Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries

Williamson from Iowa?

Just noticed that the Marianne Williamson entry in the candidates table lists Iowa as "home state", and that looks wrong. She has said she moved to Iowa for the campaign, but that does not make it her home state. I'd suggest listing California as home state, and adding a footnote to explain that she has moved temporarily to Iowa in order to wage her presidential campaign. Asking for comments from other editors before applying the change. — JFG ^talk 19:34, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree, I think it seems odd. Many of the candidates have homes in DC but that does not make it their "home state". { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 20:23, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Part of the problem is the vagueness of "home state". Is it where they live right now? If so, Joe Biden hasn't lived in Delaware in over a decade. He lives in Virginia, and his FEC filing for his campaign has a DC address. So does the FEC filing for Kamala Harris. Sestak is in Virginia. Is it the state they are generally associated with? That's easy for current and former office holders, but it's a problem for Williamson. We need some kind of objective definition if we are going to have a column of "home state." --Vrivasfl (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Right. Do we have a usual practice from previous U.S. elections, for what "home state" means? — JFG ^talk 10:06, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

• Agreed Iowa is odd. From previous elections I noticed "home state" is where the candidate tend to hail from. For example: Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois and spent his early years there, but his career was based in California which is considered his home state. Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii but his hometown is Chicago (I'm a Chicagoan and the fact we're his hometown is like a melody over here). Joe Biden's career has been established in Delaware as he was a longtime senator there despite being born in Pennsylvania and living in Virginia. Gerald Ford's home state was Michigan despite living in California during his later years (similar to how Biden's home state is Delaware and is currently residing in Virginia in his later years). What I'm getting at is that home state should be termed as the place where the candidate's career was established in and spent the most time in. Williamson ran for office in California and appeared to have been living there for awhile same goes to Joe Sestak's whose entire political career has been established in Pennsylvania. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 11:11, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree on all of that. For officeholders it's quite easy to see what state they're affiliated with, but with someone like Williamson it is a bit harder. All signs do point to it being California though. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 20:09, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Ford was a legal resident of Michigan every time he ever ran for office, up to and including the 1976 presidential election. On election day in 1976, he cast his vote in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. After leaving the presidency, he moved to California and took up residence there. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• With regard to Biden, my understanding is that he still maintains his primary residence in Delaware. See [1] and [2], for example. ("Biden spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield told the AP that the Bidens will keep their primary home in Greenville, Delaware.") Also, whether or not Williamson is still in the presidential race after the Iowa caucus, I doubt that she is planning to still be a resident of Iowa in March of 2020. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:22, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @all for your comments. I agree to define the "home state" as the place where each candidate has established their career and notability. According to this criterion, I have re-assigned Williamson to California. — JFG ^talk 22:33, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Too many bullet points

Campaign events are currently listed as bullet points in a "timeline" format, which goes against the Wikipedia manual of style. I would suggest composing a short paragraph of prose for each month instead. Is there support for this change? — JFG ^talk 22:46, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I support it. I've never been a fan of the timeline format on the primaries pages. We have a separate page for that. It seems redundant to include it here (and on the other party primaries articles). So, yes, I like the short paragraph idea better. --A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 00:48, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

More candidates with articles to remove?

I'm looking through the candidates' campaign articles and trying to determine which ones are notable on their own, and which should be merged with the candidates' biographies.

So far, of the candidates that dropped out, we have merged Seth Moulton, John Hickenlooper, Eric Swalwell, and Richard Ojeda. Of the candidates that remain in the race, we have merged Joe Sestak, Tim Ryan, and Steve Bullock.

Remaining articles for candidates who dropped out are Kirsten Gillibrand, Bill de Blasio, Jay Inslee, and Mike Gravel. All of these people are important because they have been governors, senators, or mayors. However Hickenlooper and Bullock are also governors and they don't have a campaign article. According to Fivethirtyeight, neither Gillibrand, Inslee, nor De Blasio ever received more than 2 percent of the vote in a national poll since their campaign started. Gravel never received more than 1 percent. Gravel said he was running to spread awareness to issues, not to get elected, which may or may not make his campaign notable.

