Dems Need To Get Serious About Partisan Voter Registration - My Conversation With Tom Bonier (And A Presentation Too)I will be in Santa Fe, New Mexico Sunday night from 5 to 7pm MT - join us!
Morning all. Starting off sharing a new presentation from our good friend Tom Bonier. Tom put this presentation together a few weeks ago after all states had reported the vote of every individual voter in the 2024 election (that they voted, not how they voted). From that data, using Target Smart’s database of the vote history of all voters in recent years, Tom has developed new understandings of what happened in 2024. There is one very big takeway from Tom’s new analysis - Republicans out-registered us from 2020 to 2024 and made the battleground states more Republican. In a very close election this successful effort to make more Republicans mattered; and it tells us that we simply must make partisan voter registration - making more Democrats - a much higher priority in the coming years, particularly as this Republican machine that gave them these advantages is not going away. The good news is that the new Ken Martin-led DNC is making partisan voter registration a major priority for the first time in decades. Some of the unprecedented support the DNC is providing to the state parties in all 50 states will go to launching party-led voter registration campaigns. For those of you who like to do voter reg work please contact your state and local Democratic Parties and offered to help them stand up their efforts in your community. It is another way members of our plucky, proud and patriotic community can help us win this fall and in 2026. This is the first public showing of Tom’s presentation, and I will be working with him on ways to make the data and recommendations more accessible. My hope is that we combine his insights with some of what I presented alongside him at a recent gathering of the Democratic State Parties in Little Rock, Arkansas into a series of posts and discussions here at Hopium. Here is one bit of data from the 2024 Exit Polls that shows the impact this kind of aggressive voter reg campaign can have - Rs beat us with first time voters in 2024, decisively.
For reference, I’ve put together the highlights of my post-election analysis and recommendations into a single page here on Hopium. What follows is a piece of this analysis, my top 7 takeaways from 2024, something I’ll be updating soon: 1 - It Was A Very Close Election, and We Had Important Wins - Trump won by 1.5 points and failed to reach 50%. 115,000 votes changing in MI, PA, WI and Harris wins. We picked up a seat in the House and were less than 4,000 votes from making Hakeem Jeffries Speaker. We had important downballot wins in AZ, NC, MI, NV, PA, WI. While we have work to do this was a narrow win not a landslide, and our road back is not insurmountable. I go deeper into all this here. 2 - Finding More Voters, Forging A New Majority - The dramatic gains Trump made with Latinos and young people (particularly young men) unraveled the coalition that had gotten us 51% of the vote on average over the last four Presidential elections. We will need to imagine and build a new majority coalition now and need a concerted party wide effort to make gains with voters of all kinds - working class, rural, Latinos, young men, etc. As part of this strategy we need to make partisan voter registration a core responsibility of the Democratic Party at all levels once again and not leave this important work to outside, non-partisan groups. 3 - Getting On The Right Side Of Opportunity/Winning The Big Economic Argument - As I wrote the other day, we need a deep and long conversation about how we can win the big economic argument with MAGA in the coming years. Three consecutive Dem Presidents have left the country far better than we found it. Three consecutive GOP Presidents have been economic and societal wrecking balls. We should not be losing the economic argument to these guys, or losing ground with working class voters given our economic track record. There needs to be urgency about finding a better path here, and it is very possible that Trump’s dangerous economic plans - tariffs, mass deportation, huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans, spending cuts for everyone else - will give us a big opportunity to make our case very soon (sure looks that way!!!). It is time now for Democrats to move beyond our flaccid and failed “prices are too high” narrative and 1) reconnect our economic arguments to opportunity and prosperity for all 2) tear into his reckless and dangerous economic agenda that is already raising prices, threatening our prosperity and betraying the central promises Trump made to working people in his campaign. 4 - Getting Louder/Building A 24/7/365 Politics - This is a familiar topic for Hopium readers, but there is real urgency here too. For background see my post-election posts on the need for us to get louder here, here, here, here and most recently this one on our need to get far smarter in how we strategically contest the right’s information superiority in our campaigns themselves. I am going to be talking a lot about the need to see the millions of people supporting our campaigns as “partners in the fight, not donors to the cause” and help unlock not just the financial or volunteer potential of our family but also its capacity to become information warriors and ferocious, effective amplifiers. As I wrote just after the Election getting louder is a central way we address the dangerous drop off in Democratic voters we’ve seen outside the battleground states in both the 2022 and 2024 elections, something Mike Podhorzer discussed in his recently published analysis. Finally, while we must build out a new pro-democracy media