Morning all. Rep. Chris Pappas had a decisive win last night in New Hampshire, winning his Democratic primary 65%-33% (+32) in a state VP Harris won by 3 points in 2024. There are two reasons for us to be a bit more optimistic about Pappas’ chances than we are hearing in the current chatter:
Democrats outvoted Republicans in the Senate primary last night 156,000 to 112,000. That’s very encouraging, a sign of the Democratic intensity we’ve seen all over the country these last 20 months.
There have been two general election polls in NH n recent days. The St. Anselm poll had Pappas up over John Sununu 48%-41 (+7). A University of New Hampshire poll had Sununu up 45%-43% (+2). Of the two the St. Anselm poll was much closer to the primary result last night as it had Pappas at +31, off by just a point. The UNH poll had Pappas winning the primary by only 13 points, which was off by 19 points.
So I at this point given our strong turnout last night, given the national partisan lean we’ve seen across the country, and given the accuracy of the St. Anselm poll my sense is the the +7 Pappas is closer to being right than the +2 Sununu. But we will be keeping an eye on it in the coming days and for now sticking to our mission here which is to flip seats, states, and legislative chambers and take stuff away from MAGA…….
G. Elliott Morris just posted this tasty nugget from today’s Economist/YouGov track:
Events/New Hopium Daily Product Launches Today
7pm ET - Hopium Paid Subscriber Weekly Gathering.
Register here.8pm ET - The State Parties/DNC “Democracy Protector” Training.
Register here.
Today we are kicking off a new daily product that will arrive in your in-box five days a weeks at 1215pm or so. It’s called the Hopium Ad and Video Roundup and will feature 5-6 ads and videos from around the country. You will be able to watch all these videos each day in under five minutes. Our goal is to give you another way of understanding what is happening on the ground in all these critical races we are investing in across the country. Look for it later today and let us know what you think!
Trump Is A Titanic F*ckup And Is Pushing The World Into A Profound Crisis - I’ve been hitting this theme in various ways in my posts over the past week:
I will be exploring this a bit more in my talk tonight but I think the world is slowly tipping into a profound crisis as the country that held everything together for the past eighty years has now decided to tear it all apart.
In another bout of mad, disturbing social media posting this weekend our rapacious leader posted this map below. Carl Bildt is a highly regarded European diplomat and former Prime Minister of Sweden:
The political gains being made by far-right parties in Europe - with Trump and Putin’s overt help - is going to require a far greater coordinated response from pro-democracy forces throughout the West.
Brent crude starts the day at $100 a barrel (there is no greater sign of his failed regime than this), doing enormous harm to economies, businesses, and consumers throughout the world:
In his excellent Substack Dr. Phillips O’Brien has a sobering but necessary take this morning on the escalating war in the Middle East:
If you have not noticed, the shooting war between the USA and Iran has been heating up over the past week. There have been regular exchanges of fire, the sinking of merchant ships by the USA, attacks on US naval ships by the Iranians, and mass Iranian missile attacks on US bases in Jordan (requiring very expensive US interceptions). This is a sign of the strategic dilemma that the US faces. The Trump Administration wants to fight an economic pressure war with no fighting (for obvious reasons). And the US press far too often debates the war within this ridiculous confine, as if the wishes of the Trump administration determine reality.
However as this week reinforced in spades, the shooting war is back, precisely because it serves Iran’s interests (and those of China and Russia—much more on that below). We are watching the real-time degradation of US military power in the Gulf—so much so that it might represent the end of an era. However the discussion in the US is bizarrely over whether the US is now winning the war.
What we should really be discussing is whether the US retreat from the Middle East can be deftly handled or will turn into a strategic rout. It is the US which is running short of vital equipment, the US which has bases it might never rebuild, and the US which is losing influence in the area. And this week, indeed Monday/Tuesday night, provided the perfect indication of why this is so.
And yes, last night, a leading researcher at Anthropic, the company that owns Claude which I use here every day at Hopium, 𝕏went public with his concerns about where AI is heading. Here is the first post in his thread. 61 million views in 12 hours:
Here is his thread in its entirety:
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.
The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.
Accepting this race and entering the “endgame” is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack. Attempting to speedrun alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available.
I am optimistic about the potential for coordination. Warning shots like the Hugging Face attack have made pacing agreements between U.S. labs more viable. I don’t feel like we’re on track to prevent a global race, which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban on improving model capabilities.
If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because “it’s happening anyway” - or take this moment to call for different conditions?
In a powerful op-ed in the NYT this Tom Friedman writes about the stakes of the late October Israeli election and our November election here (gift link - must read). This passage, about what means if the Rs were to win these midterms, really spoke to me:
In other words, with a midterm success, Trump will feel more emboldened and empowered than ever — at a time when he is clearly declining both mentally and physically; at a time when we are in the middle of possibly the greatest technological transformation in human history (the birth of self-improving, artificially intelligent agents and robots); at a time when climate change, which he denies, is obviously making our weather hotter and more unstable; at a time when he will have alienated practically every friend America has in the world, even Canada; at a time when he is stuck in a war with Iran that is draining our military resources and is led by a clown, Pete Hegseth, who may have fired or blocked promotions of more American generals than he has killed Iranian ones; at a time when China is taking over the world’s electric vehicle market while the president is trying to grab Venezuela’s oil.