We have articles for the following candidates that remain in the race: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bennet, Tom Steyer, John Delaney, Marianne Williamson, and Wayne Messam.

Out of these, I would definitely consider Wayne Messam for a merge (never been over 1 percent in a national poll, or participated in a debate). I would also consider merging John Delaney (possibly notable for his early declaration), Michael Bennet (although he is a senator, never been over 2 percent in a national poll), and Marianne Williamsom (never been over 2 percent). None of them are likely to participate in any future debates.

If things stay the way they are, that's fine as well. Naddruf (talk) 15:24, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Wayne Messam

I would like to gauge consensus for a merge at Talk:Wayne Messam. Messam has never participated in a televised debate and he has never beat 1% in a national poll. He is not included as a major candidate by FiveThirtyEight.--—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 03:17, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Currently, the criteria is that a candidate must have either held public office, appeared in five or more national polls, and/or received significant media coverage. He, like Buttigieg, was/is mayor of a major city and have both appeared in several major national polls. The difference is that Buddigieg has consistently polled above 5% and has appeared in all major debates while Messam yet to make the debate stage and has floundered in the polls. I could honestly go either way here.Dobbyelf62 (talk) 15:33, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

"He, like Buttigieg, was/is mayor of a major city" So what is a major city then? Miramar is the 190th largest city in the country while South Bend 301st, that's major? Personally, I think our criteria for a major candidate is a bit flawed. Implying that someone like Messam (or someone like Ojeda) was at the same standing as the rest of the candidates is just untrue. I would also argue Buttigieg was not actually a major candidate until his media exposure and subsequent success in polling. I could go either way on including Messam as a major candidate (personally I'd like to remove him but if consensus is for keeping him it's fine), but if we decide to remove him I would propose changing the "has held public office" criteria to only having held federal office (such as Representatives, Senators, cabinet members, etc.), a statewide state office (such as Governors), or been the Mayor of one of the 100-largest cities in the US. A member of the city council of Minot, North Dakota has "held public office", but to automatically call them a major candidate just for that alone is plainly misleading. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 15:53, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

The criteria here certainly isn't definitive. What exactly defines "substantial media coverage"? Does this include independent new outlets? Richard Ojeda certainly enjoyed some coverage on TYT but virtually nowhere else other than some local newspapers. Look at the major candidates section for the 2016 GOP primary, 14/17 either held gubernatorial office or senatorial office. Carly Fiorina reached the top tier debate stage on a couple of occasions, Ben Carson briefly led in the polls, and Donald Trump ended up winning the nomination. Of the six "major" candidates for the Democratic party, the only oddball is Lawrence Lessig, who failed to make the debate stage but did have decent fundraising numbers. Wayne Messam doesn't appear to meet any of this criteria. He has yet to reach the debate stage, has never been governor or senator, has not raised a lot of money thus far, and has performed poorly in the polls. It might be better to label him as a minor candidate alongside Michael E. Arth and Harry Braun.Dobbyelf62 (talk) 18:26, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that any position in the [[[United States order of precedence]] should count as a major public office: President, Vice President, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Supreme Court justice, Cabinet member, Senator, Representative, Mayor (of any city), State Senator, State Representative, etc. However, city councillors do not count.

I think it would be reasonable to consider redefining the Major Candidate criteria. By the current criteria, there is actually another 'major candidate' who we have never acknowledged: Mike Katz, a former State Senator from Delaware. Richard Ojeda received limited coverage for his campaign, and primarily from TYT. If Mike Katz, who has been running for president for longer than Ojeda did, isn't a major candidate despite holding equal office to Ojeda, Ojeda wasn't a major candidate either. Wayne Messam has received very little coverage, which have been primarily focused on his campaign as being unethical or a failure for the past months. Messam also has not held a campaign event outside of his hometown since July 13 (source:https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2019/10/01/the-trailer-the-candidates-stuck-in-the-1-percent-basement-still-see-a-chance/5d921b4888e0fa4b0ec24766/). In conclusion, my argument is that Messam should not a major candidate and Ojeda should not be listed as having ever been a major candidate unless acknowledging other candidates like Katz - the criteria should be made more rigorous. Cookieo131 (talk) 20:11, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that any candidate with a Wikipedia article should be included; however, Mike Katz does not have one. --Numberguy6 (talk) 20:12, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

