Convention or what will now be the most powerful early vote/GOTV machine ever seen in an American election.

Trump and Vance continue to generate far more negative press than positive, and we are now on offense, playing hard and perhaps even beating them now on social media. Taken together I think it is reasonable to expect that we gain a few more points in the election over the next few weeks and enter the home stretch in a much stronger position than the pro-Putin, Project 2025-loving MAGAs.

Based on polling and our very strong 2022 performances I always felt it was likely we would hold the three Blue Wall states – MI, PA, WI – which gets the Vice President to 269 Electoral College Votes (note the UAW endorsed VP Harris yesterday, meaning we head into the fall with the most enthusiastic labor support a Democratic ticket has had in many years). Which is why here at Hopium we’ve focused on winning AZ, NC and the Nebraska blue dot. Winning any of these 3 gets us to 270. We currently lead in NE-2, and our friend Jane Kleeb the NE State Party Chair is as good as it gets. AZ and NC are in play, with extremists Kari Lake and Mark Robinson at the top of the GOP tickets in those states, and Ruben Gallego and Josh Stein running very strong campaigns for Senate and Governor. In addition to the $800,000 we’ve raised for Biden and Harris, our community has now invested more than $800,000 into AZ, NE and NC as part of what I’ve called our check – MI, PA, WI – and checkmate – any of AZ, NE, NC – strategy.

Here’s our friend Anderson Clayton, the NC Dem Party Chair, thanking the Hopium community for being the largest outside investor in NC Dems this year: (vid on the page)

Friends, we are not playing catch up any more. We are playing to win.

Here’s a new ad from the Harris SuperPAC, Future Forward: (vid on the page)

Trump reminded us yesterday what a racist pig he is, and once again did remarkable harm to his candidacy. But remember folks, here at Hopium, nothing he does or says is a surprise. We know he is a rapist, fraudster, traitor and felon. We know he is old, very old, profoundly unfit and deeply unwell. We know he is a modern day Bull Connor, a white supremacist, a bigot and a xenophobe. We know he is the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen.

Here’s Stuart Stevens with a great riff on Trump the babyman from MSNBC last night: (vid on the page)

And we know what Trump and Commander Vance want to do if they somehow get into the White House next year:

They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. 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. Huge new tariffs which will raise prices on everything and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and tax increases for every day people. 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 be pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.

The reason we are all here is that we are committed to not letting any of this happen. And this week while you all have rallied for the Vice President, raising more than $100,000 (amazing), we’ve also significantly stepped up our efforts to flip the House to give the Vice President the legislative partner she needs to advance her agenda next year. We heard from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this week. We’ve raised close to $150,000 for our House candidates since Friday and almost $800,000 in the past two months. You can catch our 7th interview with our House candidates, Rudy Salas, above. Rudy is running to flip CA-22 and become the first Latino Member of Congress from California’s Central Valley. And tonight we kick off our Thursday night Hopium Winning the House phonebanking and postcarding Zooms, this one supporting Janelle Bynum in OR-5. I’ll be starting things off at 730pm ET and we will be joined by Janelle herself to give us a bit of motivation to go out and do good, together.

You can join us tonight by signing up here. You can learn more about this new grassroots collaboration project to win the House, including how to order postcards if you need them. Please consider giving us a shift or two in the weeks ahead. We can do this people!!!!

For those who want to support Rudy Salas, you can support him by donating to all of our 11 House candidates in one donation split 11 ways, or by donating to him directly. You can also volunteer for him here.

Here are additional ways to do more and worry less in the days ahead and help us win. All of our goals are by the first day of early voting in the Presidential election, September 20th (or maybe by the last day of the Dem Convention???):

• Harris For President – $794,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. The $794,000 raised is both Biden-Harris and the $194,000 we’ve already raised for Harris for President
• Winning The House – $727,000 raised today, $1m goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More. We’ve also raised more then $55,000 into the individual House campaigns (you can either give to all 11 or each one individually). Watch my recent interview with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It will get you all fired up to make him our next Speaker
• North Carolina – $351,000 raised today, $400,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton
• Arizona/Ruben Gallego – $308,000 raised today, $350,000 goal – Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with Ruben Gallego
• Nebraska/Blue Dot – $127,000 raised today, $150,000 goal- Donate | Volunteer | Learn More | Watch my interview with NE Dem Chair Jane Kleeb

Here’s how you can do even more:

• Volunteer for the Harris campaign – never been more important to volunteer!
• Watch our Winning The House interviews with Janelle Bynum (OR-5), George Whitesides (CA-27), Kirsten Engel (AZ-06) Will Rollins (CA-41) and Laura Gillen (NY-04). Great candidates all!
• Commit to Vote on Day 1 and get everyone you know to join you. Early voting begins in a few states on September 20th, less than 2 months away!
• Watch my With Dems presentation on the greatness and goodness of the Democratic Party, this six minute video on the incredible stakes in this election and my latest take on the 2024 election recorded on Monday, July 29th

As Tuesday’s primary in AZ-01 is still too close to call, I have taken Andrei Cherny off our 12 way split for House contributions until we have a clear winner there. Thanks to all of you who have supported Andrei. He is a close friend, and truly one of the smartest and best people I’ve ever worked with. More on this soon.

Finally, please help me spread Hopium and grow this plucky community. Use this link to sign others up to be a Hopium subscriber. Note that options for group and gift subscriptions are available to those who want to bring friends and colleagues into the Hopium community. Click on the group and gift tabs here to learn more. To update your payment information or check your renewal status follow these instructions from Substack.

We are now over 97,000 strong – help us get to 100,000!!!!!

Keep working hard all. Lot’s to be excited about right now. Proud to be in this fight with all of you – Simon