In stunning upset victory, Higgins also becomes first woman in post and first non-Hispanic candidate since 90s
Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor of Miami on Tuesday night in a stunning upset victory that reversed a run of recent Republican successes in Florida.
The election of Higgins, 61, a former county commissioner, also added to a string of Democratic wins across the country that have served to highlight the growing level of resistance to Donald Trump in his second presidential term.
Miami-Dade, a county with a significant immigrant population, voted for Trump in historic numbers in 2024, making him the first Republican presidential candidate to win it since 1988.
That majority melted away in Tuesday’s run-off as Higgins became the first Democrat in 30 years to become mayor of the city of Miami. After winning 36% of the vote in last month’s election after which the top two candidates moved forward, she bested Republican Emilio González, a former city manager.
Republicans’ determination to retain the office in what was, in theory at least, a nonpartisan race was reflected in the number of party heavyweights who lined up to back González. Trump posted two fulsome endorsements on Truth Social, both spelling González’s name incorrectly, and aligning him with the Trump agenda for “secure borders” and cracking down on “migrant crime”.
Higgins, too, focused much of her campaign on immigration. (snip-a bit MORE)
More Asian-American voters are planning to support the Democrat at the top of the presidential ticket now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the nominee, according to the 2024 AAPI Voter Survey released Tuesday.
Harris, whose campaign has been specifically reaching out to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters, has a 38-point lead over Republican former President Donald Trump among Asian Americans. It’s a significantly wider advantage than the 15-point lead President Joe Biden had with Asian-American voters in a spring survey, before Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Harris became the Democrats’ standard-bearer.
In May, Biden led Trump 46 percent to 31 percent, with 23 percent undecided or backing a third-party candidate. Now, 66 percent of Asian-American voters back Harris, compared with 28 percent for Trump and just 6 percent for a third party.
It’s a return to 2020 levels of support for the Democratic ticket, according to Karthick Ramakrishnan, the executive director and founder of AAPI Data, one of the groups that conducted the survey. “When it comes to voter enthusiasm and intention to vote, we’re seeing levels on par with 2020, which was a historic election in terms of having record high turnout for Asian Americans. All these ingredients point toward Asian Americans having a pretty powerful role in the Harris candidacy.”
Harris’ favorability has also risen 18 points; it is 62 percent now versus 44 percent in the spring.
For Asian-American voters, Harris’ gender is more important (38 percent) than her Asian-American identity (27 percent). It’s noteworthy given that Harris’ mother was an immigrant from India.
It’s all the more surprising given the role that race has come to play in the campaign, especially since Trump has sought to center Harris’ race by questioning whether she is Black or South Asian. (She is both.) “Gender is not explicitly talked about as much in this campaign by Trump — it’s [Harris’] racial identity that’s being talked about a lot more. So I think it’s one of those things that seems under the radar compared to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 candidacy, but is emerging as a pretty powerful force,” Ramakrishnan said.
Christine Chen, a co-founder and executive director of APIAVote, added that AAPI voters’ attitudes on Harris’ gender reflect much of the grassroots organizing happening on her behalf. “South Asians for Harris, Chinese Americans for Harris, Korean Americans for Harris — we saw such activation coming from the community and partially, I think it is because of her ethnicity, but it was also driven by the women in those communities.”
AAPI women are more likely to support Harris (70 percent) than AAPI men (57 percent). Chen said much of this work, and excitement, also has to do with how Asian-American women are working with Black women and Latinas across organizing spaces, bringing together a racially diverse coalition of voters.
And these women have been organizing for a decade already, Ramakrishnan said.
“So you combine that with having the historic nature of her candidacy as not only the first Asian American but as the first woman and Asian-American woman, and that combines, I think, into a pretty potent combination,” he said.
The AAPI Voter Survey is a joint effort between AAPI Data and APIAVote, and was administered Sept. 3-9 by NORC at the University of Chicago. The survey was offered in English, Chinese dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese, Vietnamese and Korean, and oversampled citizens and registered voters. The margin of error is 4.7 percentage points.
The Harris campaign has been working to reach AAPI communities, and it appears to be paying off: 62 percent say they have been contacted by the Democratic Party, compared with 46 percent who have had the Republican Party reach out.
Last week, the Harris campaign released its third ad specifically targeting Asian-American voters, titled “My Mother.” It repurposes part of Harris’ acceptance speech from last month’s Democratic National Convention when she described her mom — “a brilliant 5-foot-tall Brown woman with an accent” — and said her mother taught her family “to never complain about injustice but do something about it.”
Meanwhile, when APIAVote had a presidential town hall earlier this summer, Republicans didn’t even send a surrogate, Chen said.
For many AAPI voters, Ramakrishnan said, the top issue is “racism and discrimination.” Seventy-two percent of AAPI voters said they wouldn’t be willing to vote for a candidate who doesn’t share their views on racism or discrimination.
Since first entering presidential politics in 2015, Trump has demonized immigrants. He also repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus,” which was followed by a rise in discrimination and attacks against Asian Americans. Recently, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has amplified racist conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that he knows are false.