But that would also include Michael E. Arth, Harry Braun, Ben Gleib, Henry Hewes, Ami Horowitz, Ken Nwadike Jr., and Robby Wells as major candidates too. Cookieo131 (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I meant that they should need WP pages and the existing requirements. --Numberguy6 (talk) 23:12, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I would be fine with tightening the requirements for being a major candidate somewhat -- but it makes a difference how you tighten the requirements. If you want to say that being a state senator or a mayor doesn't count as holding a major public office, okay. And the "received substantial media coverage" criteria is too vague for my preference. But the other alternative criterion we use is "been included in a minimum of five independent national polls". And Wayne Messam passes that criterion with flying colors. In fact, you could increase the criterion to "included in a minimum of 100 independent national polls" and Messam would still pass. (I'm not recommending increasing the minimum to 100 polls -- but my point is that Messam isn't just hanging in through inclusion in five or six polls.) By contrast, take some of the candidates who we don't consider major. Michael E. Arth, Harry Braun, Ben Gleib, Henry Hewes, Ami Horowitz, Ken Nwadike Jr., and Robby Wells have been included in a combined total of zero national polls. So I say, let's keep the five national poll criterion as a way of qualifying a candidate as major. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:10, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

So if we do tighten the bounds for major candidates, this would remove Ojeda as a major candidate, but maintain Messam as a major candidate, correct? Upon closer inspection, I believe Messam should remain a major candidate, as per the polling criteria and considering he is grouped in with the remainder of the indisputable major candidates in most charts and graphs I've seen created in the media. I do believe though that Ojeda is not a major candidate, and state legislators should not automatically be considered major. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 01:49, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I basically agree with Jjj1238, I think. The offices that I would consider to automatically qualify a candidate as major would be U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor, member of the U.S. Cabinet, or president or vice president (the latter two not being strictly necessary as criteria for 2020, since Biden was a senator, but potentially relevant for future elections). All other candidates would require inclusion in 5 national polls to be considered major. State legislators would not automatically qualify, nor would mayors. Nevertheless, Buttigieg, De Blasio, and Messam would qualify as major from having been in the polls, as would non-officeholders Yang, Steyer, and Williamson. This does mean that Ojeda would be taken out of the "major" category, but that doesn't seem inaccurate to me. I can't think of a presidential candidate in any recent election who was generally treated as a major candidate (being invited to debates, etc.) when their only political experience was as a state legislator. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

While I agree with nearly all of what you said, I do believe mayors of the 100 most-populous cities of the U.S. should be included. Being elected Mayor of New York City is still a big deal and the officeholder receives widespread name recognition and notability for holding that office; it cannot be compared to South Bend or Miramar. Perhaps lowering the criteria to the 50 most-populous cities is more suitable? I don't mind, but I do think there's a big difference between being the executive of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc., and being the executive of Montpelier, Vermont. However, all three mayors would be considered major regardless because of inclusion in polling, so it's not like this distinction would need to be made until the 2024 primary season begins. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 03:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

