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Richard Vague

Should billionaire investor Richard Vague be included? His candidacy doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but he has received some press coverage:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/2020-democrat-never-heard-richard-vague https://technical.ly/philly/2019/01/15/tech-investor-richard-vague-mulls-a-white-house-bid/ https://www.philly.com/news/democrats-president-richard-vague-philadelphia-investor-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-20190117.html https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/hold-that-champagne-progressives/

If small-timers like Joe Sanberg are included, he should at least be listed as well. It's uncertain if his exploratory committee has ended yet. Strategos' Risk (talk) 00:37, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Bauters and Endorsement Criteria

Howdy, I noticed the John J. Bauters's endorsement was removed from Buttigieg's endorsement list, despite being a local official (former Mayor of Emeryville, which is shoved between Oakland and Berkeley in the greater urban core of the East Bay, and is a current city councilman, so I'm a bit confused why it was removed? Does it not meet criteria? What is the criteria? I might be blind but I can't really find any clear cut-offs for it, and I assumed he fell within the notability range. If it's because it's unclear whether or not it's an endorsement, he later stated that it was. -- Ev0lv000 (talk) 12:37, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

He's not notable enough. No Wikipedia article. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 09:01, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Notability does not apply to article content. Until yesterday, we had numerous "endorsements" from DJs and various self-important tweeters who's opinions matter not. An endorsement from a mayor is certainly more important than some of the others we currently have in the article.- MrX 🖋 11:56, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposed endorsement criteria

The endorsements section is out of control. Editors are adding everything from soup to nuts including tweets from DJs, people who have joined a campaign, and minor candidates claiming that someone has endorsed them. I suggest that we adopt some threshold criteria for inclusion. Here's my proposal:

  1. The endorsement must appear in at least one reliable, published, third-party source (newspaper, news website, magazine, television program).
  2. The source must use some form of the word endorse (endorse, endorsement, endorsing, endorsed) or a clearly synonymous term (support, backing, etc.).
  3. The endorser must be someone not directly involved in the campaign.
  4. Anyone who has held a public office of mayor or greater in the U.S. can be included whether there is a Wikipedia article for them or not (provided that the other criteria are met).

This will make the endorsement section more credibility and encyclopedic. How does this sound to other editors? Did I forget anything?- MrX 🖋 12:18, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I like this proposal. but would make one small change: I would have the second plank read "...some form of the word endorse or a clearly synonymous term (support, backing, etc.)". As long as it's clear that the person is endorsing the candidate, we need not be sticklers for exact wording.---A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 20:58, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree, that's a good clarification.- MrX 🖋 23:27, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
I think that these make sense overall, but I am not sure that I agree with #3. For example, Ro Khanna is a US Representative in addition to being an adviser for the Sanders campaign. I think that his endorsement should still remain in the list, though. Also, if we are trying to make a comprehensive set of criteria, we should also make one regarding endorsements from non-public officials. Thanks. SCC California (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree with the general view that the endorsements sections are excessive, but
disagree with (1), as individual endorsements are often not reported in media reports given how numerous they are,
and also somewhat disagree with (2), though also agree that the current definition of "endorsement" is too wide: I think any expression of support specifically for their candidacy (over that of others) should be considered acceptable (e.g. expressions of support such as speaking on their behalf at a rally or saying that they are backing them, but excluding actions which are not an expression of support, such as hosting events/fundraisers, donating, introducing them at campaign events, saying that it's who they'll be voting for, or otherwise anything that doesn't explicitly reference their support for a candidate).
I also don't agree with (3), as being employed by the campaign is an implied endorsement
For (4), I think any officeholder who meets WP:GNG/WP:NPOL should be included – at the lowest level, mayors of mid-sized cities and state legislators, even those without existing articles, should be redlinked where possible (one such case is Jonathan Judd in Minnesota; there are also maybe one or two such instances in California for Harris).
Mélencron (talk) 01:05, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Good comments. It looks like the discussion may be moot since there is support for removing the endorsements from this article. I will wait a bit longer to see if others weigh in.- MrX 🖋 10:48, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Bullock and de Blasio

Are there more recent sources about those two? All of the ones currently cited (even the one retrieved a few days ago for Bullock) are all from early to mid February. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8000:8EFD:FCD7:F9F4:663E:AE68 (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Qualification table

The discussion that included the qualification table that was to be updated on the talk page had been archived, so I thought I'd add a new discussion here to readd the qualification table.

{ [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 20:06, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

All we need is the top line of that table, showing how many polls (up to 3) these candidates are polling ≥1% in. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:15, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Onetwothreeip. It is ideal for this table to be concise and focused primarily on whether or not candidates meet the threshold for appearing on the debate stage, with as little clutter as possible as to not reduce readability. If possible, we should use a format that wouldn't result in a table so wide that even readers on computers have to scroll or zoom out (this would not be very friendly for mobile readers). Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 19:04, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
This isn't meant to be posted here or in the article – it's my personal sandbox and can't be included because it's pure WP:SYNTH and it is ultimately the DNC that's the ultimate arbiter of who qualifies for the debate. (I manually archived this thread earlier precisely because of that and the expectation that people would believe it would be used in the article, but it ultimately can't/won't be.) Mélencron (talk) 19:09, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Candidates' portraits

Hi, I have a suggestion regarding candidates' portraits. Shouldn't we use more recent photos, as we did in 2016? I think we should do it especially for those who have a not very recent portrait, like Bernie Sanders. What do you think about this one?

  • Proposed photo
    Proposed photo

Thank you. -- Nick.mon (talk) 10:23, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Generally, I agree and the current Bernie photo is 12 years old. In my opinion, we should not use more recent photos that are of poor quality or especially unflattering.- MrX 🖋 10:52, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes of course, we should use not official photos only if they're of good quality. -- Nick.mon (talk) 10:57, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Does anyone disagree with replacing Bernie Sanders' current photo with this one? SCC California (talk) 16:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
While I agree that we should find a newer photo for Sanders, I would not prefer that we use the one proposed. We may need to settle this the way that we decided which photos to use for Clinton, Trump, and Johnson in 2016: having editors reach a consensus from a large list of viable photos. Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 19:16, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Denying disruptive sockpuppet
Even if they weren't a sockpuppet, the admin noticeboard would have still blocked them indefinitely per WP:NOTHERE Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 19:16, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I definitely support having portraits of the candidates. We should ask them which ones they would like us to use. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 18:02, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

First of all, you need to chill with the dogmatic and bolded statements in every section. Secondly, Wikipedia is neutral, so (even putting aside the impossibility of contacting all of the candidates), putting a photo solely because the subject prefers it would not be in line with this policy. SCC California (talk) 16:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Are you still upset after getting bested on that other post? --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 02:23, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Once again, there is no "besting," only debate and consensus-forming. You are welcome to share your reasoning, though. Or should I say:

Are you still upset that nobody is taking you seriously?

I am done engaging with your pettiness here. If you can't discuss content and instead use ad hominems, you should not be on Wikipedia. You will be reported at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. SCC California (talk) 02:48, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I was recently censored. Please do not delete my commentary without my explicit approval. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 02:31, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

  • @Thefreeencyclopediamember:, please note that - per the policy WP:REMOVEUNCIVIL - there are cases where it is acceptable to remove another editor's comments (although in most cases this is not acceptable). On Wikipedia, the course of action is determined by the consensus. The consensus is not determined by the raw number of comments for or against a proposed change (though more often than not the proposal with the most support becomes the consensus). A vote (usually written as !vote, meaning "notvote" as a reminder that Wikipedia is not a vote) is only "counted" if an editor provides rationale, usually based on Wikipedia policy. Comments such as "Are you still upset ..." are unproductive. Any time your comment is directed at the editor themselves rather than what they have to say, that is by definition a personal attack. Beware that treating Wikipedia as a battleground, excessively soapboxing, escalating disputes, repeatedly exhibiting hostile behavior, and lacking interest in collaboration with the community, is a warning sign that a user is not here to build an encyclopedia, which tends to result in an indefinite block. I will not assume bad faith and accuse you of any of the above, but I worry that - if your behavior continues as-is - you could be at risk of sanctions in the future. Please take the comments from other editors into consideration. Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 19:12, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

It was SCC California who said "are you still upset." I wouldn't mind if he were directed to offer me a formal apology! --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 23:19, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

That was in reply to you saying that to SCC California; here's the proof: [1]. David O. Johnson (talk) 23:29, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
Sigh. Thefreeencyclopediamember, you know that you initiated the unproductive mudslinging, and if you have nothing to say about the rest of my comment then I can only suspect that you've not learned anything from it. I fear that you will be at risk of sanctions in the future. Please properly indent your replies and stop bolding everything you type. This is petty and unproductive. I ask again to please behave in a collaborative and collegian manner. Thank you. Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 23:38, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Broken refs caused by splitting of article

@Onetwothreeip: When you split off part of the article to Endorsements in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries with this edit, you created an orphaned citation problem because some citations appearing later in the article (specifically numbers 146, 159, 163 and 219) were referencing back to citations in the endorsement section. Would you mind going back and sorting this out?

In addition, this does seem to be something which is being discussed abive at #Propose removing endorsements and that discussion appears to be ongoing. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:24, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I went ahead and fixed them myself. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:34, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that David. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi Marchjuly, that is not something I know about unfortunately. There appears to be a strong consensus that endorsements should be moved off this article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:09, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
As long as you were aware of the ongoing discussion, then the split won't turn out to be an issue; though, it wasn't clear whether a split into a new article or merging the endorsements into the individual candidate articles was going to end up to be the preferred option. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
I think both should happen, and both certainly can happen. I followed not only what I believed to be consensus, but precedent from the preceding elections as well. Certainly a split was necessary since the endorsements took up more than half the size of the article. I would also like to thank David O. Johnson. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:38, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Denying disruptive sockpuppet
Even if they weren't a sockpuppet, the admin noticeboard would have still blocked them indefinitely per WP:NOTHERE Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 19:16, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
The split should be reversed. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 18:03, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
There was consensus at the time of the split to remove endorsements from the article. If you scroll up, you can read why.- MrX 🖋 11:24, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, I disagree. My opinion ought to be taken very seriously. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 11:45, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Please stop posting everything in bold. Doing so is pretty much the same as posting everything in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and is the equivalent to WP:SHOUTing at someone over the Internet. Your opinion is less likely to be taken seriously by others and more likely to lead to an administrator stepping in to formally warn you to stop if you keep posting the way you do.
Now, if you disagree with the split, then post your reasons why in the above #Propose removing endorsements thread. When you post, try to base your reasoning on relevant policies and guidelines because that's going to be the best way for you to try and convince others to agree with you. Your account is only a month old and pretty much all of your edits have been to this article or this talk page; there's nothing wrong with either of those things per se and the other editors discussing things here are going to be more than willing to assume good faith and be patient with you as long as your contributions are not seen as becoming too disruptive. Their patience, however, is going to eventually run out and being a new editor is not going to prevent one of them from starting a discussion about you at WP:ANI if continue on the same approach to editing that you've been following so far. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:16, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Am I crazy or was there some sort of consensus on here about removing the website links from the "candidates" table? Something about avoiding direct links, which is why the FEC filing links are refs now.

