Trump Is The Ugliest Thing Any Of Us Has Ever Seen

*Published with the generous permission of Simon Rosenberg. Read more of his important work on Hopium.

Simon Rosenberg

2 More Polls Have Biden Up/Other 2024 Election Notes - NPR/Marist, a highly respected poll, has Biden up 50-48 today, and a new Big Village poll came in at 42-40. Both showed Biden gains from their last poll. With these new polls there are now 14 polls taken since late February showing Biden leads (via 538):

• 50-48 NPR/Marist
• 42-40 Big Village
• 44-42 Morning Consult (this week)
• 48-45 Quinnipiac
• 44-43 Noble Predictive
• 44-43 Economist/YouGov (March 19)
• 47-45 FAU/Mainstreet
• 44-43 Morning Consult (March 11)
• 46-45 Public Policy Research
• 50-48 Ipsos/Reuters
• 45-44 Civiqs
• 47-44 Kaiser Family Foundation
• 51-49 Emerson
• 43-42 TIPP

The latest Harris X poll, which has consistently had Trump up by 5-6 points, now has the race even at 50-50. As I wrote yesterday, after the GOP’s corruption of polling in 2022, I don’t pay much attention to polls funded by Republican-aligned groups like the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, and neither should you.

In case you need it here are some recent posts, pods and videos of why I am optimistic about winning this November.

In GOP primary voting last night Trump’s opponents once again broke 20% in CT, NY and WI. It’s a continued sign of his struggle to bring his party together, of what I call the splintering of the GOP. The opposition to Trump inside the GOP is unprecedented in the last several generations of American politics - Romney, Cheney, former staff, etc. Haley has still not endorsed, and Trump has said he doesn’t want her. Whereas what I think is happening inside our party is a spirited and important debate over policy. No Dem official is holding back their endorsement of Biden. The party is unified as we head into the general election, with work to do, no doubt, but building and maintaining winning coalitions is always hard and challenging, and will be again this year. To be very clear what is happening inside our parties are not the same, not mirror images of one another, and attempts to paint them as similar are misleading and false. There is no significant and organized opposition to Biden inside the Dem Party as there is inside the GOP.

Polling in the Maryland Senate race has begun coming back to Earth with Former GOP Governor Larry Hogan only up 1 over David Trone (43-42) and 4 over Angela Alsobrooks (44-40) in new local polling. While we have work to do here in Maryland, we should win here, with either candidate.

Ruben Gallego just reported raising $7.5m in the first quarter - a really big number! Thanks to all of you who have helped critical campaign. From the story:

“Thanks to the support of hundreds of thousands of small-dollar donors who have chipped in what they could to help elect Ruben Gallego, we are building the infrastructure to win this November,” Nichole Johnson, Gallego’s campaign manager, said in a press release. “Arizonans are ready to elect a senator who will defend abortion rights, cut costs for families and take care of our veterans — and that’s exactly what Ruben will do.”

Ruben texted me yesterday thanking all of us for the significant support we’ve showed for his campaign so far - great work all.

While we don’t have a lot of Senate polling, there is no bad or worrisome polling for Senate Democrats right now. None of our incumbents trail. Gallego has come out of the box strong in Arizona, and Slotkin leads in all polling in Michigan. Maryland should be OK (can’t take it for granted), and we are keeping an open mind here about Florida and Texas.

Some have asked about our strategy for the cycle - we will only be helping non-incumbents, sticking to the growth and expansion strategy spelled out in our get to 55 memo from last March. It has what’s guided us in our work in Arizona, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin so far, and will keep guiding as we take on a new set of challenges in the coming weeks.

Upcoming Events - Register Today! - Look forward to seeing folks at these upcoming events, and if you want to join our paid subscriber events and aren’t yet a paid subscriber you can sign up here.