This is a mostly theoretical point, but mayors haven't had a lot of impact on presidential races. I went back through the presidential primary races over the last 50 years (since 1972) to see which candidates had mayorships as their top political experience. There were very few of them. In 1972, both John Lindsay (New York City) and Sam Yorty (Los Angeles) appear to have been taken seriously as candidates for the Democratic nomination, and in 2008 Rudy Giuliani (New York City) was a major candidate for the Republican nomination, although none of them found much success at the ballot box. Beyond them, the pickings are slim. I remember that Larry Agran (Irvine) had great difficulty being recognized as a Democratic candidate in 1992, although he was admitted to a couple of debates. In 1996, James D. Griffin (Buffalo)'s campaign for the Democratic nomination was so low-profile that I didn't hear about it until years later. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:50, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Is Messam really a major candidate? I think a major candidate should have some sort of polling score and some name recognition, among at least some significant portion of the party. Just because a candidate has held an elected office, especially at the local level, doesn't mean he's an important (and, therefore, "major") candidate for the Presidency. Any candidate above 2 or 3% is, of course, a major candidate. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it's our place to set an arbitrary polling qualification to be deemed a major candidate by Wikipedia. 270 to Win includes him in the same table as all other indisputably major candidates, as does The Economist. I don't think a mayor of a small-sized city should automatically be given major status, but Messam has been included in numerous polls alongside major candidates, which gives him the same standing they have. It's not like Michael E. Arth, Harry Braun, or Ben Gleib are being included in these polls. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 00:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Poll

I've taken the liberty to create a poll to look for consensus as to how to redefine what constitutes a major candidate. Options:

• A: A major candidate is any individual who has held public office, or has been included in five or more national polls. (Keep it the same as it is now) – this would mean Messam and Ojeda remain as major candidates
• B: A major candidate is an individual who has served as President, Vice President, a member of the cabinet, a U.S. Senator, a U.S. Representative, Governor, or mayor of one of the 100 most-populous cities*, or has been included in five or more national polls. – this would keep Messam as a major candidate but remove Ojeda
  • The number of cities is up for discussion, and may be reduced if that's consensus.
• C: A major candidate is an individual who has polled at 2–3%* in five or more national polls. – this would remove numerous candidates from the major candidates section
  • The polling threshold is up for discussion.

{ [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 00:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

• B: I've expressed my opinions earlier, so I'm just making my choice obvious that I support choice B. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 00:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• Roughly B: Thanks for doing this legwork. I also support B more than A or C, but I do think that a bit more discussion on the offices that should be included is warranted. For example, I think that Eleni Kounalakis, Alex Padilla, or Xavier Becerra (Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General of California, respectively) should be automatically more major of candidates than mayor Carlos Hernández of Hialeah, Florida. That said, this is not relevant to this election cycle. SCC California (talk) 00:56, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Perhaps the qualifications could be expanded from simply governor to any state office with a statewide constituency? This would expand to Lt. Governors, Attorney Generals, any state secretaries, etc. I had proposed this earlier but I didn't include it in choice B for whatever reason. We also could simply lower the mayor qualification to 25, 50, etc. cities. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 01:10, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• B is closest to my opinion. I'd prefer not to count the mayors as automatically notable, but I think B is better than A or C. By the way, I have a couple of caveats: (1) I assume that we're only planning to apply these criteria to Democrats and Republicans, not Libertarians, Greens, etc. (2) I assume our goal is to use these criteria for future presidential elections as well, rather than reinventing the wheel once the first state legislator declares their candidacy in 2022 for 2024. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:51, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• A I prefer to air on the side of inclusivity. Nevermore27 (talk) 05:54, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• B is closest to what I want, and I also want to again point out to anyone that endorses A that Mike Katz's former campaign, which no one here really seems to want to add, was equally qualified as Ojeda's by the 'public office' credential. However I still believe that the criteria should be adjusted to remove candidates who are no longer actively campaigning: Messam has not even held campaign events since early August, nor has he scheduled any more, and has not as much as posted any campaign material online since October 3. Cookieo131 (talk) 18:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I think removing someone like Messam just for not holding many campaign events is a little dangerous. What happens when he suddenly fills up his schedule completely days after we remove him? He's back to being major? And then when he takes a second hiatus he's minor again? I'd rather just wait until they announce they've dropped out to change things like that. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 14:33, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
• A We have been around and around on this subject. I think it is a disservice to the article to remove Ojeda and Messam. Messam has been in enough polls to be warranted as a "major" candidate, and both are included in enough "meet the 2020 candidates" articles (see the [Al Jazeera example] ). I think putting arbitrary categories around designating by removing the "substantial media coverage" condition is rather restrictive and doesn't allow us to make "common sense" decisions, such as not including Katz but including (at the time) Yang (who we can all remember we had edit-wars about - turns out the media coverage was important). Putting up framework B or C allows less elasticity (see Yang, but also, say, if someone like Steyer wasn't included in 5 polls quickly enough, we would have to wait days before we could put him on the page)NebuchadnezzarHammurabi (talk) 07:23, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Determining what is "substantial" media coverage is just a bit arbitrary. This substantial coverage will transition to appearances in polls, which will then have them be declared a major candidate. There was so much edit warring about Yang because there was no definitive criteria (what defines substantial coverage?), but changing the criteria is what will prevent disputes like this from happening in the future. The amount of polls can be decreased to four, three, two, whatever, that's not what matters, the point is that it's misleading to imply someone like Ojeda is on the same footing as Warren, Sanders, Biden, even lesser candidates like Hickenlooper, etc. automatically when clearly that is not the case. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 14:31, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
• Effectively B: I apologize in advance for the formatting mess, this is as good a job as I could do.
• To answer this question, Ive decided to make a general list of what the most exclusive but agreed upon formula for what determines a candidate as "notable" is (assuming this is only applied to Democrats and Republicans):
  • (1)Having filed with the FEC
  • (2)Having declared your candidacy
  • (3)Having not made an official statement ending the campaign
  • (4)Having been President, Vice President, a cabinet member, a U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative, a Governor OR having been included in 5 or more national polls (as there are no proponents of C).