But I can't find that anywhere on the talk page. I might just be an idiot or possibly hallucinated those edits or something.

Point is: I came over to argue in favor of keeping the website links (and direct FEC links for that matter) for the sake of consistency with previous election articles. You can still visit Jim Webb's and Lincoln Chafee's defunct websites on the '16 primary page. Plus, most modern election pages provide links to each candidate's campaign website, just usually at the bottom of the page towards the references. Most modern election pages also don't have a large table for their candidates so I think it makes sense to change their location accordingly. IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 11:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

  • Notwithstanding anything in WP:ELNO which might be interpreted to discourage the website links to the candidates' campaign pages, I think we should have such links in the table. I personally have found such links useful; for example, a few days ago, I wanted to see, for comparison purposes, where the candidates were scheduling events and how many they were scheduling. Since the website links were still in the table at the time, I was able to click through to each of them without having to visit the pages for each campaign and find the website links on each of those pages. I agree with IOnlyKnowFiveWords that the links to the campaign websites should be restored to the table. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 12:25, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree that the website links were useful and informative and I think they should be restored. PaperKooper (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Here's the revision where they were removed: [2]. The links were removed by Marchjuly. David O. Johnson (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I also agree that the website links should be restored. SCC California (talk) 16:41, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
    • I converted the FEC links to WP:INCITEs because they were essentially embedded citations which is a citation style which has been deprecated as explained in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links. They've been further formatted as citations citations by a bot to provide more information about the source and make it easier to handle any problems which might result from link rot.
      I removed the links because they way they are being used does not (at least in my opinion) comply with WP:EL (particularly WP:EL#cite_note-7 and WP:ELLIST). Wikipedia articles are intended to be written in a summary style; so, the primary subject of this article is the democratic primaries themselves, not really the candidates or their campaigns. Of course, there is a connection between the candidates/campaigns and the primaries, and providing some information about the former the article seems fine; the real details about the candidates/campaigns, however, belong in their respective articles, with the external links to the campaigns' official websites belonging in the main infobox and the "External link" sections of their respective articles. Wikilinks in this article can be used when the reader wants to know more about each campaign, and the external links in those campaign articles then can be used when the reader wants to find out even more. Adding them to this article not only seems unnecessarily redundant (and possibly promotional), but also seems like a Wikipedia is trying to provide an online directory for these sites, neither of which is really the purpose of this article. The slight gain in convenience achieved from adding the links is not really a good justification for adding the links per WP:EL. Moreover, some of the websites may become inactive or dead as candidates drop out of the race which means you might have links going nowhere. This article is also being transcluded by the template into the main article about the election which means that any links, files, content, etc. added to it are also going to be added to the main article. While this is not necessarily a bad thing per se, it does mean that any problems showing up in this article are also going to show up in that article (at least until they are fixed). I was WP:BOLD in making the changes because it clearly seem warranted by current policy/guidelines. If the community feels otherwise, then links can easily be re-added; however, I think it probably would be better to discuss this at Talk:2020 United States presidential election or at WP:ELN. A local consensus for this article probably would be fine if only this article was affected, but that's not really the case. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:07, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
      • For what it's worth, this article is receiving so many edits per day that if a candidate drops out and shuts down their website, the editors here are likely to notice and remove the dead link. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:07, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
        • "Moreover, some of the websites may become inactive or dead as candidates drop out of the race which means you might have links going nowhere." So… deal with it then. Don't take away something that is incredibly useful for a current topic just because you enjoy being pedantic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.186.208.139 (talk) 06:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Note that the way these websites are added to pages keeps coming up over and over in discussions regarding external links.

I have always seen these within the context of WP:SOAPBOX/WP:EL/WP:SPAM/WP:UNDUE, with a sauce of (future) maintenance. I understand the importance of campaign websites. The problem often starts when there is an undue focus on the campaign in the way we represent them, sometimes becoming literally (albeit unintended) soapboxing. For most of these type of lists we determine whether a subject is warranted to be in the list (which is here almost by definition covered, there will always be an independent source showing that someone is a candidate for the election). We list the person and relevant data, and as one of the last columns can have a column with external links relevant to the list/subject relationship. I have however seen lists which are just lists of names and affiliations, formatted as an external link to the campaign website (sometimes for the only candidate that has one ..). Regarding the maintenance, as mentioned above, I would strongly suggest to convert the link to a permanent archive link at either the date of withdrawing (last version before the withdrawal - if there is an explanation regarding the withdrawal on the next version of the website then that version is a good primary reference for the withdrawal), or at the date of the election (again, last version before the 'we won/lost' version, if any, &c.). There are many cases out there where the election pages are heavily edited in the time of the election, and afterwards quickly abandoned leaving utterly irrelevant campaign links (either the campaign site goes dead, or it goes on to a next campaign).

Now, regarding the version here ... we have next to each other '(Campaign • Website). Here, all campaigns are in itself deemed notable, and are wikilinked. I cannot see why we need to link to each of the websites while we have a Wikipedia article carrying the link to the campaign website, I don't see why we need to IAR on our policies and guidelines to link to these website on this page. I do not see any argument to say that these are, on this article, incredibly useful, the wikilink to the actual campaign is just there (right next to where the direct link was). The argument to include is a slippery slope - it is also incredibly useful to have the link to the car brand right next to the brand in a Wikipedia list of car brands so you don't have to click through and compare the brands right there (and I can make that argument for tea brands, viagra, house rental companies in Tanzania, whatever - and the global consensus is NOT to list those links like that).

I would strongly suggest that the relevant WikiProject(s) come(s) to a neutral and suitable consensus taking into account our policies and guidelines (i.e. properly advertised RfC) and works that into a 'Manual of Style' to represent candidates. We had a lengthy discussion 6 months ago, coming somewhat like a consensus as what I wrote here, but the articles that the discussion are over are in the dire state that I also describe (linkfarms of dead and irrelevant links). Unless there is a consensus that satisfies both the community and the WikiProject, there will be discussions like this, and they will not come to an end. MarchJuly is correct in his interpretation of the global consensus, and seen the large differences in styles throughout (some just plainly in direct contradiction wit policy and guideline) there is no 'common practice' to do this either - the only common practice is to include campaign websites in random ways. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:09, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Experience column

Who went & put current/previous list of offices in a horizontal form? It was so neat & tidy in its previous vertical form. Why can't folks leave well enough alone? GoodDay (talk) 03:31, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

It looks like User:Curdlash did it here: [3]. I personally agree with you; it looks better when it doesn't spill over. Here's the before [4] and after: [5] for comparison. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
I removed the wikicode that made the columns too wide. David O. Johnson (talk) 19:07, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
My apologies fellas. It appeared to be more visually appealing in horizontal form but obviously that turned out not to be the consensus. Curdlash (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Primary dates

A list of when primaries and caucuses are going to be held (or likely to be held) is more useful than a list which also includes when these elections are scheduled by default but are likely to be moved. That means for the time being we should omit New York being listed as holding a primary election on February 4, as this gives readers the impression that the primary election will be on February 4 when we know from the sources that this is very unlikely. The same applies to any similar cases since we shouldn't want people coming to the wrong conclusion, particularly New York residents. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Declinations-including-those for the time being Dept

Bloomie's is wavering[6]--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:01, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Bloomberg himself hasn't said that he now wants to run; that article only cites anonymous sources who claim to know what he's thinking. Until and unless Bloomberg himself explicitly says something like 'I am retracting my declination' or 'I am running after all' or 'I just formed an exploratory committee and here it is,' I'd vote to leave him in the 'declined' list. Same for anyone else on that list who is rumored to be rethinking his or her declination. AaronCanton (talk) 06:19, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Propose removing endorsements

I propose that we remove the endorsements section entirely, to conform to common practice in these types of article (for example 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012 Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries). As already discussed on this page, maintaining a list here and on individual candidate pages is onerous and fills the article with hundreds of trivial citations. While we could transclude the endorsements from each campaign article, that has its own issues because of the generic titles used in the collapsible box templates. There does not seem to be an upside to including a comprehensive list of endorsements here. Any objections?- MrX 🖋 22:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Agree with transferring endorsements from here to the articles on candidates' respective campaigns. Mélencron (talk) 00:58, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
I would be okay with this too. Once we get further into the primary, we can make a separate article for endorsements [this one]. Leaving them on each of the candidates' respective pages would also allow us to assess the inclusion of certain endorsements on a case-by-case basis instead of having to adopt criteria that will never satisfy everyone. ACbreezy (talk) 01:40, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
I would be okay with this as well, for all the reasons spelled out above. Restricting the endorsement listings to the respective candidates pages (and maybe a separate article) as suggested should more than suffice.---A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 03:38, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I support endorsements being listed. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Thefreeencyclopediamember, since this isn't a vote, can you articulate a policy based reason, or refute the reasons I gave for not including such a list?- MrX 🖋 00:36, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
  • It seems sensible to exclude lengthy lists of endorsements from this article. Endorsements can go on the articles on individual campaigns, or in a separate list article. That said, I think that if there are major endorsements in the future that attract significant media coverage — from, for example, former presidents, or major newspapers, or the AFL-CIO — than I would be OK including these in the article in narrative form (rather than list form). Neutralitytalk 02:42, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
I think we can consider including a few major endorsements as you mention, but they should be presented in prose, not a bullet list.- MrX 🖋 12:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree. Neutralitytalk 16:15, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
Agree to remove endorsements: they are better suited to individual campaign articles. — JFG talk 11:21, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Tim Ryan

News just broke that he is expected to announce. Can he be added to the expected announcements section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8000:8EFD:4597:6740:1132:66AE (talk) 01:55, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Source: https://fox8.com/2019/04/03/report-ohio-rep-tim-ryan-to-announce-presidential-campaign/amp/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1003:B866:95F5:F940:A56E:634:1DBD (talk) 02:07, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

He's there now. — JFG talk 11:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Mike Gravel

The Gravel exploratory committee entry in the main table was deleted because someone said it looked like a prank, however, Gravel has now confirmed that he is exploring a run. https://twitter.com/MikeGravel/status/1108213980483502083 Should it be restored? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronCanton (talk • contribs) 04:38, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Just threw something together for Gravel b/c he confirmed his run, it's really messy so hopefully someone more experienced can clean it up but it's a start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vvertuccio (talk • contribs) 05:11, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't Gravel's home state be California, not Alaska? That's what his Twitter bio has listed. https://twitter.com/MikeGravel Bonnibel2282 (talk) 05:29, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

In this tweet, Politico journalist Zach Montellaro claims to have spoken on the phone with Gravel, who confirmed that the committee was formed by "a group of students," who are travelling to California to meet with him and convince him to run. He says he's considering it and will decide after their meeting but that they need to "persuade [his] wife." IOnlyKnowFiveWords (talk) 06:19, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, Gravel's exploratory committee wasn't started by him, but rather by a group of high school students (apparently) with his knowledge. Relevant tweets by a Politico reporter reproduced below in full.