• Fri, April 5th, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Member Discussion With Simon
• Wed, April 10th, 7pm ET - Monthly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together - Register here
• Thur, April 11th, 1pm ET - With Democrats, Things Get Better - updated and fresh - Register here
• Tue, April 16th, 8pm ET - Monthly Hopium Community Wide Get Together w/Simon - Register here
• Thur, April 18th Evening - Simon speaks in person at the Maricopa Country Democratic Party 100th Anniversary Event (Phoenix) - Buy A Ticket Here

MI Dem Senate Candidate Rep. Elissa Slotkin on Trump’s Deranged Remarks In MI Yesterday - She is a great candidate. Trump is a horrible man.

For more on Trump’s cruel and deranged lies about Ruby Gracia see here. The guy is an unprecedented and insulting shitshow, and everlasting shame on all the Republicans who have rallied behind him.Trump Took Money From Man Whose Family Is Close To Putin In 2022 - The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell out with a big one this am:Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.

The former US president stands to gain billions of dollars – his stake is currently valued at about $4bn – from the merger between Trump Media and Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which took the parent company of Truth Social public.

But Trump Media almost did not make it to the merger after regulators opened a securities investigation into the merger in 2021 and caused the company to burn through cash at an extraordinary rate as it waited to get the green light for its stock market debut.

The situation led Trump Media to take emergency loans, including from an entity called ES Family Trust, which opened an account with Paxum Bank, a small bank registered on the Caribbean island of Dominica that is best known for providing financial services to the porn industry.

Through leaked documents, the Guardian has learned that ES Family Trust operated like a shell company for a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, who co-owns Paxum Bank and has been a subject of a years-long joint federal criminal investigation by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the Trump Media merger….

…..Postolnikov, the nephew of Aleksandr Smirnov, an ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has not been charged with a crime. In response to an email to Postolnikov seeking comment, a lawyer in Dominica representing Paxum Bank warned of legal action for reporting the contents of the leaked documents.

Let’s Do More, Worry Less - We are in the final push for these three must-win projects. Thanks to everyone who has helped out - we’ve blown past our original $100,000 goals for all three:

Donate To and Join The Biden-Harris Campaign - Job 1 this year is defeating Trump. As the general election has begun it’s time to get on board the Biden-Harris train. Please donate whatever amount you can - $5, $10 - to get started and become part of the big campaign of 2024.

So far the Hopium community has raised $197,000 from 2,300 of you for Biden Harris - thank you all!

Have you ordered your Biden-Harris lawn sign yet? You can do so here.

Make An Early Investment in North Carolina - North Carolina is our most important 2024 battleground expansion state. Please donate today!

For more on why I think North Carolina is so important watch my in-depth interview with Anderson Clayton, the dynamic new NC Dem Party chair; learn about the extremists running statewide in North Carolina this year and why they give us a great opportunity to grow, expand and flip NC blue; and hear Anderson give us an update on her work and the impact our investments are having on the ground.

So far we’ve raised $154,000 from over 2,025 of you for Anderson and the NC Dems - thank you all. You can also learn how to volunteer for the NC Dems from wherever you live here.

Look at what having Anderson there at the helm, with resources, means:

Help Ruben Gallego Win Arizona - Join me in helping Ruben Gallego in his campaign to become the next Senator from Arizona. The polls are encouraging there, and this is a very critical 2024 battleground state - must win Biden-Harris state, must win Senate, two House pick up opportunities (and maybe the state house too). Because Senator Sinema stayed in for so long, Ruben is a bit behind where he should be financially and organizationally, and needs our help today. Watch my recent interview with Ruben, and please donate today! We have already raised over $110,000 from over 1,700 of you - thank you all!

You can volunteer to help Ruben and the AZ Democrats here.

Spread Hopium - Encourage people in your networks to become a Hopium subscriber. We hit our two big March 31st goals - 50,000 overall subscribers and 6,000 paid! Thank you all for helping keep this community growing and the Hopium flowing!

Keep working hard all. Excited to be back, and proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon

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