• Thus, all should agree that anyone who meets these conditions is notable. Here are the contested conditions:
  • Modifying (4) to include other public offices, and/or including a third option of "Having recieved substantial media coverage"
  • Modifying (3) to "Has not stopping campaigning".
  • Additionally, there is the concern of not being able to include candidates like Steyer at first under more restrictive polling requirements.

• To continue, even though it is not directly stated, I believe there is concensus that even the most inclusive "public office" criteria would not include anything outside of whats listed in (4), Mayors, members of State Legislatures, and anyone who has held a state offive with a statewide constituancy.

• Thus, the most inclusive formula would be:
  • (1) and (2) as is
  • (3) Is actively campaigning
  • (4) Has been President, Vice President, a cabinet member, a U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative, a Governor, a Mayor, a member of a State Legislature, having held a state office with a statewide constituancy, OR having been included in 5 or more national polls OR having recieved substantial media coverage.

• So, I think the arguments are around these three things:
  • (1) What is substantial media coverage?
  • (2) When do we consider a campaign to have ended?
  • (3) Is being a Mayor, a member of a State Legislature, or having held a state office with a statwide constituancy enough to be notable?

• Here are my answers:
  • Substantial media coverage should be defined by a certain number of published articles by major newspapers in a certain time frame, ex. 4 articles by seperate sources every month.
  • A campaign ends when it is declared ended OR no campaigning has gone on with no reason for the stoppage for a certain period of time, ex. 6 months.
  • A mayor of a city large enough to be known everywhere in the US is (so say the top 50). A member of a State Legislature is not and neither is A state office with a statwide constituancy, but both should be mentioned if other criteria are met.

• This does not address the Steyer concern, so my answer is a candidate with an article about thier declaration to run has a certain period of time to meet another criteria or be removed, ex. 1 month. WittyRecluse (talk) 06:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It's been a week and we have 5 Bs to 2 As. To look closer into B and address some concerns, I'd say we can open some discussion into the intricacies of the proposal. So we've established that Presidents, Vice Presidents, cabinet members, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, and Governors are all immediately major due to the offices they've held. However, it seems there may be some slight disagreements over the inclusion of Mayors and statewide state officeholders. I'd like to open up discussion into that now. Personally, I think either the top 50 or 100 most-populous cities should have their mayors included, but I'm very open to discussion on that. It does not matter much to me, as long as the top 5-10 cities would definitely be included. As for statewide state officeholders, I feel like a Secretary of State, Lt. Governor, or Attorney General is very different from, for example, the Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce. So instead of broadly including all statewide state officeholders, maybe just restrict it to Secretaries of State, Lieutenant Governors, and Attorneys General? I'd even be willing to go for just Lieutenant Governors. And regardless, if one of these officeholders is receiving widespread coverage when they are running for president, they're more than likely to end up being included in 5 or more polls and would qualify for being a major candidate through that anyways, so it may be better to be more restrictive in this category than the opposite. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 17:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

