Winning In Red States And Red Places - A Conversation With Rita Hart, Iowa Dem Party ChairTrump continues to escalate - Congressional Dems will return to a capital city under siege in September and must be ready to far more directly challenge our descent into authoritarianism
Happy Saturday all. The post you are receiving today was sent out yesterday but only to paid subscribers (not sure how that happened). As there is important info in here about where Hopium will be going in the coming weeks I’m sending it out to everyone today with apologies to our paid subscribers. For our paid subscribers there are links to important stories from the past 24 hours so there is new stuff to chew on, below. As we head into the weekend we’ve got some compelling new interviews if you haven’t gotten to them yet - Gov. Roy Cooper, our best chance to flip a Senate seat blue, talks about his commitment to creating opportunity for the middle class and those aspiring to get there; proud patriot Rep. Jamie Raskin reports in on the battle against authoritarianism; TNR’s Greg Sargent on Trump’s DC escalation and his maniacal drive to build an oppressive police state; TX Dem Chair Kendall Scudder offers his take on the current extraordinary political fight in Texas; our very own Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner share their experience in passing “resolutions of condemnation” and offer guidance for those who want to follow their lead; and my most recent video presentation that speaks very directly to our current moment, As Trump Desperately Spirals and Escalates, We Must Keep Finding A Higher Gear. Lots of tasty fare for your weekend watching, listening and reading pleasure. Today I am excited to share a new interview with Rita Hart, the Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party (above). As Chair Hart explains this could be a cycle of opportunity for us in Iowa as we have strong candidates running for Governor and Senate, Joni Ernst’s very public flame out earlier this year, and 2 competitive House seats, IA-2 and IA-3. Like every other candidate and party leader I’ve talked to of late Chair Hart reports there is an understanding in Iowa Trump is not delivering what he promised, and Democrats on the ground sense opportunity and are fired up. The part of the interview I found most interesting was her discussion of how the terrible Trump tariffs and the big ugly’s cuts to health care are creating hardship in the farm economy. If Democrats are to win in more red states and red places we will need to make gains in more rural parts of the country. Based on what Chair Hart says it’s pretty clear the national party should now commit to a major research projects that looks into whether this broader Trump agenda - tariffs, mass deportations and rural labor shortages, higher energy prices and interest rates, cuts to the ACA and Medicaid, tax cuts for the wealthy and Trump’s banker and tech buddies - are giving us an opportunity to reach rural voters across the US who have been hard for us to reach in recent years. Chair Hart thinks so. If this is a real opportunity - and I think it very well could be - we need to seize it. This interview is part of a new focus here at Hopium on what I call the critical expansion states, states that we need to make competitive outside the seven Presidential battlegrounds or what we currently hold in the Senate. Here’s how I am seeing our emerging map: 2026 Senate Holds - GA, MI, MN, NH 2026 Senate Expansion - AK, IA, ME, NC, NE, OH, TX Presidential Expansion - FL, TX As you can see if we are to meaningful expand we will need to win in red states that we’ve not been winning in recent years - no easy thing. A reminder of the Trump 2024 margins in these states: AK +13, FL +13, IA +13, ME -7, NC +3, NE +20, OH +11, TX +14 Simply our 2026 Senate map is hard, but not impossible. We have top tier candidates now in NC and OH, Maine should be competitive, and we will need to put at leaset one more of these states in play. Will it be Iowa? Could be. For those wondering about the House here’s a link to the DCCC’s initial 35 expansion targets for the 2026 cycle. This target list will change as new maps are being drawn but this is where we are today. Last cycle our electoral work at Hopium focused on expansion and taking stuff away from them. Our investments helped make North Carolina a Presidential battleground state, and gave us our most important down ballot wins in any battleground state; win the “blue dot” in NE-2, our only Presidential battleground win; Ruben Gallego overcome the worst performance by the top of the ticket in a battleground state; and flip 7 Republican held House seats red to blue. The very first politico memo I ever published at Hopium was about the need for us to be relentlessly focused on expansion - growing our coalition, winning in more red states and red places - and working to not just take power away from MAGA but to build a durable governing majority for our pro-democracy movement. While we feel terribly out of power right now our road back to majorities are not as steep as it feels. We only need 3 seats in the House, 4 in the Senate and 3 to gain a majority of the governorships in the US. At the Presidential level Democrats have been the far stronger party since the end of the Cold War:
In this our new “expansion” series you will get to know the field generals leading us into battle this cycle. Meet Iowa Chair Hart in today’s discussion. Be sure to also spend time with TX Dem Chair Kendall Scudder who is leading us into battle in Texas, Anderson Clayton who is once again at the helm in North Carolina, and Ken Martin and Jane Kleeb who are leading the national party into what together we simply must make “a cycle of opportunity.” A few other items of note this morning…… Paul Krugman has a terrific new analysis on how rising energy prices will drive inflation higher and cause the economy to slow, just like mass deportations and tariffs. In his speech Fed Chair Powell sent mixed signals on what comes next and acknowledges the economic turmoil Trump has created. Trump raided the home of one of his and Putin’s most vocal critics, John Bolton. He also fired the highly respected head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who had contradicted Trump’s wild claims about the bombing of Iran. From The Washington Post:
A judge ordered the closure of Alligator Alcatraz.
A large National Guard vehicle ran a red light in DC and crushed a car with a driver inside (who came out OK). Time To Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Our “Must Win/Everyone In” Races
Our updated fundraising goals are now for the end of the year, December 31st, except for the 2025 races, which are now for Election Day, 2025. For more on Hopium’s approach to elections check out 1) our big recommendations to the family coming out of the 2024 elections 2) the many important wins we had together last cycle 3) my latest thinking on where we are and the path forward for the Hopium community.
Our Recommended Actions - We are prioritizing three actions today. You can get our full list of recommended actions here. Let’s get to it: 1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - While it is recess we need to be loud this week, very, very loud. Make the case for our our emerging four part agenda, and demand they 1) Stand with Ukraine and work to block Trump’s selling out of the West to Putin 2) Roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs 3) Block the expansion of ICE and the use of the military on our streets including DC 4) End the war on science, higher education and the public health of the American people, and demand the removal of Bobby Kennedy (aka “the quack) from the leadership of HHS. 2 - Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community - Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Be sure to check out our new discussion with Deborah Potter and Rachel Poliner who have passed resolutions in New Mexico and Boston, and offer advice on get a resolution passed in your own community. Remarkably, members of this community are now advancing 63 (!!!!) resolutions projects in 20 states. Can we get to all 50 states by the fall election? Our newly updated Resolutions Project page includes a new chat for folks to report in on their progress or seek counsel from those interested in launching a resolutions project in their community. This is one way to fight back against Trump’s unprecedented abandonment of our Constitutional order. Congratulations to Hopium community member Sarah Marshall whose resolution, “Town of Amherst Resolution in Support of Democracy and Calling for a Return to the Constitutional Principles that are the Foundation of our Republic,” passed the Amherst, Massachusetts town council Monday night. 3 - Grow Hopium And This Wonderful Community Of Proud, Plucky, Patriots - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 152,000 we are now to 175,000 by Election Day, 2025. 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 and fall we will hit our goal. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day. Use that link to buy gift or group subscriptions, and join our new referral rewards program too. A further note - if you want to up your support of Hopium a powerful way to do it is to buy group or gift subscriptions for others. Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Been impressive to see how many of you remain involved in local, in person protests of all kinds in your communities. Keep it up!!!
Friends, remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope that we will get to the other side of Trumpism. We are doing the work to get us there - Simon Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Hopium Chronicles By Simon Rosenberg, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.
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Saturday, August 23, 2025
Winning In Red States And Red Places - A Conversation With Rita Hart, Iowa Dem Party Chair
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