User talk:Sholom/Congressional race template

A map like this is good

Winner of the nth congressional district election, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords

GOP primary winner and nominee, Randy Graf

The State nth congressional district election, 2006 is an election for the United States House of Representatives in the 110th United States Congress for the open seat of incumbent Jim Kolbe (R), who was not running for re-election. The primary was held on September 12, 2006. The two major party winners were Republican Randy Graf and former State Senator Gabrielle Giffords. Libertarian Dave Nolan, who was uncontested in the primary, is also in the November 7th, 2006 general election. After election: Giffords defeated Graf, 54% to 42%, switching the seat from Republican (Kolbe) to Democratic.

Representatives are elected for two-year terms; the term for the 110th United States Congress runs from January 3, 2007 until January 3, 2009.

Background on the district

Geographic area (briefly; that's in a separate article - maybe a "main" link to that?)

Registration of various parties, what happened in 2006, 2004 and 2002, demographic trends, any recent redistricting (Texas, Pennsylvania, etc.)

Background on the race

Is this an open seat, and if so, why? Is this a "notable" race? If so, why? Is there national attention?

Primaries

Note: primaries should be lowered in importance once they're over. Perhaps re-ordering to further down the page, or summarizing in-place. An exception is made in the case where the primary played a major role in the subsequent general election. Three kinds of examples are:

• where a candidate upset the more mainstream and/or party supported candidate, putting that party's chances at risk in the general election. (E.g., Arizona 8th congressional district election, 2006, where the retiring incumbent refused to endorse the winner; or Rhode Island U.S. Senate election, 2006 where the GOP heavily supported maverick Lincoln Chafee because they thought his opponent was unelectable in that state)
• where the district is so lopsided in terms of Dem or GOP that the main race is, indeed, the primary. Examples of this is Georgia 4th congressional district election, 2006 in which incumbent Cynthia McKinney was eventually defeated, or the race (and racial politics) involved in Harold Ford, Jr. 's and Major Owens' old seat (eventually won by Yvette D. Clarke. (neither of the two latter examples have articles! -- these were both races where racial politics loomed large. In both those cases, the districts were black-majority, almost always represented by a black, and there were multiple black candidates and one white candidate, who was accused of taking advantage of the fact that his opponents might split the black vote.)
• where an incumbent is defeated (which is very rare, and, thus, noteworthy)

Republican primary

Republican candidates

• candidate #1
• candidate #2

or
=====Candidate #1=====
=====Candidate #2, etc=====
Subsections are not needed, unless it is to rescue a candidate's information from deletion, and the amount of information would be awkward to include in a bullet point as above

Primary campaign

polls (if needed/available), endorsements (if important), fundraising, controversies, major issues, etc.

Results

(you can use this code) Total 61,409 votes cast <ref>citation</ref>

Personally, I think tables are undesirable - text that states the top two vote-takers in a given party's primary (votes received and percentage), plus anyone else who got (say) more than 10%, plus "three others whose total was xx%) seems sufficient to me. -- JB In this case, it would be:

Graf won the primary with 27,063 votes (42.2%) and Huffman finished second with 24,119 votes (37.6%). Hellon got 8,095 votes (12.6%), and the other two candidates got a total of 4,799 votes (7.5%).

I tend to disagree. I very much like having the entire slate of candidates. For an "article" it might not be needed, but for an "encyclopedia", we might as well have "the entire record", imho.

(Add any interesting comments by winning or losing candidates here; omit "tough race" or similar platitudes.)

Candidate	Occupation	Votes	%
Randy Graf	former State Representative	27,063	42.2%
Steve Huffman	State Representative	24,119	37.6%
Mike Hellon	small business owner	8,095	12.6%
Frank Antenori	verteran and program manager at Raytheon Missile Systems	2,724	4.3%
Michael T. Jenkins	auto mechanic	2,075	3.2%

Democratic primary

Democratic candidates

• candidate #1
• candidate #2

or
=====Candidate #1=====
=====Candidate #2, etc=====

Primary campaign

polls (if needed/available), endorsements (if important), fundraising, controversies, major issues, etc.

