I am so proud of you.
I can’t believe that it has been almost four years since that awful, awful night when we learned that Trump won and was going to be president.
I remember so vividly the way the whole world shifted. I remember the surreal and awful tint that colored everything. I remember feeling as if the bottom had fallen out. I remember the terror that came no longer knowing my country; no longer knowing my neighbors.
I remember the fear and the panic attacks and the sleepless nights. I remember the endless tears.
And then, when he took office, I remember the anguish that came with realizing that he really was going to be as bad as I feared.
Those early days had hit after hit — crushing disappointment after crushing disappointment.
But even then, there were signs of hope.
At first these were little things — information about groups forming all over the country. People turning out for marches. Huge donations to the ACLU.
I started keeping track of reasons to be hopeful. First in my local Indivisible group and then here on DailyKos.
I chose a picture for the top of our list to be a snowdrop pushing through ice because that is what those early victories felt like. It felt like we were in the dead of winter with freezing cold, awful winds, dark days, and lonely nights. It felt like the hopeful events were those tiny snowdrops, hard to even see amongst the mountains of ice, but decidedly there.
Those snowdrops are the first signs that spring will come; the bringers of hope and life; the most robust and hopeful and rare of flowers. They are tiny and essential reminders that dark days always end.
Those snowdrops started to pop up more and more. We started winning special elections in places where we shouldn’t have been able to compete. And we thought: do we dare hope of taking the House in ‘18? Even in this terribly gerrymandered map? Can we make it happen?
Against all odds, we took over 40 seats and flipped the House. We took governorships in red states. We flipped state level legislatures. We showed that we are a force. We showed that we are the majority. We showed that we are motivated. We showed that we will bring spring.
We’ve had many other victories. We have also had many losses. This has been an awful four years in so many important ways.
But throughout it all, we have kept hope alive. We have been those snowdrops for one another. We have been the tiny flowers in the icy dark leading the way. We have been the promise of better times. We have been hope and life and love. I am so proud of us. I am so proud of you.
And here we are on the doorstep of the most important election of our lifetimes. And we are no longer just snowdrops pushing through hard and mean sheets of ice. We are fields and fields of flowers taking over as winter tries desperately to hold on against the thawing of the earth; fighting against the inevitable return of warmth and light.
We have just a couple more weeks to ensure that our victory is so vast that it cannot be taken for granted. We have just a couple more weeks to keep our eyes on the prize and buckle down.
For the rest of your life, you will remember what you did in these next two weeks. Make it count.
I am so proud of you. I am so grateful for you. I have never loved so many people I don’t know as much as I do now.
So keep working. Do it with the spring in your step that comes from knowing that you are marching towards the promised land. Do it with the determination that comes from confidence in your cause. Do it with the peace that comes from knowing that you are not alone. Do it with the joy that comes from being a part of something amazing.
We were filled with hope when the odds were stacked against us. We persevered. We made it to this moment. You made it to this moment. I am so proud of you.
And in this moment, we see the flowers of hope blossoming everywhere:
Our candidate is worlds better than theirs
I know a lot of people were really mad that NBC was going to give Trump an hour of time opposite Biden. But I was psyched. This meant that Biden could talk without that lunatic interrupting him and trying to trigger his stuttering. It meant that Trump would have to face a town hall — which he is terrible at. And it meant that we could see them side by side without his infectious grossness being in the room with our great candidate.
and it turned out perfectly
5 winners and 3 losers from the dueling Trump-Biden town halls
Dueling town halls between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden created a stark contrast between the two candidates — but probably not the one the president wanted.
Trump may regret that strategy; he faced hard questions from voters and NBC host Savannah Guthrie on issues ranging from wearing masks to electoral fraud to Trump’s refusal to disavow extremist groups, eliciting a series of responses that ranged from blatantly false (claiming masks don’t really work) to the dangerously absurd (suggesting some parts of the QAnon conspiracy theory might actually be true).
Meanwhile, Biden’s town hall was calm, polite, and packed with policy substance. Biden laid out plans for how he would get Covid-19 under control and reorient the economy toward being more equitable for lower-income Americans — two things Trump has not accomplished. For voters yearning for a return to some sense of normalcy, Biden hit all the right notes.
Winners: Joe Biden, Substance, FOMO, Savannah Guthrie, QAnon (ick)
Losers: Donald Trump, The individual mandate (boo), Trump’s purported toughness
overall, pretty darn good list
More people watched Biden on ABC than Trump on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC
Biden's town hall on ABC averaged 13.9 million viewers on Thursday night, easily surpassing the Nielsen ratings for President Trump's town hall on NBC. That alone was a result virtually no one in the TV business expected. And that's not even the most surprising part.
The Trump town hall was simulcast by two of NBC's cable channels, MSNBC and CNBC, but even when those channels are included in the total, Biden -- on only one network -- still prevailed.