For mayors I like top 50 and I like Secretary of State, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General for the state offices. WittyRecluse (talk) 04:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Just my personal opinion, but I would prefer not to automatically qualify the state secretaries of state, lieutenant governors, and attorney generals as major candidates just by virtue of holding those offices. When was the last time someone ran for president with one of those offices as the highest office they had held? And were they generally treated as major candidates when they did that? My answers to those questions would be "I can't think of any" and "not applicable". --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:47, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

While we're still discussing this part, I'm going to take the liberty to remove mentions of Ojeda being a major candidate from the article, as consensus has settled that a state legislator is not a major candidate. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 15:27, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

For Mayors, i personally think this cycle has shown than Mayors should be expanded to include any mayor with a Wikipedia page, as it has been shown such mayors can have an impact on the race. Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:15, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

How should Bernie Sanders' temporary suspension of his campaign be handled?

How should Bernie Sanders' temporary suspension of his campaign be handled? 2604:2000:F64D:FC00:5941:97E0:B6EA:CC38 (talk) 23:09, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

He didn't suspend his campaign. He just called off events in the near future. If you want to write it into the timeline you can.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 23:56, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Removing the "home state" column

Browsing through the list of candidates, I am disturbed by the prominent display of home state flags in a national election. Each candidate's "home state" is already listed in their "experience" section (except for Williamson and Yang who have not held political office). I suggest to remove this distracting column. — JFG ^talk 08:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. Home state does not necessarily correlate with experience (see Gravel), and it is an important visual aide for readers to see where each candidate may have a possible push in support. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 01:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Campaign finance

Would anyone else support splitting the campaign finance table in a way that details what each candidate raised per each fundraising quarter? I believe that comparing fundraising quarters is relevant and people would like to see which candidates are gaining donations and which are losing donations. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 01:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Yep, I would. creativeRaja^t@lk 19:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by CreatingCat (talk • contribs)