I just got off the phone with Sen. @MikeGravel (I'm not joking). "It is a group of students ... who have the idea I should run. ... They're working on that, they're going to be coming out here to California to meet with me."

— https://twitter.com/ZachMontellaro/status/1108221771210280960

He said he'll decide after he meets with the students on if he'll run, but "they need to persuade my wife." I asked him if he knew about the exploratory committee: "They asked me if it was okay, I said they could do what they wanted, as long as they were doing it and not me!"

— https://twitter.com/ZachMontellaro/status/1108222221288423425
Since the exploratory committee wasn't started by him, I've listed him under "Individuals who have publicly expressed interest" first. Wpeneditor (talk) 06:29, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
See the section below. We can't use tweets like that. Zach needs to publish it on Politico where it will be subject to editorial oversight and backed by the reputation of the publisher- MrX 🖋 11:01, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
It seems to me that Gravel is like one of the minor candidates except that he was actually elected to something back in the day. He barely got in the four digits in '08, total. It's sort of like Harold Stassen or Eugene McCarthy, who were very major candidates the first time or two, and wound up being jokes that had to sue to get into the debates. Sad, really. Arglebargle79 (talk) 12:22, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I was going to say, why did someone remove my addition of Mike Gravel? I cited the FEC filing... ANájeraWolcott (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I think he should be included. He's signed off on the FEC filing and has held public office. Is the FEC filing not a sufficient source to show that he's running? Brachytrachelopan (talk) 15:05, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I support inclusion. I mean he has an FEC form filled out, an acknowledgement from a credible reporter, it has been confirmed by Rolling Stone that it is in fact Gravel behind those tweets. At most we should include him into publicly expressed interest. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 15:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

The only problem is that Gravel doesn’t appear to have any direct involvement in the Twitter account, the website or the exploratory committee. (I oppose inclusion of Gravel for what should be obvious reasons – he's not behind it and hasn't been convinced to run; it's the kids' choice to use the words "exploratory committee", not his.) Mélencron (talk) 15:56, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Gravel is apparently not taking this "committee" seriously, and he clarified that it was not his own initiative. In addition, he has not received any significant media coverage. Wait and see. I would add him to the list of "other notable persons" below the main candidates table. — JFG talk 16:51, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
I think "expressed interest" would be more applicable in this case, per the addendum by Montellaro on Twitter. Mélencron (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I support JFG's suggestion (including him in the small list below the table). He fits the description of "individuals [that] have filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the Democratic Party primary" but has less media coverage than even Messam. I don't think that the expressed interest section makes sense for him because an exploratory committee was filed with the FEC. SCC California (talk) 17:26, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Oppose per Mélencron. The article literally states he wasn't involved in the exploratory committee as has been directly quoted above. He says he's meeting with these kids about it so "expressed interest" seems appropriate, but it's a stretch at best and just outright wrong at worst to call him a candidate. Therequiembellishere (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Move Gravel to "expressed interest" section for now- per that Rolling Stone article, he hasn't yet decided whether to run, but is considering it. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 19:32, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
There's now a piece in Politico delving more into this – it sounds like while Gravel remains uninvolved in the filing of an exploratory committee, it has his blessing and the teens want to persuade him to go further: The organizers, who initially pitched Gravel on the run with a policy memo, are flying out to California in April to convince him to to go from an exploratory committee to a full-on run. (“They need to persuade my wife,” Gravel said.) They have been in constant contact with Gravel over the last day. It's not apparent that Gravel has objected to this, but it's also important to note that Gravel is not doing the tweeting here and the statements from the account shouldn't be taken as if they were (i.e., it's also incorrect to state that "Gravel filed an exploratory committee", "Gravel declared X", etc.) Mélencron (talk) 20:09, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I boldly moved Gravel to publicly expressed interest, with a supporting quote in the ref. David O. Johnson (talk) 23:30, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep Gravel in "Expressed interest" until we have a declarative statement from the man himself that he intends to run, or at least takes over the exploratory committee himself.---A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 20:04, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Seconding A. Randomdude0000 SCC California (talk) 21:34, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Second: simply since Gravel isn’t involved in the exploratory committee personally. Wpeneditor (talk) 02:17, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Denying disruptive sockpuppet
Even if they weren't a sockpuppet, the admin noticeboard would have still blocked them indefinitely per WP:NOTHERE Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 19:16, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I insist Gravel remain in the declared section --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 02:05, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

What's your reasoning? David O. Johnson (talk) 02:27, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that's my business. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 02:50, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Um, I don't think I should have to explain this, but that's not how consensus works. You can't simply "insist" something with no reasoning and expect to followed. SCC California (talk) 04:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Gravel should move to major declared candidate He already has more followers on twitter with Wayne Messum and is being covered by major media outlets like Washington Post, NBC, Fox, Politoco. He has also filed with the FEC. Additionally he has held a senate position and has already run for presidency before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.84.230.7 (talk) 16:28, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

These are all valid points, and I think that in most cases they would be enough to warrant moving Gravel to the declared candidates section. My (and others') issue, though, is that he has said he wasn't behind this exploratory committee. SCC California (talk) 17:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Not his Twitter, not his filing, no campaign. Not a candidate. Therequiembellishere (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes! Looks like @SCC California has been bested. --Thefreeencyclopediamember (talk) 17:06, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

There is no "besting" going on here, and I am one of many editors who has agreed with the consensus to keep him in the expressed interest section for now. (Actually, if you scroll up, you will see that that wasn't my original viewpoint, but I changed it based on the reasoning of others.) Notice how at least 135.84.230.7 used logic when disagreeing with us. The kind of arrogance you are displaying has no place on Wikipedia. SCC California (talk) 17:42, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Weak support of inclusion. I'm ambivalent to whether Gravel should be in the major candidates or the expressed interest section, but I think that the fact he has an official exploratory committee should be acknowledged in the article beyond just a mention in the timeline section. Every other candidate (except Williamson) was added to the section entitled "Declared candidates and exploratory committees" and the timeline chart immediately after forming such a committee. None of the other candidates directly said "I'm running for President" when they formed exploratory committee so I don't see why Gravel should be treated differently. I mean, it's quite likely that Warren didn't personally file her FEC paperwork and Gravel similarly gave his approval for the filing. It's also significant that an exploratory committee is not a guarantee that a candidate will run for president (i.e. Even Bayh in 2008). The options I think would be reasonable include:

  1. Restoring the exploratory committee candidates to its own separate section
  2. Including Gravel in the main candidates section
  3. Including Gravel in an appropriately-named new section, perhaps "expressed interest with an official exploratory committee" or "subject of a draft campaign with an official exploratory committee"

Finally, I think that Gravel should be included in the timeline chart because other candidates were included as soon as they formed a committee and because if he actually runs we would mark him as having had an exploratory committee from that date. PaperKooper (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

You make many good points, PaperKooper, but the fact remains that Gravel acknowledges that he didn't initiate or personally file the exploratory committee. He also expresses uncertainty as to whether or not he will actually run. This is in contrast to Elizabeth Warren and others who personally announced the launch of their exploratory committee and affirmed that an official candidacy was highly probable, if not certain, to follow. To categorize someone as "declared" whose most affirmative statement thus far has been something to the effect of "Don't know if I'm going to run or not. Wasn't planning to, but I'll think about it" just seems to be misleading at best.---A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 20:20, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Gravel has given consent for the exploratory committee to be formed. It's understood he is actually considering whether or not to progress that exploratory committee into a full presidential campaign (which is supposedly the purpose of such a committee), and for now he is in the same position that people like Warren and Gillibrand were in, and that Wayne Messum is now in. Reliable sources are taking this candidacy seriously now, even if he has no chance of winning like many of these candidates don't. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:42, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

There seems to be some misinformation about who technically forms the exploratory committee and the relevance of that to who we consider to be a candidate. Gravel was involved in forming the exploratory committee, his consent is required for it, and this is about as much as any candidate involves themselves with the official forming of such a committee. Further, it's never been a requirement that a person must be adequately enthused about standing for election, and there is no reason to make a distinction for Gravel now. It's clearly an eccentric candidacy but it's an exploratory committee nonetheless. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:04, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Reliable sources are taking this candidacy seriously now. I would like to see evidence of that because I certainly haven't seen any. Therequiembellishere (talk) 05:02, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
All these sources think he could seriously be a candidate. Whether they think he can win the nomination is something entirely different, but that's never been something we consider when presenting the primary candidates. [7] [8] [9][10]. As said before, he has formed an exploratory committee (it's not as if this can happen without his approval), and is reported to be considering a full campaign, so this puts him where others have been. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:25, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

This piece much more clearly appears to indicate that Gravel's now in on the idea, more so than a couple weeks ago:

Gravel told BuzzFeed News that he was less than enthused when Oks and Williams initially pitched him on launching another campaign two weeks ago.

He came around to the idea after the two wrote him a memo about pushing the party further left on domestic and foreign policy, assessed the current field of candidates, and laid out that the current policy outlook of the Democratic Party is closer to what Gravel proposed decades ago.

Just have to wait and see how this pans out, but I think it's still worth noting that Gravel himself wasn't behind the exploratory committee. Mélencron (talk) 19:18, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

According to his twitter he's planning on announcing April 8th https://twitter.com/MikeGravel/status/1112880263879589889 Are Jay Morrison (talk) 01:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I have restored Gravel to "exploratory committee" stage. No source states that Gravel has announced his candidacy; an FEC filing is not enough, nor is a tweet by his supporters. — JFG talk 11:31, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
I don't know how many times it has to be pointed out that that Twitter is run by a group of high school students. Therequiembellishere (talk) 13:42, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

What should be in the timeline

California's early voting starts the same day as Iowa caucuses. I have tried several times to put this little fact in the timeline, but someone has been taking it off. I can't understand why. This fact has been widely disseminated in the press and is really important. Let's discuss why: More people may actually vote in California on this day than participate in the Iowa caucuses. The reason I only put in California is that I cannot find when any other state's early voting starts. California is far more important than Iowa, as the winner of Iowa usually loses. When we find out when early voting starts in Texas we should have it too. After all, the campaign could be over the day after Super Tuesday. Whoever banks the most votes before election day will win the primary.

So let's add when early voting starts in South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states. Starting with California, because we know when it happens.