I am not sharing all this today to scare you but to level with you. Our current course is ruinous for us and the world. Simply we must do everything within our power to win these midterm elections, force enormous changes on the regime, put adults back in charge, and forge a better path for our country.
We must act with great urgency now. For we have the power to change things, and it is our turn now. We must do our part, together. We cannot falter, and must do everything we can to win this November.
As the Hopium Daily Mantra tells us:
There is nothing Trump and MAGA wants more than for us to be fighting with each other and not with him. We have one job now - elect as many of these wonderful candidates running for the House and Senate as we can. It’s where our focus must be. It’s a year of opportunity for us across the country. We must seize it, together.
Yes, beating these dangerous extremists is within our grasp, and it is time…..
Become an Early Vote Champion in your networks, communities, organizations….
**Our Winning The House Campaign **- Donate | $1,217,100 raised, $1,250,000 goal (new stretch goal) | Donate to all twelve of our initial wave of House challengers with a single contribution split twelve ways | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Elaine Luria (VA-02), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Jonathan Nez (AZ-02), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews.
Friends, if these twelve courageous candidates win, the House will flip, even with Callais and their rancid mid-decade redistricting. So eyes on the prize here everyone!
Winning The Senate - $869,100 raised, $1,200,000 goal - Donate | This new fund splits a single donation to our six candidates must likely to flip a Senate seat this November - Sherrod Brown (OH), Roy Cooper (NC), Troy Jackson (ME), Mary Peltola (AK), James Talarico (TX), and Josh Turek (IA).
Our working total includes what we’ve raised for these six so far through direct donations to their campaigns. You can watch our interviews with each of these exciting candidates and/or contribute directly to any of them directly here.
**Winning The House - The Second Wave Fund **- Donate | $376,100 raised, $500,000 goal - We’ve launched a second House fund, one supporting candidates who’ve emerged from late, primaries and need a bit more help.
Our newly expanded list now features Rebecca Bennett (NJ-07), Bob Brooks (PA-07), Cait Conley (NY-17), Johnny Garcia (TX-35), Bob Harvie (PA-01), Dr. Richard Pan (CA-06), Denise Powell (NE-02), Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Manny Rutinel (CO-8), Dr. Amish Shah (AZ-01), Randy Villegas (CA-22), and Marni von Wilpert (CA-48).
A donation to the Second Wave Fund is split evenly among these twelve, and more as other worthy candidates emerge from their primaries. Our total above includes money we’ve raised for directly for each candidate. You can watch interviews with these great candidates here.
Winning The House - The Third Wave Fund - Donate | $39,500 raised, $500,000 goal | We’ve launched this new fund for candidates who have emerged even later from primaries and need a bit more help as we work to expand our map and go deeper into tough terrain. Our initial list - and it may grow - is Christina Hines (MI-10), Lindsay James (IA-02), Jake Johnson (MN-01), Jessica Killin (CO-5), Nancy Lacore (SC-01), and Brian Poindexter (OH-7).
The “Winning” link in each state brings you to a page that includes interviews and more information about the opportunities we have in each state.
**Winning Georgia ***- *Donate | $38,300 raised, $250,000 goal | Our Winning Georgia campaign splits a contribution three ways among Senator Jon Ossoff, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the Georgia Democratic Party and it’s great Chair, Charlie Bailey.
Winning Iowa - Donate | $40,100 raised, $250,000 goal | Our Winning Iowa campaign splits a contribution three ways among Josh Turek for Senate, our gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, and to the Iowa Democratic Party and it’s great Chair, Rita Hart
**Winning Maine **- Donate | $86,100 raised, $250,000 goal | Our Winning Maine campaign splits a contribution evenly among Troy Jackson for Senate, Hannah Pingree for Governor, and the Maine Democratic Party and its Chair Charlie Dingman
Winning Ohio - Donate | $201,100 raised, $250,000 goal | Our Winning Ohio campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton-Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party and its terrific Chair, Kathleen Clyde
Winning Wisconsin - Donate | $20,100 raised, $250,000 goal - Our Winning Wisconsin campaign splits contributions evenly among David Crowley for Governor and the Wisconsin Democratic Party (and its terrific Chair Devin Remiker) and it’s legislative victory fund. Our community has invested heavily in getting helping Wisconsin Democrats flip both state legislative chambers and finally get a trifecta. Now we must finish the job!
Self-report all the good trouble you are making each day in our paid subscriber chat below…..
And keep working hard all. We have a country to save, and elections to win all across the country, together! - Simon