Results

(you can use this code)

Total 61,409 votes cast <ref>citation</ref>

Candidate	Occupation	Votes	%
Gabrielle Giffords	former State Senator	33,375	54.3%
Patty Weiss	former top-rated news anchor	19,148	31.2%
Jeffrey Lynn Latas	former US Air Force fighter pilot	3,687	6.0%
Alex Rodriguez	veteran and Raytheon employee	2,855	4.6%
William "Bill" Johnson	international corporate lawyer	1,768	2.9%
Francine Shacter	former government employee	576	0.9%

General election

Campaign

Approaches, controversies, etc. Include any polling results as they become known

Debates

Schedules, disagreements over number/format if signficant, results (NPOV!) with references to WP:RS.

Endorsements

This does not include general organizational, union or personal endorsements; for those see the candidates' websites. This is primarily local newspapers and broadcasters.

Only newspaper or local media (radio, tv) endorsements and unusual endorsements - e.g., NRA for a Democrat. Do not include business groups for Republicans, labor groups for Democrats, profession-based groups (doctors, police, librarians, etc), party groups of any kind, politicians of any party (unless endorsement by an important opposing party person - pretty unlikely). If they switched an endorsement from an earlier year, this can be worth mentioning.

Fundraising

Generally, controversies about contributions should be in the "Campaign" subsection, and specific contributors should NOT otherwise be listed. General sources (e.g., PACs versus individuals, outside the district versus inside) can be listed IF for both major candidates. Self-imposed limits (e.g., no PACs, no corporate) should always be mentioned, if known. Info from FEC quarterly reports (funds raised, funds on hand at end of quarter) should always be included.

Expenditures by outside groups in the district

If significant expenditures by RNC, DNC, RCCC, DNCC, etc, mention, including types of adds. Mention major expenditures by 527 groups.

Example:
Data from PoliticalMoneyLine on independent expenditures reported from September 1st to November 6th:

Source	Amount	For
NRCC	$3,869,216	For Gerlach/Against Murphy
National Right To Life	$24,401	For Gerlach/Against Murphy
DCCC	$3,007,531	For Murphy/Against Gerlach
Emily's List	$166,007	For Murphy/Against Gerlach
SEIU COPE	$27,099	For Murphy/Against Gerlach

Polls and non-partisan election analyses

Analysis

CQPolitics.com rates the race the highly non-competitive "Slam Dunk."

The Cook Political Report rates the race "Republican Toss Up"<ref>http://cookpolitical.com/</ref>

Larry Sabato's Center for Politics rated this as one of the top fifty-thousand most competitive House races in the solar system. His current rating is "Leaning Martian".<ref>[http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2006/house/?state=MARS Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, Mars, 6th District]</ref>

Polls

Yet another way to do the tables to consider... In polls, always include the margin of error and date the poll ended (or a range).

Source	Date	Murphy (D)	Gerlach (R)	Error %
Election unofficial	November 7, 2006	49.4%	50.6%	± 0%
Zogby[1]	October 29, 2006	49%	44%	± 4.5%
Majority Watch[2] Detailed crosstabs	October 26, 2006	51%	46%	± 3.1%
Garin-Hart-Yang[3] (Democratic)	October 23, 2006	47%	44%	± 5%
Majority Watch[4]	October 10, 2006	52%	46%	± 3.1%
Zogby	October 2, 2006	43%	41%	± 4.5%
Keystone Poll[5]	September 25, 2006	41%	44%	± 5.2%
Public Opinion Strategies[6] (Republican)	September 14, 2006	36%	47%	± 4.9%
Majority Watch[7]	August 29, 2006	50%	45%	± 3.1%
Garin-Hart-Yang[8] (Democratic)	July 29, 2006	42%	41%	± 4.1%

Majority Watch is a non-partisan poll from RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics. Their polling is done by automated voice-recognition (IVR) of likely voters; typically using 1000 respondents which gives a margin of error of about 3%.

Note that partisan polling companies on both sides typically produce results weighted in favor of their candidate.

Results

If results were delayed, mention that.

[For actual results, again, I prefer narrative to a table - JB]

Also, add any interesting post-election comments from candidates.

(is this code better than the one above?  I don't fully understand it)

Total 211,023 votes cast<ref>citation</ref>

Arizona congressional election, District 8

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Gabrielle Giffords	114,263	54%
	Republican	Randy Graf	89,104	42%
	Libertarian	David Nolan	4,007	2%
	Independent	Jay Quick	3,649	2%
	Democratic gain from Republican		Swing

Implications

(Optional section).

Notes

<references/>

External links

• campaign websites
• archive.org copy of incumbent's house website if he/she lost

See also

Don't forget to add:
[[Category:United States House of Representatives elections by state|State District Year]]