We should also list the forums and "cattle calls." These are major events, unlike single candidate town halls. The Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:59, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Could you provide a diff or a link to a version with your edit? It seems like a good idea, but it would be helpful to see it in situ. - MrX 🖋 10:57, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
here 'tis: [11]Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:09, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
There is a table for forums, so I assume that satisfies your the need?- MrX 🖋 11:05, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
No it doesn't, and I'll tell you why; The current format is only temporary. Soon, when the first debate happens, in a little less than two months, a new article will be rebuilt (I tried to have a stub last December, but it was killed, "too soon" but it wasn't.) and the timeline will still be in he article. Better to do it NOW than to do it again in two months time. Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:03, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
I don't think that early voting dates in any state should be mentioned. Results won't come out until the official election day anyway, so there will be nothing to learn from it for our readers. Besides, Wikipedia is not an event calendar. — JFG talk 13:33, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
I think JFG has a point, but I'm open to being convinced that early voting dates should go on the timeline. Why is it important to our readers?- MrX 🖋 19:41, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

McAuliffe (and Biden)

Looks like he is running by the end of the month.

https://demlist.com/demdaily-pitching-middle-america-the-contenders/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by SEC California (talk • contribs) 19:05, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I would disagree. The source states he is "expected to announce" by the end of the month. Candidates have stated that before, then nothing is announced at the time. David O. Johnson (talk) 19:36, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Fair --SEC California (talk) 19:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that the distinction that should be made comes from the word "by." If someone says that they will make an announcement on date xyz, they should go into the formal announcement section, but if they simply say that they will announce by some date, they should stay in publicly expressed interest. SCC California (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

In addition, I'd like to point out that this is the same source which is used to predict that Biden would run. I reached out to the author of the article (Kimberly Scott) to ask for her source with the following email at 12:39 PM Eastern: "Howdy Mrs. Scott, I read today's DemDaily and it said that Biden was expected to announce of April 22nd, but I can't find any other source making that claim. What is the source for that? Thanks, [My name]" She responded at 15:24 Eastern: "[My name], Thank you for following! That would be the inside scoop you get by reading DemList :) We will see if I am right. Have a good weekend! Kim" She seems to be confident, but her article is the only source I could find. Cookieo131 (talk) 20:45, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

An an official leak to an official newsletter. Demlist is pretty much spammed to anyone who counts in the Democratic party and it's a head's up to everyone who isn't on Biden's personal mailing list. they haven't been wrong yet.Arglebargle79 (talk) 23:13, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Problem is we can't use a primary source to verify the information. We need at least one reliable secondary source for that.--A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 12:14, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Town halls listed?

Are town halls going to be listed in the article? Fox News is holding at least two, with Bernie Sanders and Howard Schultz, respectively. [12]. David O. Johnson (talk) 21:51, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think any individual town hall is relevant to the overall primary, and there's so many that if we added them all it could cause clutter. It would make more sense to add them to the respective candidates' campaign pages. E.g., for the Bernie town hall on Fox, that could be listed on the 'Bernie Sanders 2020 Presidential Campaign' page, in a section labeled 'town halls' or something. AaronCanton (talk) 06:19, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
Not really relevant here; keep them in articles on individual campaigns. — JFG talk 11:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Aaron and JFG -- town halls might be appropriate to mention in the articles on individual campaigns, but not in this article. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:31, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
It actually depends on the circumstances. Multicandidate "town halls" are in fact "forums" and are listed in the article. Except for the one which was held at SXSW for some reason. Multi-candidate "cattle calls" should be listed too. We should have separate articles for candidates, the timeline, and debates/forums, as the last is going to start real soon and with 17 to 20+ candidates either in or about to join the race, it's getting too cluttered. We also need to bring back that preliminary "debate chart" which with a little tweaking, would be useful for an illustrated list of the candidates, like it was done the last two times, but I digress...Arglebargle79 (talk) 11:30, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Yes, multi-candidate town halls would be very useful. We could include them in the 'Forums' table and rename that section to 'Forums and town halls'. I agree that individual town halls should go in the individual campaign articles.- MrX 🖋 18:51, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Michael Bennet

...hasn't announced, and doesn't belong on the list; it's not what the story says, either. He's planning to run; he hasn't said publicly that he is currently a candidate. Mélencron (talk) 17:20, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

It's fixed now. David O. Johnson (talk) 18:14, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

number of delegates in order to win the nomination

wasn't the number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot 1,885 what happened,now it is in the 1,900s. Can someone explain why was this done?Alhanuty (talk) 00:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

No idea. I have requested sourcing. — JFG talk 08:30, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Info has now been sourced. Thanks. — JFG talk 17:33, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Campaign finance

The current campaign finance tables may need to be simplified. We have one set of columns labeled "Campaign committee (as of March 31)" and another labeled "Committee, latest quarter (Q1 2019)". Is there a difference between the "campaign committee" and the "committee"? And March 31 is the end of Q1 2019. I am guessing that one of these sets of columns is supposed to reflect amounts raised and spent in the most recent quarter, and another set is supposed to reflect amounts raised and spent from the start of the candidate's campaign until the most recent filing date -- which, for some of these candidates, is going to be the exact same amount since many of them began their campaigns in the 1st quarter of 2019. But the column headings don't clearly explain that. In fact, looking at Julian Castro and John Delaney's data, it appears that one of them has their amounts switched around.

I think it might be better just to show in this article the amounts for the entire campaign to the most recent filing date for all candidates. Quarter-by-quarter financial data can be shown in the articles on the individual campaigns. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Delaney's row is correct. As for your other point, you're probably right in that the data can just be grabbed from the form 3Ps for the entirety of some candidates' campaigns, and looking at the 2016 article, only the sum was reported. Mélencron (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, the revised version is definitely clearer. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 22:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
No problem, the quarterly numbers were essentially redundant anyway. Side note: is anyone aware of any single-candidate PACs/IEs backing any of the candidates in the race? Only Inslee has one (Act Now on Climate), correct? Mélencron (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Mike Gravel State

Gravel currently resides in California.[13][14] Although he was a Senator from Alaska, should the table be changed to reflect what state he is currently from? Curdlash (talk) 1:37, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. --SEC California (talk) 04:15, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
It's done. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:51, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
But I thought the states reflect their campaign headquarters locations? —Wei4Green | 唯绿远大 (talk) 04:23, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
Pretty sure that it was established that that was not the case with Ojeda, whose was based in DC but obviously has more ties to West Virginia. Mélencron (talk) 04:38, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Mélencron; the state should be the state where the candidate maintains their residence, which is not necessarily where their campaign headquarters is located. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
And I forgot to mention that Kamala Harris's main campaign headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland. (She has a secondary headquarters in California.) Given that she continues to represent California in the U.S. Senate, it would be misleading to treat her campaign headquarters state as her home state. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:03, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Sanberg removal

Hi, someone removed Joe Sanberg in this edit here: [15]. Can someone else revert it? I can't do it for a few hours, or else it falls under WP:1RR. Thanks! David O. Johnson (talk) 22:05, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Joseph Sanberg

I think that we should delete Joseph Sanberg off of the "Individuals who have publicly expressed interest" section. Let's be real, would a real encyclopedia include him? Obviously, no. He would probably not even get one tenth of one percent in any contest. We should only include non-public officials in this section if they have polled at 1%. Quvuq0737 (talk) 01:15, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

If someone has declared public interest and is notable, they're included. It's as simple as that. David O. Johnson (talk) 07:31, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm declaring public interest. Does this mean you will include me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.186.208.139 (talk) 04:41, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
If you were notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8000:8EFD:81B2:C9FC:36B1:8BC8 (talk) 18:36, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
I am actually going to have to disagree with you here. We consider Arth, Braun, Nwadike, and Bruan notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, but their involvement in politics is not very notable and their press coverage is too small, so they aren't included in the main table. At the moment, though this may change, Sanberg is notable enough to warrant an article, but he seems to fit closer into the category of Arth, etc., than even Williamson. Thoughts? SCC California (talk) 21:42, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Well, if Arth and the others had "publicly expressed interest", would we include them on the article? Of course not. We didn't. We added them when they announced their candidacy. We should do the same with Sanberg. Quvuq0737 (talk) 00:45, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Quvuq0737 that Sanberg should be treated the same as Arth, Braun, et al. I also back the idea that only candidates that are public officials and/or have polled 1% or greater should be listed in the "expressed interest" section. That seems to be in line with WP:WEIGHT.---A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 15:52, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
Seems reasonable, but those guys have actually filed with the FEC right? Should Sandberg be placed anywhere until he does? I'd say no, but... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8000:8EFD:4597:6740:1132:66AE (talk) 01:58, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree with all of this as well. Sanberg may be notable in general, but he's not notable for being involved in politics. I'd support removing him from the 'expressed interest' list, and if he does actually announce or file with the FEC, we can add him to the 'other candidates' list along with Arth, etc. AaronCanton (talk) 06:24, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Keep – He is notable and he has clearly expressed interest in running for office, as reported by secondary reliable sources. No reason to exclude him. That's more than Stacy Abrams whose apparent interest is only fueled by what other people than herself have said. — JFG talk 11:18, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
I'd like to add that the source does not confirm he had "publicly expressed interest", only that he had neither confirmed nor denied that he was running for president. Stacy Abrams has also said that she was "seriously thinking about it" on live TV. Quvuq0737 (talk) 00:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I would also support the removal of Sanberg to the status of Arth and Braun. Notability is a subjective concept so he may be notable for some and not for others. Until there is more media attention to him (compared with that of Arth, Braun, etc) he should be in that category.TP69 19:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
Also just going to chip in as the editor who originally added him: while he's essentially unknown to the vast majority of the population/probably the vast majority of Democrats, he's a serious quantity who has some previous involvement in CA/now IA Democratic politics; a quick Google News search pops up a decent number of mentions this year, which isn't something that can be said for any of the others listed below the main table (who are just individuals who've filed with the FEC, happen to have a Wikipedia article, and have done nothing else – what distinguishes Williamson/Yang are their active fundraising and on-the-ground campaign efforts in Iowa/New Hampshire; they're the only minor candidates to have actually done so.) Mélencron (talk) 01:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Michael Bennet

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/michael-bennets-cancer-diagnosis-wont-deter-2020-campaign/586666/ Michael Bennet has already said publicly that he is running. Thoughts? Quvuq0737 (talk) 17:48, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

It looks like he's not quite sure yet. According to The Hill ( https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/439729-michael-bennet-declared-cancer-free-paving-way-for-possible-2020-run ), now that he's just had his surgery, he wants to wait 7-10 days to make sure his recuperation is on track before he decides whether or not to run. I don't think we should add him to the main table until he does make an official declaration or files paperwork with the FEC.AaronCanton (talk) 01:19, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

FEC candidates

Currently the article appropriately mentions the total number of FEC filed candidates (232 as of April 21) for the Democratic Party presidential primaries. Today I however stumbled into these 2 problems, which I propose that we solve this way (but I am of course open to other suggestions about how to solve them):

  1. FEC has not cleaned up its list of FEC filed candidates for identical individuals having registered multiple times. My own check of the list found that 6 persons had registered as presidential candidates for the Democtratic primaries twice. To solve this I propose we (like Ballotpedia has attempted to do) then correct the number down from 232 to 226, and add a small hidden note after the figure explaining the figure has been lowered by 6 due to evidence of 6 candidates having registered twice (Varnado, Smalley, Nwadike, Jones, Hawthorne and Hardwick).
  2. The number of FEC filed candidates unfortunately also depends on which FEC search engine is applied. According to the FEC register instruction video there might be uptil 10 days delay between a candidates filing of FEC Form 2 (statement of candidacy) and FEC Form 1 (campaign organization statement). However, I have not managed to figure out why the registered candidate figure is different when using these 3 different FEC search engines (and therefore have no idea which of the below listed search engine source links would be best to use):
    1. FEC candidate search engine (which we use right now): 232 candidates (corrected to 226)
    2. FEC presidential candidate search engine: 230 candidates (corrected to 224)
    3. FEC's Form 2 filing search engine: 192 candidates (corrected to 188, due to Jones+Hawthorne+Hardwick+Farris listed twice). UPDATE: This 3rd source can not be used for reporting the latest data - as it (in opposite of what the above 2 sources managed to do) still has failed to list Warren and Williamson as presidential candidates! I suspect this search engine fails automatically to list all those candidates who did not use the electronic filing system to file a new/amended statement (as this applies for both Warren+Williamson). These two missing candidates instead opted to post their statements to FEC by a fysical letter, which FEC ultimately scanned - but with its search engine then subsequently facing difficulties to handle it (NB: A disclaiming note about this problem has now also been added at the top of the FEC search engine website).