ecosystem, our electeds and Democratic Parties must have urgency, much greater urgency, about raising their comms game, getting louder and contesting the right’s information superiority 24/7/365. House and Senate Dems no longer have the White House or the Presidential campaign to carry the daily load, and are going to have to assume far greater responsibility for mobilizing the current capacities in our family, including the tens of thousands of elected Dems across the US, to aggressive contest MAGA, everyday. An example of how we have to be thinking now - Senate Dems should have launched a national effort with all allied groups to defeat Trump’s most unacceptable nominees - Gabbard, Hegseth, Kennedy, Patel. Thinking this can get done “in the hearings” is old think, dangerous old think. They operate 24/7/365 movement wide and so must we. Millions of people and hundreds of groups are ready to go to work to challenge Trump 2.0. We need to put them to work (note, tragically, this did not happen). 5 - Develop And Advance A New Agenda Of Renewal and Reform - In a recent post I discussed the need for Democrats to develop a broad agenda for renewal and reform, a topic we’ve been discussing here for many months and one central to my February New Republic essay, Biden Must Reinvent What A Presidential Campaign Is. In this period of opposition we must not only oppose, but must also propose. Far too many voters see Washington as broken and corrupt. We have must have an agenda to speak to them, and use it to highlight the unprecedented illiberalism and corruption of MAGA (as above). 6 - While Focusing On Kitchen Table Issues, We Cannot Leave Behind The Harris-Walz Campaign’s Powerful Embrace of Freedom and Patriotism - We can both be focused on improving the lives of everyday Americans and lean hard into the powerful love of country themes the Vice President advanced during her campaign. This is particularly true in the fights for our personal freedoms and rights of all kinds including reproductive freedom. For example - Democratic leaders at all levels should be condemning loudly what NC Republicans are doing right now to overturn an election and disqualify the votes of the good people of the Tar Heel State. 7 - We Need To Talk About All These Corrosive Emails Telling Dems We Are Losing, Not Winning And Whether They Contributed To The Troubling Demobilization We Saw in 2024. Again, Democrats across the country need to be treated as “partners in the fight and not donors to the cause.” When folks ask why are Democratic voters and activists perpetually worried and anxious, it’s because the Party and our campaigns are doing everything they can to scare the crap out of everyone and tell them everything is terrible. We have to find a better way.
Enjoy Tom’s presentation and our discussion afterwards. Tom gives us all a lot to think about, and a lot more to do. As I am traveling and have unreliable access to the Internet today’s Hopium is a little skinnier than usual. Upcoming Events - Our latest schedule can be always be found on Events page on the main Hopium site:
Remember you can find all of my interviews/podcasts on the Hopium site under Podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. New Hopium discussions include:
Hopium is also now posting on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. You can always find me on Bluesky too where I post frequently throughout the day. Now, let’s get to work everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - June 30th Filing Deadline Is Coming Up!
We also have ongoing campaigns to support the new DNC, the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.  Stop The Reconciliation Bill - Job One for us this summer remains fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play in the coming weeks. Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us. Own The Fourth, The Flag And Patriotism - To keep our momentum going after this weekend’s No Kings events I encourage to explore ways of Owning The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly one for our mad wannabe king. We heard from Hopium community member Deborah Potter last week about her work advancing “resolutions of disapproval” in New Mexico. Will have more on that for you in the coming days. Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today. Note that we did get a great court ruling restoring the NIH grants the Bethesda Declaration calls for. Here’s how one medical journal characterized the ruling:
Here’s a possible script to use to fight the reconciliation bill and tariffs. Use whatever works for you:
Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Grow Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. If each current paid subscriber brings in just one new subscriber this summer we will hit our goal. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day and we’ve launched a new referral awards program too. So you can earn months towards a paid subscription by bringing in new subscribers to the Hopium community! Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon You're currently a free subscriber to Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
|
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Dems Need To Get Serious About Partisan Voter Registration - My Conversation With Tom Bonier (And A Presentation T…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Women's health has been ignored for most of history. This venture capitalist says that's changing. View this email in your browse...
-
A cautionary note on a very funny meme ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
-
Splurges for the C-suite … Die Hard holiday marketing … Pizza Hut's Book It! Turns 40 If you've applied to jobs throughout 2024 wit...
No comments:
Post a Comment