The Trump town hall averaged 10.6 million viewers on the NBC broadcast network. On MSNBC, Trump reached 1.74 million viewers, and on CNBC, about 671,000 viewers. So Trump's gross audience across the three channels was 13 million, about one million fewer than Biden's audience on ABC alone.
In fact, Biden’s town hall was the most watched event since the Oscars in February.
Trump’s Campaign Is in Total Collapse, and That Town Hall Proved It
Americans saw two men last night in the closing days of their respective pursuits of the highest office in the land, and their split-screen town halls clarified and catalyzed an understanding of this race in a way that their one debate so far did not.
It was one more sign of a Trump campaign in total collapse; broke, broken, and unmoored.
As Donald Trump was eviscerated by a smart and determined Savannah Guthrie, who put up with exactly zero bullshit from a subject who usually submerges interviewers under a tidal wave of bullshit, while Joe Biden connected with both his audience and interviewer George Stephanopoulos, it became clearer than ever that the choice is between the craziest possible uncle and a steady elder statesman
While Joe Biden looked and sounded compassionate, presidential and completely sane, Trump’s body language made it look like he was about to sprint off the set at any moment. He was wound like a spring. Biden looked ready for a cocktail, loose and happy.
It was one more example of why the Trump campaign’s nine-month effort to portray Joe Biden as senile, weak, and incapable of holding the presidency was such a stupid bet. The Biden on stage tonight was more presidential in 90 minutes than Donald Trump has been in four long years, let alone in his 60 minute flop-sweat bid at counter-programming.
The Enthusiasm is on our side, we see it with donated money
Seeing that our side donates more money is not just good news because money is necessary to win, but because it is a sign that we are FIRED UP
Biden routs Trump in September fundraising, $383M to $248M
President Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee and affiliated joint fundraising committees raised $247.8 million in September, Trump’s campaign announced, leaving him at a significant cash deficit to former Vice President Joe Biden entering the final stretch of the 2020 election.
Biden’s campaign and affiliated committees raised a record $383 million in September, and they had $432 million in reserves at the end of the month, his campaign announced Wednesday.
McGrath breaks fundraising record in Kentucky, collects $36.8 million in one quarter
Democratic nominee Amy McGrath raised twice as much as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from July to September — and spent more than double the incumbent, too.
Sara Gideon raises eye-popping $39.4M in 3 months, widens money lead on Susan Collins
House Speaker Sara Gideon, the challenger to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, raised $39.4 million during the third quarter of 2020, placing her among a group of top-tier Democratic candidates who brought in unprecedented levels of money as Election Day nears.
The entertainment mogul Tyler Perry will help fund a $500,000 Black voter mobilization effort in Florida
Mr. Perry has partnered with Equal Ground Education Fund, a nonpartisan Florida group that works to increase Black voter engagement throughout the state. The effort, “Park & Praise,” which is to be formally announced today, will target 25 counties and 250,000 Black residents including in urban hubs such as Broward County and Miami-Dade County. The “Park & Praise” series will set up events where voters can drop off mail-in ballots while hearing from faith leaders, musical acts and gospel choirs.
Early numbers look great.
Yes, Rs may pipe in and vote more on the day of, but I would MUCH rather be in our position right now than theirs. Votes is votes.
Across the country, Democratic enthusiasm is propelling an enormous wave of early voting
With less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3, roughly 15 million Americans have already voted in the fall election, reflecting an extraordinary level of participation despite barriers erected by the coronavirus pandemic — and setting a trajectory that could result in the majority of voters casting ballots before Election Day for the first time in U.S. history.
So far, much of the early voting appears to be driven by heightened enthusiasm among Democrats. Of the roughly 3.5 million voters who have cast ballots in six states that provide partisan breakdowns, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of data in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Additionally, those who have voted include disproportionate numbers of Black voters and women, according to state data — groups that favor former vice president Joe Biden over President Trump in recent polls.
The picture is so stark that election officials around the country are reporting record early turnout, much of it in person, meaning that more results could be available on election night than previously thought.
How Biden could end 2020 on election night — and why Trump’s path is unlikely
if there is a winner declared on Nov. 3, it will almost certainly be bad news for the president.
While vote counting could be delayed in many states due to a glut of mail ballots, Biden is challenging Trump in several fast-counting, Republican-leaning swing states the president carried four years ago. Election administrators in those states, especially Florida and North Carolina, are confident they should have most of the vote counted on election night.
Meanwhile, the most important states that tipped the Electoral College to Trump in 2016 — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — allow, at best, extremely limited pre-processing of mail ballots. That means it could take days to actually declare a winner in those states.
The result: Several narrow paths to a fast 270 electoral votes for Biden, and basically none for Trump — barring a major surprise in states he lost four years ago.