I will appreciate your input and help, so that we can find the best way to solve the above 2 problems. Danish Expert (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

You bring up a valid point. I'm concerned, however, that correcting the number sounds a lot like original research. Perhaps the best solution is to not be specific about the exact number of candidates, but still acknowledge that there are many of other candidates registers with the FEC and leave it at that. --Vrivasfl (talk) 16:14, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree that correcting the number would be Original Research, and thus not allowed. I also agree that a good solution would be to just be vague about the number of additional candidates. We could just say something like "In addition to the candidates listed above, hundreds of other individuals have filed with the Federal Election Commission..." etc. AaronCanton (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Agreed that vague wording about the number (e.g. "hundreds of...") of candidates would suffice and avoid the OR problem.---A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 20:22, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the respons. As per your replies, I have now reformulated the line in the article to "Beside the 20 major candidates listed above, more than 200 additional candidates have filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the Democratic Party primary."
Another benefit to this more vague approach, is that we no longer need to update the figure on a daily basis. It would be nice if FEC could provide more precise candidate data in the future (cleaning away the first filings of those who registered multiple times).
But we should not get our hopes up high, as FEC for the 2016 democratic presidential primaries utilized the same 3 candidate search engine sources being linked to above. For those who are curious about the historical comparison, the 2016 race resulted in a total of:
Danish Expert (talk) 23:09, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Splitting the "declared candidates" title into "major candidates" and "other candidates"?

Today my edit to make a split of the overall chapter title "Declared candidates" into the two subtitles "Major candidates" and "Other candidates" (without making any other change besides of the title change to the featured content or its presentational layout) was reverted by @David O. Johnson:.

To say it short, the previous talkpage debate 1 and debate 2 were primarily focused about how much detail about the "other candidates" should be included (and whether they were important enough also to have their own table created). My proposal to make the title split is certainly not intended for the purpose of expanding the uploaded material for the "other candidates" chapter in any way or form (as I prefer it shall remain as short as today).

Reason for my push to make the title split, is mainly to ensure that we have better article structure with more subchapters (which make it faster for readers to navigate and find the content they search), and as a secondary argument to keep presenting some title formulations and article structure which was presented and regarded as appropriate in the last seasons candidate article: 2016 Democratic Party presidential candidates. Please let me know if you support/oppose my proposed title change. Danish Expert (talk) 15:34, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't see any value in adding a subtitle for candidates who have not received any significant coverage by reliable sources. — JFG talk 16:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
The value of the new added subchapter titles, is that they actually will make the "other candidates" info less important, as this material now is "skipped away" from being attached to the above more important "major candidates" chapter info. By doing it this way, it will also be possible for us in the near future to slightly expand with some extra important lines featuring statistical info about the major candidates beneath the major candidates table (i.e. mentioning which of them didnt meet the bar of participating in minimum 5 national polls, how many didnt meet the bar of participating in DNC debates, and how many didnt participate in any forums, etc). Splitting the less important material about "other candidates" away from the first main "major candidates" chapter (by giving its own little subchapter below), actually makes the "other candidates" material less important compared to now. ;-) Danish Expert (talk) 16:57, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm leery of this idea. I think any effort for us to deem some candidates as 'major' and others as not would be Original Research, and thus forbidden. AaronCanton (talk) 21:23, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

What happened to the "Announcement Expected" section?

What happened to the helpful "Announcement Expected" section? Stacy Abrams, Eric Holder, and Terry McAuliffe have all said they'd decide by the end of March (which is Sunday), and Mike Gravel (who has been put back into the chart as having an exploratory committee) has said he'll make an announcement on April 8th. 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:6C25:6ADB:DA59:B5A9 (talk) 00:21, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

It was removed. Gravel has his announcement listed here: [16]. I can see why it was removed, personally; it just seems like an inexact marker, since prospective candidates say they'll decide by xyz month, then no announcement comes. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:49, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
Right. Those "expected announcements" are too crystalline to be worth mentioning. — JFG talk 04:55, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I find them useful. Some candidates are as good as their word, and should not be judged by the others. Also, failure to fulfil one's announcement is in itself a statement. 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:ADBB:8326:11B0:66D2 (talk) 01:07, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Now that the "Individuals who have scheduled a formal announcement" section has reappeared, should n't Mike Gravel's April 8th announcement be included? 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:FC10:DACD:D9C1:D2EA (talk) 05:07, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Gravel is listed here: [17]. Swallwell has neither an exploratory committee nor has he declared, so he goes in his own section (for now). David O. Johnson (talk) 06:11, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

People with scheduled formal announcements should be listed in the section as well as in their own box (if applicable) so ALL announcements are in ONE place, a spot people know they can look at for the information. Butigieg has a scheduled announcement which should be there, not just in his own box. 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:10A5:BF6B:F3FF:2C7A (talk) 01:21, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

It would be misleading to keep a separate section, even if they have formal announcements. There's a distinction between only having a formal announcement (like Swallwell) and having an announcement but having already formed a committee (like Buttigieg). The distinctions are there for a reason. David O. Johnson (talk) 01:40, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I do not understand your comment above. 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:85CE:108E:E4EE:559A (talk) 01:42, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with those users above opposed to this. Repeating what I said several months ago when it was last removed - this is an entirely unnecessary level of detail and also wp:crystal (reporting on things that aren't definitely happening) and wp:or (deciding who's given a "clear answer" and who hasn't). These are not filing deadlines, just arbitrary dates plucked out of the air that candidates can, and do, ignore. We shouldn't insert these as if they carry the same weight as an announcement date or date of a withdrawal when often it's just the candidate saying "I hope I'll let you know by the end of the month". And what happens when a "deadline" comes and goes? You mentioned Joe Biden and said that he hasn't given a clear answer as to when he'll decide by – except he has. He said by the end of January. That's come and gone, so should we list him as "Overdue"?
Giving vague answers and setting arbitrary decision deadlines is what politicians do to keep themselves in the news and Wikipedia shouldn't list these dates. Take John Hickenlooper. He's gone from saying I'll decide this summer (2018), to I'm running, oh wait no I've not decided yet, to I'll decide by January 8, to I'll be another few weeks, to I'll decide in February or March, to I'll decide in March. This level of news coverage and detail belongs in a newspaper, which reports the day-to-day minutiae of campaigns, not Wikipedia - see wp:notnews. By all means touch on this in the candidate's presidential campaign article, if and when one is created, but it shouldn't be listed here. Dcfc1988 (talk) 22:54, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
I support keeping the current article structure as it is, and agree with the comments posted by David O Johnson. So I oppose the proposal from 2604 to create a new extra "Announcement Expected" section in which we list those candidates having announced a target day for when they expect to make a decision whether or not to run for president (as this would over emphasice the importance of these announced "target dates for expected decision").
However, I also oppose the viewpoint from JFG+DCFC1988 that we should completely refrain from listing "decision expected by dates" in small parenthesis behind the names of those candidates who earlier have indicated an interest to run for president and set a target date for when they will decide. First of all it does not conflict with the wp:notnews and wp:crystal policies, and info about these target dates for "expected decision" provide informative material for the readers, as this info indicate that no final decision is likely to happen before the "expected decision date" - and if no decision is made on the announced "target date for decision" then we can at least still expect the candidate to provide us with new clarifying info on that day, explaining why they postponed their decision (i.e. Abrams admitting she wanted 1 extra month dedicated to only promote her new book, and Bennet being hit by prostate cancer causing his postponement, while Sanberg apparently had no explanation why he postponed to after the first DNC debate on July 4 - leading many of us then to think he most likely no longer is a serious candidate and only postponing his decision for the purpose of extending the period where he gain extra spotlight from claiming to still be seriously considering running for president).
To say it short, I support we keep the article sections as they currently are: (1) "Declared candidates", (2) "Potential candidates with a scheduled date for announcing their candidacy", (3) "Potential candidates with exploratory committees", (4) "Potential candidates having expressed within the last 6 months that they consider a decision to run - with/without a target date for the expected decision",and (5) "Declined candidates". Danish Expert (talk) 00:32, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Fundraising criteria as debate quallifier

We need a source to explain how the verification process will be performed by ActBlue and NGP VAN on the candidates fundraising data towards meeting the fundraising criteria for debate qualification. I could not find such source, but encourage all of us to still search for this (because I suspect eventually DNC/ActBlue/NGP-VAN/Others will publish something we can use as a verifiable source).

So far my own WP:OR (based upon looking at an ActBlue 2020 presidential fundraising template) managed to deduct and assume the verification process will comprise the following work on the pile of individual raw data submitted by candidates:

  1. Multiplication check: Duplicate/multiple contributions by the same person will be deleted (so that each person can only be counted as 1 donor).
  2. Citizenship check: Contributions by those individual persons who are not a U.S. citizen or lawfully admitted permanent resident (i.e., green card holder) will be deleted.
  3. Payment name must be identicial with name of individual donor: Contributions by Individual persons shall (in order to count as one towards meeting the criteria) be checked to have been made by the use of the donors own personal credit card and not with a corporate/business credit card or a card issued to another person.
  4. Federal contractor check: Individual contributions stemming from persons whos name (or an owned companies name) is also registered as a "federal contractor", will also be deleted (so that they are not counted towards meeting the criteria).
  5. Age check: Individual contributions from persons with an age below 18 years on the payment day (or June 13, 2019) will also be deleted and not count towards meeting the criteria.
  6. Residentship adress check: Evaluation of wether a candidate also meet the subcriteria for meeting the threshold of "at least 200 unique donors per state in at least 20 states" also requires verification of the legal residentship address being checked and verified for each individual donor, in order to determine in which state they have legal residentship.

While the candidates self-reported fundraising raw data posted at twitter or a campaign website, might indicate they have met the "fundraising criteria for debate qualification" (i.e. Gabbard claimed support of 65,000 donors on April 11), this is far from certain to also be true after the verifying company has cleaned up the data. So these unverified figures are not allowed to be added to the Wikipedia article. We need to await the DNC publication (expected on June 13) before all verified donor data then can be added.