I started work on this in my sandbox, and will finish once FiveThirtyEight (which is the source I've been used) publishes their full list of Q3 fundraising (probably on 16 October). I'm not a finance person though and probably won't know how to fill in the other sections of the table (most notably COH), so I'll be relying on someone else to do that unless there's a source with all the information laid out. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 03:28, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Candidate	Campaign committee (January 1, 2017 to September 30, 2019)
	Money raised				Ind. contrib.	≤$200 donations (as % of ind.contrib)	Debt	Spent	COH
	Q1 2019	Q2 2019	Q3 2019	Total
Bennet	did not file	$3,506,968	$2,115,098	$5,622,066	$2,801,086	23.86%	$0	$1,313,723	$2,193,245
Biden	did not file	$22,043,829	$15,741,432	$37,785,261	$21,966,174	37.86%	$0	$11,146,762	$10,897,067
Booker	$7,923,204	$4,547,411	$6,023,870	$18,494,485	$9,510,888	21.14%	$292,760	$7,110,109	$5,360,506
Bullock	did not file	$2,071,211	$2,301,209	$4,372,420	$2,069,244	22.44%	$0	$580,989	$1,490,222
Buttigieg	$7,091,224	$25,246,330	$19,211,492	$51,549,046	$32,318,673	48.78%	$0	$9,668,682	$22,668,872
Castro	$1,100,641	$2,805,749	$3,498,753	$7,405,143	$4,105,011	60.27%	$0	$2,990,724	$1,136,053
Delaney	$12,144,070	$8,039,927	$868,452	$21,052,449	$1,965,261	9.56%	$16,193,250	$18,909,206	$7,442,612
Gabbard	$3,995,770	$1,567,204	$3,032,159	$8,595,133	$3,513,728	61.10%	$68,698	$3,624,419	$2,438,555
Harris	$13,243,551	$11,847,397	$11,849,290	$36,940,238	$23,819,355	40.93%	$331,441	$11,818,587	$13,272,360
Klobuchar	$8,832,322	$3,877,923	$4,806,134	$17,516,388	$9,103,517	35.20%	$0	$6,000,134	$6,710,120
Messam	$43,531	$50,282	$5	$93,818	$93,813	29.76%	$81,876	$62,666	$31,146
O'Rourke	$9,373,261	$3,647,730	$4,482,284	$17,503,275	$13,014,591	55.02%	$48,074	$8,679,539	$5,243,891
Ryan	did not file	$889,399	$425,731	$1,315,130	$864,758	29.67%	$0	$554,340	$335,058
Sanders	$20,688,027	$25,660,255	$28,025,463	$74,373,745	$36,209,379	76.87%	$0	$19,079,232	$27,269,050
Sestak	did not file		$374,196	$374,196
Steyer	did not file		$49,645,132	$49,645,132
Warren	$16,482,752	$19,172,232	$24,684,963	$60,339,947	$25,177,888	67.45%	$0	$15,873,821	$19,781,162
Williamson	$1,546,975	$1,523,708	$3,054,342	$6,125,025	$3,065,750	65.42%	$302,366	$2,522,799	$547,892
Yang	$1,778,936	$2,835,969	$9,922,626	$14,537,531	$5,210,783	67.60%	$0	$4,426,824	$847,659
de Blasio	did not file	$1,087,564	dropped out	$1,087,564	$1,087,564	9.11%	$71,196	$359,044	$728,520
Gillibrand	$12,601,580	$2,297,587	dropped out	$14,899,167	$5,275,623	25.98%	$0	$6,658,510	$8,240,656
Gravel	did not file	$209,261	dropped out	$209,261	$209,261	96.71%	$0	$94,612	$114,649
Hickenlooper	$2,020,683	$1,150,946	dropped out	$3,171,629	$3,163,584	14.68%	$0	$2,336,499	$836,276
Inslee	$2,256,655	$3,051,591	dropped out	$5,308,246	$5,302,008	45.06%	$171,991	$4,122,615	$1,185,630
Moulton	did not file	$1,940,003	dropped out	$1,940,003	$1,248,344	23.87%	$98,019	$1,215,626	$724,378
Ojeda	$119,478	dropped out		$119,478	$77,476	62.91%	$44,373	$117,476	$2,002
Swalwell	did not file	$2,586,128	dropped out	$2,586,128	$877,745	38.05%	$10,398	$2,057,387	$528,741

I have made a table highlighting each quarter's fundraising using FiveThirtyEight's campaign financing quarterly articles, but some of the totals seem to be off from the FEC's database. Anyone know a solution to this? { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 22:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

• Also, all I have updated is fundraising per quarter and fundraising totals. All the other information has not been updated for the third quarter. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 22:08, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Jjj1238: While your proposed table looks fine for now, I wonder how it will look next year, in terms of the number of additional columns that will be needed. In the election year, presidential campaigns are required to file monthly rather than quarterly. [3] --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:52, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I think that is an issue we can resolve when monthly figures come out. For now, this dataset is more informative without creating unneccessary clutter. WittyRecluse (talk) 05:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

References

Images

Man whoever changed all of the candidate images must really not like photos where people look into the camera. I think we should change them back to their official congressional photos (for those in Congress, obviously) rather than most recent photo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Curbon7 (talk • contribs) 02:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Personally I prefer the campaign trail images for this article, but to keep official portraits on their respective individual articles. This article is about the campaign so it makes sense the images used are from them on the campaign trail. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 00:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Jjj Nevermore27 (talk) 05:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to have much more recent photos of them all - seeing as the article is very rooted in 2019/2020, I think old and outdated photos are detriments to the article. The photos are very high quality so I think they should stay. NebuchadnezzarHammurabi (talk) 07:31, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Non-major candidates

For the candidates that will clearly not be described as major, but still have a wikipedia article, I thought the consensus was to keep them in a list below the major candidates because they are still notable. Has this consensus changed?