“Even if the Republican Party is investing in voter outreach, to the extent that party leaders continue to engage in talk that is perceived as xenophobic or racist, it’ll make it really difficult to win support among Asian-American voters,” Ramakrishnan said. “That’s just very real. Absolutely, the parties need to invest, but what party leaders say also matters.”
“I don’t want to ignore the role of racism and discrimination,” Ramakrishnan continued. “So the extent that you see both Trump and Vance not only dog whistling on race, but blowing their bullhorns on race, that’s something that will prevent the Republican Party from capitalizing on any frustration people have with not only Biden, but Harris.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on outreach to AAPI voters.
According to a separate survey released Tuesday by KFF, 45 percent of Asian immigrants say the way Trump talks about immigrants has negatively affected the way they’re treated. Just 7 percent said that about Harris. In fact, 30 percent of Asian immigrants said Harris’ rhetoric has had a positive effect on how they have been treated.
Chen pointed to Georgia as a state where AAPI voters — particularly newly registered voters — could make a difference. Biden won the state in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes in a year with about 39,000 first-time AAPI voters, she said.
Ramakrishnan said the second biggest issue for AAPI voters is abortion, which Harris has made a centerpiece of her candidacy.
“Asian Americans are some of the strongest supporters of abortion rights in this country,” Ramakrishnan said. “Support for abortion rights is high even among Asian Americans who are predominantly Catholic, like Filipinos. I think something very underappreciated is how much abortion plays a role in the public opinion of Asian American voters.”
Among AAPI voters in the survey, 63 percent said they would not vote for a candidate who does not share their view on abortion policy. There is a 20-point gender split — 72 percent of AAPI women and 52 percent of AAPI men — on the question.
Though there are six weeks until Election Day, Chen said the candidates would be wise to understand that for AAPI voters, the window to reach them is even shorter: in the 2022 midterms, 73 percent voted early or by mail.
To check your voter registration status or to get more information about registering to vote, text 19thnews to 26797.
Wisconsin voters reject GOP-written ballot measures, US Senate race set with Hovde’s primary win
By SCOTT BAUER Updated 5:49 AM CDT, August 14, 2024
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin voters on Tuesday rejected Republican-authored ballot questions that would have limited the governor’s power to spend federal money that comes to the state for such things as disaster relief, a big win for Democrats who mobilized against them.
In Wisconsin’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Republican businessman Eric Hovde, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, easily won the primary. He advances to face Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in a race that could determine majority control of the chamber.
And in two competitive congressional primaries, Trump-backed Republican Tony Wied defeated a current and former state lawmaker in northeast Wisconsin, and Democrat Rebecca Cooke beat a state lawmaker in western Wisconsin.
Wied will face Democrat Kristin Lyerly, a doctor who sued to protect abortion rights, in the race for the open 8th Congressional District seat. Cooke will try to knock off incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL who is one of Trump’s loudest backers, in the 3rd District. (snip)
Rejection of the ballot measures was a huge win for liberals.
Democrats, including Gov. Tony Evers, and a host of liberal groups and others organized against the amendments. They had argued adopting them would slow down the distribution of money when it needs to be spent quickly.
“This was a referendum on our administration’s work and the future for Wisconsin we’ve been working hard to build together, and the answer is reflected in the people’s vote tonight,” Evers said in a statement.
The charge has been led by Vance, a veteran who served in Iraq, who is going after Walz’s decision to leave the National Guard to run for public office.
Snippets:
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is homing in on what advisers see as a potential liability for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz: his departure from the Army National Guard two decades ago.
Walz, introduced Tuesday as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, ended his 24-year military career to run for public office in 2005 — just before the unit he led deployed to Iraq. (snip)
Walz has faced such attacks before, including in his re-election campaign in 2022, when his GOP opponent questioned his decision to leave the service in 2005. Walz’s campaign responded with a letter signed by 50 veterans praising his record and leadership.
“Governor Walz secured additional funding for new veterans homes,” read the letter, a copy of which the Harris campaign shared Wednesday with NBC News. “In his first term, Minnesota was one of just seven states initially selected by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to participate in the ‘Governor’s Challenge’ to eliminate veteran deaths by suicide.” (snip)
Walz joined the National Guard in 1981, just after his 17th birthday. After he transferred from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996, he served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, said Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota Guard’s public affairs officer. Walz, Augé added, “culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion” and “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.”
During Walz’s nearly quarter-century of service, he was part of flood fights, responded to tornadoes and spent months on active duty in Italy, according to the Harris campaign. Walz “was deployed to Italy in 2003 to protect against potential threats in Europe while active military forces were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported in 2022, attributing the information to Walz in an article about the scrutiny of his military service. (snip)
Asked about the video, a Harris campaign spokesperson did not deny that Walz had embellished when he spoke of carrying weapons in war.
“In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times,” the spokesperson said. “Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”
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!!!!
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
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
Scottie's Playtime 