If you want to follow the progress for each candidates "raw data" towards meeting the criteria of min. 65000 individual donors, you can either check my list below or the 538 source. The following 2 candidates also included an hourly updated donor counter at their campaign website, which at the time of my post had reached: 24659 for Mike Gravel and 57225 for Marianne Williamson (Williamson is forecast to qualify on May 17 and Gravel on Aug.1, as both candidates recently scored 400 new donors/day).

Another fun preliminary observation, is how much each donor paid in average:

Finally we can extract the following observations from the above data (as of April 26):

  • 9 Candidates had met the fundraising criteria: Biden, Buttigieg, Gabbard, Harris, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, Sanders, Warren, Yang.
  • 1 Candidate did not report how many donors he had got support from, but was regarded as highly likely to have met the fundraising criteria, as he had raised more than $5 million indvididual donations (which when subjected to a statistical calculation would imply that he also by a 99% certainty was supported by more than 65,000 donors): Booker.
  • 5 candidates did not report how many donors they had got support from, but were regarded as unlikely yet to have met the fundraising criteria, as they had raised less than $3 million indvididual donations: Delaney, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, Inslee and Messam.
  • 3 candidates did report how many donors they got, but so far fell short of 65,000: Castro, Gravel and Williamson.
  • 3 candidates could not yet be evaluated on their fundraising progress due to only starting their campaign in April and having opted not yet to share their fundraising data: Moulton, Ryan and Swalwell.

Danish Expert (talk) 07:00, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@SecretName101: I oppose that you today added the "qualification table" into the article. This data is preliminary (expected to change on a daily basis until we reach June 13) and unverified (meaning your source did not verify donor data but only asked the campaigns for unverified data, and also applied certain method assumptions regarding how to interpretate if approved polls were above 1.0% - as they opted just to look at "published figures" rather than "raw data from polls" or "adjusted raw data from polls").
It is a quality of the NYT source, that it contacted all campaigns and asked for their unverified donor numbers: Sanders (563,359), Buttigieg (158,568), Harris (138,000), Warren (134,902), Yang (101,352), Biden (96,926), O'Rourke (>65,000), Klobuchar (>65,000), Gabbard (>65,000), Gillibrand (<65,000), Delaney (<65,000), Inslee (<65,000), Ryan (<65,000), Swalwell (<65,000), Moulton (<65,000), Castro (56,476), Williamson (51,300), Booker (no data), Hickenlooper (no data), Messam (no data), Gravel (no data). However some campaigns provided their donor numbers as of March 31, while others (i.e. Sanders, Biden and Castro) gave figures as of April 26. So from a scientific standpoint, these figures can not be compared or ranked in a table (this would as minimum requirer adding a parenthesis with a date behind each figure).
If the article feature your table with YES/NO data for whether the candidates met respectively the "polling criteria" and "donor criteria", it is probably a direct violation of wp:notnews and wp:crystal. I fully support adding the table as soon as DNC publish the final verified data on June 13. Until then, I oppose inclusion of this table. As I first want to hear if other editors agree with me or not, I have opted as a temporary solution not to remove the table, restraining myself as step 1 only to reformulate the text and structure around it. Danish Expert (talk) 23:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

De Blasio will announce May 6-10

De Blasio is expected to announce next week. I made the edit under formal announcement section but it was reverted. Feel free to undo. It will be the week of 6-10 May. Here is the supporting article 129.246.254.12 (talk) 18:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Candidates in the section "scheduled announcement" are only listed here when they are reported by sources to have made up their final decision (with a scheduled date/period for their announcement). According to his campaign spokesman, De Blasio have not yet decided anything - except that he will communicate a final decision when he reaches one in May (as he publicly stated yesterday). Therefore I tend to agree with the other editor, having removed De Blasio from the "announcement section" back to the "decision pending section". Danish Expert (talk) 20:45, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

number of Democratic pledged delegates

The first sentence of this article reads "The 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and caucuses will be a series of electoral contests organized by the Democratic Party to select 3,768 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention and determine the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in the 2020 U.S. presidential election."

Since states that hold later primaries get bonus amounts of delegates, and states that hold their primary in a regional cluster get an additional bonus, NY, which has not yet definitely scheduled its primary date, could gain 25% more delegates if it chooses the right date in April to go along with other regional states. Since NY is only one of a number of states that have not yet fixed their primary date, how can we know yet for sure how many pledged delegates there will be, or how many will be needed to win the nomination on the first round? 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:ED03:F49F:52B1:69B9 (talk) 02:22, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

"and has an active campaign website"

For the notable but non-major candidates, we have the following information provided:

Among the other candidates, notable ones include:
  • Michael E. Arth, artist, builder, architectural and urban designer, and political scientist. Arth filed his candidacy on September 4, 2018,[1] and has an active campaign website.[2]
  • Harry Braun, renewable energy consultant and researcher. Braun filed his candidacy on December 5, 2017,[3] and has an active campaign website.[4]
  • Ken Nwadike Jr., documentary filmmaker, motivational speaker, and peace activist. Nwadike filed his candidacy on October 18, 2017,[5] and has an active campaign website.[6]
  • Robby Wells, former college football coach. Wells filed his candidacy on May 17, 2018[7] and has an active campaign website.[8]

Why do we repeat "and has an active campaign website" for each of these candidates? If a candidate didn't have an active campaign website, we probably wouldn't list them in this article at all. If that needs to be mentioned, it would be preferable to say, "Among the other candidates, notable ones who have active campaign websites include ...." And why do we link the minor candidates' campaign websites on this page, when there has come to be a consensus not to link the major candidates' campaign websites on this page? If people want to find links to the minor candidates' campaign websites, the place to look should be in the articles about the individual candidates. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:09, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree that this is unnecessary. SCC California (talk) 23:30, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Agree the paragraph feature a bit of redundant wording and wont oppose a shortened version of the text. This could be done either at the introduction line before the bullet points (writing: "notable ones who are still active") or by merging the two last lines in each bulletpoint just to say "X filed his active candidacy on X/X/201X". I oppose removing the reference to the other candidates website, as this at the moment is still the best most recent proof (verifiable source) of the declared other candidates still running an active campaign, and for these other notable candidates to deserve being mentioned, they need both to have FEC filed and still be active. Danish Expert (talk) 05:40, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
I have a problem with that -- namely, that Arth's, Braun's, and Wells's websites don't really indicate that they are still running an active campaign. I mean, their sites are still available and not replaced with HTTP 404 notices, but they don't have any "events" or "news" section on their sites that would help prove that the site has been updated in 2019. (Admittedly, some of the major candidates don't have "events" or "news" sections on their websites, either.) So I'm skeptical of the idea of linking to their websites as proof that their campaigns are still active -- to me, it's mostly proof that they paid their domain hosting fees in advance. The campaigns may indeed be active, but the websites don't clearly prove that. (Nwadike's site does list events that are to take place in the future, so this problem doesn't apply to him.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Metropolitan90: Indeed it is difficult to asses how hard and actively the "other candidates" campaign. However, as long as they on their campaign websites still have activated the possibility for visitors to pay them an online financial campaign donation, this in my book is sufficient to proof they still have an active campaign. When we know the primary ballot lists for each state (around October 2019), I will BTW support, that the criteria for "other candidates" to be mentioned in the article shall be changed, so that we eventually only mention the names of "other candidates" with wikipedia notability- who also decided to participate on minimum 1 ballot list. Danish Expert (talk) 11:47, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Statement of Candidacy by Michael E. Arth" (PDF). docquery.fec.gov. September 4, 2018.
  2. ^ "Michael E. Arth for President". Michael E. Arth for President campaign. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
  3. ^ "Statement of Candidacy by Harry William Braun III" (PDF). docquery.fec.gov. December 5, 2017.
  4. ^ "Harry Braun for President". Harry Braun for President Committee 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
  5. ^ "Statement of Candidacy by Kenneth E. Nwadike Jr" (PDF). docquery.fec.gov. October 18, 2017.
  6. ^ "About Ken E. Nwadike, Jr". Kenny 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
  7. ^ "Statement of Candidacy by Robert Carr Wells Jr" (PDF). docquery.fec.gov. May 17, 2018.
  8. ^ "Robby Wells for President". 2020 Robby Wells for President. Retrieved April 27, 2019.

Deleting expressed interest category

De Blasio and Abrams unlikely to run, an no one knows who Joe Sandberg is. I say knock that section out. The field is largely settled, especially with Bullock's announcement on the horizon. SAC California (talk) 02:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)‎

I would argue against removing the category. Saying the field is settled is WP:CRYSTAL, anyways. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Sanberg is not a major candidate, whilst a potential candidate who says she will make a decision in September cannot be taken seriously, when qualification for the June debates will be decided in the early part of that month. The expressed interest section should be deleted either when de Blasio states his intentions (unless someone else comes along in the next few weeks) or at the end of the month, whichever comes first . Off course, anyone can still enter the race at a late stage, including those who have publicly declared their intention not to run. --Mrodowicz (talk) 05:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
keep - This section is relevant and should be kept until: (A) Its empty from notable potential candidates with a decision still pending, or (B) The date of the first primary primary in Iowa (Feb.3, 2020). New potential candidates might arise, even after the first DNC debate. Danish Expert (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
"Remove"
Keep. There's no requirement that a candidate enter the race in time for the June debates. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:12, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Keep but it absolutely should be removed by October, because thats when ballot deadlines start coming around. Also, I'd say we put in a source time limit on the potentials, just like we did in the speculated section, just so that list remains fresh. Maybe say, two months before another source is required.
Keep, but hear this. De Blasio has scheduled an announcement, which leaves Abrams and Joseph Sandberg. Once Abrams comes to a descision, are we seriously going to have that entire section dedicated to Sandberg? Quvuq0737 (talk) 04:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Keep though if it came down to only Sanberg (or other minor candidates), I would suggest deleting it. It should also be noted that this discussion was started by SAC California, a confirmed sockpuppet of AndInFirstPlace, a pervasive WP:UNCIVIL editor and sockpuppeteer who seems to be now be using variations of my username, so I am not sure of the sincerity of the suggestion. SCC California (talk) 18:21, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I've been meaning to bring this up for a little while – on this and the endorsement articles, there are widespread MOS:SPECIFICLINK issues (as well as overlinking in general of U.S. states) where states and cities are repeatedly being linked separately when they shouldn't be – this is mostly one user's doing (and I've merely been following it for consistency), but these link issues should seriously be addressed and fixed. If others agree to it, I can do a quick run through this and related articles to target specific links where possible. Mélencron (talk) 15:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree.- MrX 🖋 20:06, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Agree, I also prefer this issue to be fixed. But its not an urgent matter, so feel free to take your time fixing this section by section, at times when you feel most of the other to do work has been done. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 20:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Timeline loses data

The timeline uses separate colors for "Active campaign" and "Exploratory committee". That is great, except that the info is getting destroyed as soon as a candidate withdraws. When that happens, the "Withdrawn candidate" color gets used. This is clearly wrong; the coloration implies that the candidate was withdrawn for the entire length of their campaign and is no longer withdrawn.