@Bob bobato:, I noticed that you removed Michael E. Arth from the non-major candidates list, but I think he should remain there. —Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 17:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I reverted the change removing Arth. The other candidates are still in this section: [4]; just scroll past

Yang. David O. Johnson (talk) 17:20, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I suggest that we investigate Arth's notability, then. Look at his article - every book he's written was self-published, and all of his citations refer to either his own books, webpages, or press releases. When you read the articles about his theories, especially New Pedestrianism, no other urban planners are ever mentioned. If you look him up on Google, virtually all the results are (again) his own webpages or apparent sock-puppet postings on social media sites such as Reddit or Quora. And if you look at the blurb describing his 2020 candidacy, one of its main points is that "Wikipedia currently lists him just below the major candidates as a notable candidate who remains active in the campaign"! His online footprint outside of his own pages is almost nil, unless you count pages which have republished his press releases or quoted from Wikipedia. When you search him on Youtube, you will find one video with 1000 views (his documentary), and a handful of others with a couple dozen to hundred views each (all from his account). I strongly suspect that the only reason Michael E. Arth has a patina of notability is because he's gone to great lengths to make it look like it's there. I don't think Wikipedia should be complicit in his self-promotion.

theBOBbobato (talk) 20:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

If you think he's not notable, you can nominate his article for deletion. As long as he has an article, he should be on here according to earlier discussions.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 20:48, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

-Novice user: Why did you not put Ojeda as major? He was a State Senator and gained national attention during his house race and in the film by Michael Moore. I'm confused. How is he less notable than say, Messam, or Sestak?

Are the candidates' birthdays really relevant?

In an article about the presidential primaries, I don't think there needs to be a column that tells the reader that Michael Bennet was born on November 28th, 1964 in New Delhi, India and that he's currently 54 years old. It just seems a little too off topic.  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 22:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Vanilla Wizard, I agree. The talk about certain candidates being old and a certain candidate being young are distractions. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:44, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. I think age is important because it shows both the amount of life experiences someone has had and also which milestones they lived through at what age. Birthday is not especially important but it allows the program to calculate age. Birthplace can sometimes be useful because it shows if the candidate has lived all their life in one place, like Mayor Pete. Age is also referenced a lot by the media, which means readers are likely to be interested in the candidates' ages or even sorting them by age.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 00:01, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with the statement that age is important because it "shows the amount of life experiences someone has had." We have a column that's directly about the candidates' experience (primarily political experience, but also the candidates' main occupation if they lack political experience, like Yang, Williamson, and Steyer). How old they are isn't an indicator of their experience; Mayor Pete has been in political office longer than Elizabeth Warren, even though one of them would, if elected, be the youngest president in US history, and the other the oldest in US history. It's trivia that would be worth mentioning if the winning candidate breaks an age-related record, but I don't think it's appropriate as one of the main columns in the section about their campaigns (the other columns being their photos, their political offices, and a link to their campaigns' wiki articles).  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 00:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Age has made itself a very important factor in this year's election, considering the three highest polling candidates are in their 70s, and discussion regarding this is obvious in the media. Birth location is also notable considering the natural born citizen clause and potential controversy regarding a president not born in the US. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 01:10, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

It's a neutral data point, it has no allegiance or agenda. I think it's relevant and should stay. Nevermore27 (talk) 04:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I think Age is significant here because of the age of the front runners. Knowing the age of a candidate is important and is a factor that drives voters toward or away from one candidate or another. For example, I think people put much more weight on the decision for Vice President of Biden, Warren, and Sanders than for Gabbard or Buttigieg. I like birthdays as opposed to age because birthdays is neutral; removing age is biased toward older candidates but stating age is baised toward younger candidates. This is an effect compromise. WittyRecluse (talk) 04:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)