Even in places where nearly everyone votes by mail, Democrats are already voting more heavily
We’re already seeing evidence of that enthusiasm in early voting, as The Post reported this week. To some extent, that’s a function of the willingness of Democrats to vote early and by mail, something that is polarized this year, given Trump’s repeated excoriations about the dangers of voting by mail. (This is also untrue.)
But it’s also true in places where voters are being encouraged to cast ballots by mail. There are nine states in which such a system is in place this year, as well as D.C., up from five in years past. In those states, including Colorado, California and Nevada, ballots are sent to every voter, meaning there’s little reason to vote early beyond eagerness to vote.
Yet in five of the six states for which detailed data is available — compiled by the United States Elections Project — the number of votes already returned exceeds 10 percent of all of the votes cast in 2016. In Vermont, the number of votes already in is equivalent to more than a third of the 2016 total.
In the four states for which data is available, though, the percentage of returned ballots that are from Democrats generally matches the percentage of the 2016 vote that went to Hillary Clinton. The percent of returned ballots that are from Republicans in each case lags well behind the vote share Trump received.
Early voter turnout in Colorado increases a “bonkers” 2,400% from 2016
More than 300,000 Colorado voters have returned ballots for the Nov. 3 election as of 11:30 Wednesday night — a staggering display of enthusiasm in a state that sends all voters a ballot by mail.
There is a clear enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats in early voting, numbers from the Secretary of State’s Office indicate.
Of the 300,795 people who had voted as of late Wednesday, 46% were registered Democrats, who comprise just 30% of total active, registered voters in Colorado and typically vote later than Republicans.
We have reason to hope because the polls look great
The outlook for House Republicans keeps getting worse
Here’s how grim things look for House Republicans three weeks out from the election: They’re struggling to win back seats even in conservative bastions like Oklahoma and South Carolina, where Democrats staged shocking upsets in 2018.
These states tell us the GOP is in deep trouble
I cannot recall the last time Georgia and South Carolina were both in play for Democrats. A Democratic president last won South Carolina in 1976; the last Democratic senator was elected there in 1998. A Democratic president, Southerner Bill Clinton, last won Georgia in 1992, and its last Democratic senator won a regular election in 1996. President Trump won Georgia by about 5 points in 2016 and South Carolina by about 14 points; this year, he is down 1.2 points in Georgia and leads by only about 7 points in South Carolina, according to FiveThirtyEight.
It is stunning for those who have followed politics over the past few decades to think a Democratic president could win Georgia and three Democrats could be elected to the Senate from two deep-red states. That Georgia is even competitive presents a gobsmacking problem for Trump given that former vice president Joe Biden does not need it to win the presidency, nor does the Democratic Party need any of those three seats to win the Senate majority.
How Joni Ernst went from future Republican star to an incumbent on the ropes in 2020
When Joni Ernst was first elected to the US Senate in 2014, it seemed like she had come to Capitol Hill to stay.
She earned a spot in Senate Republican leadership in her first term and even landed on the vice presidential shortlist in 2016. Many thought she’d be the latest in a long tradition of Sens. Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin, powerful senators who outstripped the size of their state.
But now, less than a month from Election Day 2020, something has clearly shifted. Ernst has trailed Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield by roughly 5 points in recent polls. And Trump is running behind his 2016 numbers, with former Vice President Joe Biden holding a slim advantage in the polls.
Both the presidential and Senate races should be close in Iowa this year. But it is still a stark reversal from 2014 and 2016, a sign of Republicans’ struggles in the Midwest that could doom their Senate majority and Trump in 2020.
Before moving on to the lighter side, check out these inspiring ads
Not a Joe Biden super fan? I get it (well, actually, I don’t, but its ok). Maybe you’ll like this ad better:
On The Lighter Side
Do you want to etch yourself into the book of history by being a part of these last two week?
VOTE and get everyone you know (who votes Blue) to vote.
Donate to Doug Jones! The latest polls have him ahead by 1 point! We could keep this amazing senator!
Volunteer with the Democratic party or Volunteer with the Biden campaign
Get people who have registered to actually vote. You can Get involved with Postcards to voters or send letters to voters with Vote Forward or Volunteer with Beto to turn Texas Blue.
Volunteer with Common Cause’s old school Protect the Vote effort.
donate to fight gerrymandering. You can donate to take the senate. You can donate to VerySmart™ legal teams to track and battle any possible voter suppression efforts across all communities in their states. You can Donate money to the ACLU — they have filed 20 lawsuits and counting to ensure every eligible voter can vote by mail.
Indivisible has phone bank events for all over America. You can drive people to the polls with carpool vote. Voteriders has opportunities to GOTV and help people vote. Chefs For The Polls is bringing food to people waiting in line to vote.
Lots of opportunities out there to be involved in these last days.
We are going to win this together. We will end this long winter.
I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with all of you ❤️ ✊ ❤️