So far this only affects Ojeda. The data loss could get far worse as time goes by.

A correct rendition of that chart is in the page history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries&oldid=888458129

97.104.70.92 (talk) 05:53, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

But that version has the candidate's bar continue going after dropping out, which seems pointless. Perhaps rather than changing the candidate's color entirely, a marker should be placed showing where they dropped out and have the bar end there? Here's a little mock-up, but frankly I'm unfamiliar with how to really edit these charts: https://imgur.com/a/q5pna0s Thoughts? Cookieo131 (talk) 19:33, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
I agree that a candidate's time bar should stop at the point where they drop out of the race. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:25, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Cookieo131 and Metropolitan90. From a scientific point of view, it is incorrect to display the lightblue color for the entire period from a withdrawn candidates campaign launch and up until today. The dark blue color for active candidates is therefor more correct to maintain as such to illustrate the historic time period in which the withdrawn candidate was still active. Best solution is simply that the dark blue color stops ticking forward on the very day the candidate has withdrawn (without any color change). If an additional markup is needed to highlight which of the candidates have withdrawn, I support we use the red mark proposed by Cookieo131, or as another alternative that we simply just color all withdrawn candidate names (only the letters of the name, and not the time bar code) to be presented as red text instead of the current dark blue text (which we then only use for the still active candidates). Danish Expert (talk) 21:48, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Ojeda Timeline

his whole timeline should not just be one color. In fact, if his timeline must stop at the moment he drops, that withdrawn color shouldn't even be there since Ojeda isn't continuing with the rest of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CB:8000:8EFD:790B:CCC4:3319:A7C6 (talk) 14:15, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It's been customary on these timelines to de-emphasize the color of withdrawn candidates. Current setup is fine. When another candidate gives up, their strong blue bar will become a light blue bar. To be discussed whether we'd leave the yellow part of the bar as is or make it a lighter shade as well. — JFG talk 15:03, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

removal

deleted some superfluous content. please keep it off this page. --130.132.173.57 (talk) 01:07, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Why is that superfluous? It's a section that is featured on pretty much any election page. It seems pretty sensible to include a section about potential candidates. I'm going to add it back to the article until you can provide a valid reason for this removal.--ACbreezy (talk) 01:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Nah, basically no one left in that section is gonna run. I am gonna revert your edit. --130.132.173.57 (talk) 02:08, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
@130.132.173.57 See the Deleting expressed interest category section above with an overwhelming keep consensus and feel free to add your opinion there. SCC California (talk) 05:47, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Debate Qualifiers

Could the primary debate section be expanded to note who has qualified for the first debate?

A search only produced results for articles from mid-March. Ballotopedia has a chart on who has qualified: [18]

AusJeb (talk) 17:53, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

As discussed previously, such a table constitutes WP:SYNTH, which is why it was previously removed (see also #Qualification table), and it is impossible for us to actually verify campaign's claims to have qualified based on fundraising. I've also been keeping track of this in a sandbox. Mélencron (talk) 17:59, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
@AusJeb: Yes, a table like the one on ballotpedia would be useful. It's not WP:SYNTH to use information taken directly from a reliable source. - MrX 🖋 18:48, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
The Ballotpedia table is WP:OR; we won't know who is officially in the debates until the DNC announces. Besides, the donor threshold is subject to verification. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:05, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
A table in a reliable source cannot be WP:OR. By definition, only Wikipedia editors can engage in WP:OR. - MrX 🖋 20:21, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
Ballotpedia would fall under WP:UGC, no? In addition to that, my point re: fundraising stands – it's not something we're able to verify. Mélencron (talk) 20:31, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
I don't think so. "Ballotpedia's articles are 100 percent written by our professional staff of more than 50 writers and researchers." The site used to be an open wiki, but is no longer.- MrX 🖋 21:46, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Use of the 538 source?

538 created a table of all the major candidates and whether or not they have qualified for the debates. It's a reliable source, it's not original research, and it's not something Wikipedia editors synthesized from multiple other sources, so I propose we could use it. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/who-might-make-the-democratic-debate-stage/ AaronCanton (talk) 21:34, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
oppose using the 538 source, because it would violate the WP:CRYSTALBALL policy. In a couple of months we will however have a perfect usable source, when DNC will publish the official and final list of qualified candidates for the first debate in June (most likely listing more than 20 candidates to have met either one of the two qualification criteria - followed by data how this list has been further cooked down to 20). Until June 12, the list of qualified debaters for the first debate is subject to change pending future developments. Therefore the Wikipedia article must await how the final list of qualified debaters has turned out to be on June 12, before it reports this info. Danish Expert (talk) 21:24, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
I disagree that this is a 'crystal ball' scenario. Rather, the DNC published the rules for how a candidate qualifies for the debate, and the secondary source 538 wrote up a table listing which candidates have satisfied which rule. No unverifiable predictions or crystal balls are required. AaronCanton (talk) 21:35, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
@AaronCanton: Quality of the 538 source is OK, as long as all its underlying method assumptions and explaining text is included (see below for two of them):
  • 538 assumes that the DNC contribution criteria "verified data for unique contributions shall meet both the threshold of 65,000 unique donors AND at least 200 unique donors per state in at least 20 states", can be simplified and assumed to have been fully met if just "an unverified claim is posted by the candidate to have received contributions from min. 65,000 unique donors").
  • 538 also admits DNC did not publish sufficient method info in regards of how to calculate and interpretate poling results (ie. 538 do not know how exactly to correct poling percentage for candidates participating in previous polls, if some of the polled candidates - like Biden as an example - subsequently decided not to run).
I understand the 538 source is updated more or less on a daily basis until June 12, so that we in theory could use it as a "current source" to display data "as of today" (ie. the number of candidates having pre-qualified by at least one criteria grew according to 538 from 12 on March 24 - to 15 on April 16, if Biden is included). Yet the 538 source still admit its qualification data table only has considered potential qualification data for the 17 candidates having met its pre-selection criteria for being "major candidates" and has not considered potential qualification by some of the other 202 non-major candidates (which the source due to resource restraints has chosen not to collect unverified data for).
To say it short, using the 538 sources will come with so many shortfalls, that attempts to make it fit all Wikipedia policies will be difficult and not worth the effort. Danish Expert (talk) 23:33, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
No shortfalls at all. As far as polling is concerned, none of the other 202 "candidates" are in any of the required polls, so so whether or not some have tried to qualify on the other method is irrelevant. All the candidates 538 says have qualified HAVE qualified. If for some reason, the DNC says that a major candidate with good poll numbers (say 5% and up) should be excluded, there will be hell to pay and the DNC will be trashed by the media—as happened the last couple of times. Therefore we should list those who have qualified, as Wikipedia is supposed to provide as much information as possible on the topic in the article. Our readership wants to know these things so we should provide it. Plus we need separate candidates and debate articles. Its long past time. Arglebargle79 (talk) 11:45, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
Did you read all the footnotes of the 538 source? This source can only be regarded as a "qualification forecast". Its many underlying assumptions (above I only mentioned a few), mean that no final qualification info can be extracted. Even whether or not candidates have met the polling criteria (in the eyes of DNC), is not something we can conclude with certainty just from the work reported by 538. The problem is, that DNC still as of April 12, did not publish any sufficiently detailed verifiable method for how it exactly in all details will conduct its qualification criteria calculations.
Therefore its still completely uncertain how DNC will: (1) Handle rounding of the raw polling data (i.e. whether meeting the 1.0% threshold in a poll will be satisfied if the raw data for the candidate display a support percentage at 0.6% - which pollsters tend to round up to 1%), (2) Adjust and recalculate raw poling results percentage wise - in order to remove the "polluting names" who got polled but later decided not to run (i.e. DNC might or might not choose to conduct such polling adjustments).
If the wikipedia article at some point theoretically decides to use the 538 source, all these unknown assumptions and uncertainties needs to be reflected. And if so, the published info results in burdening the majority of readers by more than it helps. In example we need to make it clear, that candidates might still not have qualified for the first debate even if they claim (through the published 538 sources) to have met both criteria 1 and criteria 2, because we might (despite the risk for this is probably low) end up with a situation where more than 20 candidates meet both criteria by June 12 - and we still don't know how exactly DNC then will calculate its tiebreaking methodology beyond from that point. Therefore I still oppose using the 538 source. Danish Expert (talk) 14:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
according to the media, there are ALREADY over 20 candidates out there. The rules were announced long ago. The "rounding up" problem is not going to happen unless three or four more candidates enter the race. 1% is 1%. The published numbers must suffice. If Marianne Williamson or Tulsi Gabbard, for example, are excluded even though they qualify via method two, then they'll scream bloody murder. We know this because this happens every cycle and the excluded candidates always do. Besides, when the official list comes out and it's substantially different from the one on 538 and Ballotpedia, we can always change it. (do y'all realize how many edits we do per day on this article? It's huge!) The readership wants to know who has qualified and who hasn't. Wikipedia should be inclusive. Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:04, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia policies forbid us to upload unverifiable original research. This also applies for the situation should we choose to source it by the Ballotpedia and 538 source. IF DNC had published some criteria calculation rules that were 100% specific with all details explained in full, then using the 538 source could be allowed to a certain degree (if followed by a disclaimer note of only delivering some unofficial and preliminary qualification data based on the source's logic simple observations that no one can possibly question whether or not being correct - with the final confirmation pending the DNC published qualification announcement on June 13).
As a minimum DNC first need to clarify the below unanswered questions, before we can even start to consider to include the "tracking observations" published by 538:
  1. How do you check if the candidate reached min.1% in a given poll?
    Will you i.e. before you conduct the check adjust all percentage calculation scores by the scientifically well recognized "adjustment method", meaning that those polls having opted to report their results whith a percantage also dedicated to the category "undecided vote percentage" all first needs to be adjusted (by applying the assumption this undecided percentage of those being polled, after additional consideration probably would have reached the same intended voting decisions as the group of the already decided individuals). To rephrase the question in a more simple way: Do candidates need to reach min.1% intended vote support among those who have made up their mind in a surveyed poll (meaning a candidate being polled to have scored 0.8% by a poll in which the remaining 20% were reported to be "undecided", would then have its score technically adjusted upwards to actually be: 0,8%*1,25 adjustment factor =1.0%), or do the candidate need to reach min.1% among everybody being polled (after a special percentage has also been dedicated to show the percantage of the undecided)?
  2. What is the deadline for candidates to submit their verified data about unique financial contributors? Will it also be "2 weeks before the debate", or perhaps just 1 day before the debate? Or because it also needs to be verified by third party companies, does this perhaps mean the candidate deadline to submit financial contribution data for criteria verification needs to be submitted to these third party companies 1 month before the debate (in order to make it possible for them to conduct all their verification work in ample time)?
  3. Finally we also need you to clarify how the "tiebreaking rule" will be operated?
    1. The first tiebreak rule is sufficiently clear (preference to candidates meeting both the polling criteria and contribution criteria).
    2. The Second tiebreak rule "the highest polling average" however needs to be clarified:
(A) Was it supposed to say "the highest polling average among all candidates only having met the polling criteria and not the financial contribution criteria" OR "the highest polling average among all candidates only having met 1 of the 2 criteria"?
(B) As for how to calculate the polling average, we again need to know if polls with a category percentage for "undecided voters" first will have their results adjusted before being put into the calculated "polling support average", AND if it still applies that maximum 1 poll from the same pollster in each "approved region" can be considered as part of the calculated polling average - how do you then choose which one to input (do you i.e. choose the "latest one" or "the one with the highest percentage" or "do you simply calculate the average of multiple polls by the same pollster in each region before it enters as 1 regional pollster average value as 1 input for the subsequent polling average calculation)?
3. As for the Third tiebreak rule "The most unique donors", this also needs to be clarified. Was it supposed to mean: "The most unique donors among those who only met the polling qualification criteria and got polled to have equal support after rounding up their support percentage to the nearest undevided percentage point?"Or was it supposed to mean: "The most unique donors among those who only met 1 of the 2 qualification criteria - without preference given to those who met the polling criteria?" AND does it mean, that the subcriteria "min.200 contributions per state in each of a minimum of 20 states" is supposedly still also required to be met in order to pre-qualify for potential qualification via the third tiebreak rule?
For as long as all those above questions remain unanswered, we are all really left with uncertainty (and being forced to make unverifiable asumptions about it). Therefore we can not publish preliminary qualification results in the wikipedia article (despite being sourced by the 538 source).
Looking at all available data, I think the likelihood for min.20 candidates qualifying one way or another to the first debate, is as high as 99.9%. The 20 qualified candidates will by a 99% likelihood also all exclusively be found among those 23-24 names we have listed as major candidates in the Wikipedia article. So all this fuss, is really only about, which of the remaining 3-4 major candidates wont make the qualifying cut for the first debate. Although it for sure has my attention, it is really not of any major importance to have this question answered ASAP. So I think its perfectly fine and preferable if the article now awaits the DNC announcemet about who has qualified on June 13, before we report further info about this question. Danish Expert (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Compromise

Today I reluctantly uploaded this compromise line, in order to include the preliminary findings of the 538 source to our wikipedia article, that 50% of you have been pushing so strongly for.

A mention of specific names on who has qualified as of today, would be a clear violation of Wikipedia policies, as neither 538 nor any other source can know this for sure, until DNC provide us with additional info.

The compromise I have written goes straight to the borders of what the policies can allow, but I guess could perhaps be argued not to be a direct violation (due to how careful it has been formulated). Personally I would have prefered not to write anything about the 538 source, and instead stayed silent about this matter until June 13. But I can also understand the strong desire expressed from 50% of you in this debate, that this tracking info about how far candidates have come to meet the criteria for participation in the first debate, also is of great interest for our readers of the article to follow. Danish Expert (talk) 11:45, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mélencron: Today you removed my added and very needed disclaimer line, highlighting the existing uncertainty about the accuracy of all those published newspaper articles attempting to conduct a "DNC debate criteria check". The disclaimer line was a part of my proposed compromise in this debate (see above), as I argued any candidate debate quallifier info should be followed by this disclaimer line, and if this line was absent, there should really be no preliminary data added to the article about which candidates as of today appear to have qualified for the first debate.
DNC, at no time communicated "May 15" to be the fundraising deadline. Your provided source did not in anyway contradict what I wrote in my disclaimer line, and no other sources can be found to support that DNC has communicated a May 15 deadline to apply for the fundraising criteria. As per the result of my own google search, Yang at first set May 15 as his own private target date for reaching the 65,000 threshold, which resulted in Gravel+Williamson shortly thereafter making statements to the media and their twitter followers, that they needed to comply with this fundraising criteria by May 15. Williamson however in the past 4 weeks, suddenly stopped tweeting about "May 15" being the deadline. Most likely it never was a deadline. Nobody knows when the exact fundraising deadline will be, as DNC so far has stayed completely silent on this! If you keep believing otherwise, I challenge you to find a source that can verify your claim.
As for the existing "criteria check uncertainty" mentioned by my disclaimer liner, relating to how the "1% polling check" will be carried out, DNC so far also stayed completely silent on this. Politico+538 has several times asked for clarifications about certain issues (your source only list a couple of them), and DNC never provided any clarifications yet. Whether or not DNC will look at "printed polling results", or perform adjusted calculations on raw data from published polls - before they conduct their 1% threshold check, is still an open question. 538+NYT obviously assumes, that DNC will just look at "printed polling results" without performing any sorts of adjusted calculations on raw data from published polls. But this is something we can not know, because nobody actually knows! DNC has not decided if the 1% support threshold needs to be:
(A) Among all democratic-leaning decided poll responders, choosing their support between only actively running candidates.
(B) Among all democratic-leaning decided poll responders, choosing their support between a list of potential and actively running candidates.
(C) Among all democratic-leaning poll responders, choosing their support between only actively running candidates (in which the "undecided" will also have a percentage printed that takes away a fraction of the support percentages from the candidates).
(D) Among all democratic-leaning poll responders, choosing their support between a list of potential and actively running candidates (in which the "undecided" will also have a percentage printed that takes away a fraction of the support percentages from the candidates).
(E) And as your May 1 Politico source highlights, it is also unclear if polls conducted only as an "open" candidate support question (abstaining from mentioning a list of all available actively running major candidates to choose from), also will qualify as good enough polls towards meeting the polling criteria.
Uncertainy issues about how DNC will conduct their criteria check, both on the fundraising criteria (in regards of when they set the deadline) and the polling criteria (in regards of how they will conduct their "1% threshold check), remain unanswered and are so huge, that we need to feature my short disclaimer line about it. This is why, I will insist this line shall be kept. Danish Expert (talk) 21:11, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
You're missing the point: your additions aren't substantiated by the sources you're using, so don't add them unless you can identify a source that does. (In any case, I don't think I or other editors are interested in constant walls of text and micro-bumping of the talk page for non-serious issues, so... please do stop bumping this talk page with edits that aren't discussion-related – you can keep the donation statistics/stipulations on a sandbox page, for example.) Mélencron (talk) 21:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
@Mélencron: You're missing my point. WP:CK allow for "logical truisms" to be posted without adding a source for such reported observations (which no one can dispute the correctness of). My disclaimer line (see below) was only based on neutral observations directly deduced from the main DNC source:
  • The DNC so far did not provide any details about: (1) when the deadline is for candidates to reach the fundraising criteria, and (2) how they will check if polls met the 1% threshold. DNC serve as the ultimate arbiter to decide how the criteria checking procedure shall be operated in all details.
I am perfectly OK to remove the "example parenthesis" (which seem to be the main point you really objected against), and if you insist we can also add your Politico source for the above point 2 along with the DNC source for the remaining WP:CK part. I see no valid argument for a complete removal of the needed disclaimer line. On the contrary, even your Politico source admits the Raison d'être for my disclaimer line, as they have admitted that the unclarified DNC method uncertainties could result in two more candidates having met the polling criteria as of May 1. Danish Expert (talk) 22:49, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Just re-instated my above disclaimer line, as no one objected to the above May 6 argument. FYI, a new Intelligenzer source has now also been added, which verify by an explicit comment exactly what I based on WP:CK deduced from the primary DNC source: "No deadline has so far been set for when to meet the fundraising criteria". Danish Expert (talk) 09:54, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@Danish Expert:: Sorry to be a bit nitpicky. But the proper term is "Democratic," not Democrat. The term "Democrat party" is a pejorative created, by of all people, Joe McCarthy as a slur on the party of Roosevelt and JFK. Please only use the word "Democrat" as a singular noun, not as an adjective. Thank you.Arglebargle79 (talk) 23:23, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
@Arglebargle79: Now corrected my hasty talkpage typo above from "democrat-leaning" to "democratic-leaning". That aside, the "uncertainty" argument about who shall be polled when DNC conduct their 1% test, is nevertheless still true. Nobody knows, and all media and webpage researchers make their own private WP:OR assumptions about it (which we then now rely on as sources for our data in the article). It would be helpfull if DNC clarified all this uncertainty away (i.e. who is polled and how - when the 1% test is conducted), but I suspect they wont publish these further details before after they have selected the quallified candidates. My own private WP:OR speculated assumption, is that absent further publication of the remaining method details for the polling criteria check, then DNC will have to accept the topline results of all existing polling methods (meaning that all of the below polling methods will count):
  • "Openended surveys".
  • "Online surveys".
  • "Polled support percentage for all interviewed adults (including those who were not registered voters)".
  • "Polled support percentage for all registered voters who answered they were likely to vote in the Democratic primaries" (regardless if they previously were registered as democratic/indpendant/republican).
  • "Polled support percentage for democratic/independant registered voters who answered they were likely to vote in the Democratic primaries".
  • "Polled support percentage for democratic registered voters who answered they were likely to vote in the Democratic primaries".
Plus I do not expect DNC to conduct the scientifically most correct procedure (always made in Europe when polling results are compared or calculated together as average), where the result polluting group of "undecided responders" is taken out of the polling percentage calculation, so that each candidates' support percentage results only is computed for the group of "decided responders" and not the "entire group of responders". If DNC conducted this more scientifically correct recalculation of the polling results, it would as a rule of thumb mean, that all published percentages should be 1.25 times higher compared to the published values (which would mean that a few more of those candidates polling just below the 1% mark, would sneak up above it).
However, without further clarification from DNC, basically all sorts of method choices could still be applied by DNC on June 13, and my above method assumptions could be prooven wrong. I have only compromised to include the preliminary criteria data in the article before June 13, because we have so many media sources now engaged in this publication of their own private WP:OR speculations, while we can then still highlight with a yellow "maybe color" whenever we as editors find out that these sources reached different conclusions (because they applied different method assumptions). Danish Expert (talk) 21:07, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Use of the Politico source?

Up until today, I visited Mélencron's sandbox to keep track of all the daily published polling criteria results. Today Politico's election analyst however also via Twitter published his detailed polling criteria checking excel sheet. This mean, that we now fully understand which method assumptions Politico applied when evaluating the polling criteria compliance.

I.e. they approved the scored results from all openended pollings (which CNN apparently did not), but only reported the polling results from Reuters for the "vote registered responders" and not for "all adults" (which is why they believe - contrary to 538+CNN, that De Blasio still did not meet the polling criteria).

I do not know to which degree we should use the provided source in our Wikipedia article (due to the previously above debated WP:OR concerns)? But it greatly helps understand, why Politico reaches the polling criteria compliance findings they publish from time to time, which is why I opted to share it with all of you here at the talkpage. If some of you have ideas on how this source could be used to further strengthen our data reports in the Wikipedia article, then please chime in with your proposals. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

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