Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries/Archive 6

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)
 * I also support the idea. As long as we're discussing changing the table, I would suggest also to include a 'Total' column, to present the total donations, debt and spending overall. Alternatively, an additional page could be created to cover each candidates finances in greater detail, quarter to quarter.Fjantelov (talk) 14:14, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I actually like the idea of an additional page and subsequent transclusion once the candidate finance section becomes sufficiently bloated. WittyRecluse (talk) 19:00, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

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. --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)

Candidate lists
I have just reorganized the candidate lists in a way that I think makes sense. Prior to my edits, the lists looked like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries&diff=923077366&oldid=923077135. The current version is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries&diff=923079208&oldid=923079187. SunCrow (talk) 06:39, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe that the candidate list needs to have it's own article. There was a consensus to create one last March, but a few here denied that this was so and destroyed it. I have recreated it again, but not changed anything here because we need a new consensus in order to make the necessary changes to the article in preparation for the actual start of the primary voting. Filing in a number of states has already begun, and the first deadline is the day after tomorrow. Literally. The Day after tomorrow. Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:07, 6 November 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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 <b style="color:#14866d">Selfie City</b> ( 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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: <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 00:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * 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.

Discussion

 * B: I've expressed my opinions earlier, so I'm just making my choice obvious that I support choice B. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 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)
 * Mayors can have an impact on the race, but that doesn't mean that they should automatically qualify as major just because it is possible that they will have an impact on the race. Rather, they should have to prove themselves (by being included in polls). After all, several people whose main experience was in business with no elected office have run for president and been recognized as major candidates (not just Donald Trump, but also Steve Forbes, Herman Cain, and Carly Fiorina, for example). But that doesn't mean that any businessperson with a Wikipedia page who runs for president should automatically be considered a major candidate (example: Rocky De La Fuente). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:19, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * While I see your point, and yes Buisnessmen should have to prove themselves through polling, how many mayors have run for President and not been included in at least 5 polls? Devonian Wombat (talk) 05:29, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Obviously, I don't have complete polling data except for what Wikipedia has for the last few most recent elections, but I doubt that Mayor James D. Griffin of Buffalo, New York made it into as many as 5 polls for the 1996 Democratic nomination. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:45, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Anyone can have an impact on the race, but that doesn't mean they will. Who knew Andrew Yang would have as big of an impact as he has and now all businessmen should be immediately major? You see how that argument does not stand. Just because one mayor (yes, one, Messam and de Blasio have been non-entities in this election) has made an impact does not mean that every other mayor (specifically a small city mayor) has the same potential, and that we should automatically assume they can because of Buttigieg. Not to mention that not all mayors are created equal, and Buttigieg has been a favorite of the Democratic establishment for years. He is not some unknown underdog who came out of nowhere and swooped up all this support, he has been making waves and earning establishment party elite support for years. No matter what your position is, that kind of support will translate to the attention Buttigieg has gotten, and it is not something that will be replicated in every mayor who runs for president (again, look at Messam). To imply that Matthew Bogusz (the mayor of Des Plaines, Illinois) should be considered a major candidate with no regard to his media attention or standings in polls simply because Buttigieg received support in the 2020 primaries is purely misleading and a weak argument. From my view, most mayors are no different from State Senators or State Representatives (state legislators may even be more major I'd say depending on the city), and until we set a mayoral cutoff (I'm now thinking top 50 most-populous cities), mayors should have to prove themselves to be major through polling. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 06:47, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That’s the thing though, while de Blasio and Messam have not had great impacts on the race, they have both easily sailed past the proposed 5 poll criteria. If what data we have has shown that Mayors like Messam can effortlessly pass the polling criteria despite having no impact on the race we might as well cut out the middleman and include Mayors when they announce. Devonian Wombat (talk) 09:18, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree. De Blasio would have been cleared regardless as being mayor of the largest city in the country is grounds for being a major candidate imo, but Messam should have to prove himself. It's better to keep the public office qualification more restrictive than not. As you have explained, they passed the polling qualification and made it to being major, so there we go. There's no need to throw everyone in via the public office qualification. I agree that some mayors are inherently major (I'd say anywhere between the mayors of the 10 to 50 most-populous cities, but we have not garnered consensus on that yet), but not all of them. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 16:05, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

So are we just ignoring the fact that NYTimes, Washington Post, CNN, Axios, and Politico (all major news outlets) ALL consider Ojeda to be a major candidate, just because we want a criteria for "majorness"? Why do we value our criteria over the ones of the NYTimes, Washington Post, CNN, Axios, and Politico, who are all the ones who influence the race? I think it is wrong to not count Ojeda as a major candidate, as these sources all do, and the opinion of Wikipedia editors should not be a factor when these sites all consider him to be major. None of these sources mention Katz. I think it's pretty clear that Ojeda should be in the article. NebuchadnezzarHammurabi (talk) 01:06, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree with this. Devonian Wombat (talk) 05:25, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't believe we have to follow conventional wisdom (which is at least a bit mixed, anyway: 538 qualifies neither Messam nor Ojeda as major candidates) as opposed to strict reporting, but Ojeda is qualified to appear in a way Katz is not. I don't see any listings at all in national or statewide polls (at least, the ones we've been tracking) for Katz, but Ojeda features, getting 1% and 7% in two national polls and 1% in a New Hampshire poll. That's not many, and 7% may be an outlier, but I think it's worth considering in this decision process. PutItOnAMap (talk) 02:05, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The 1% and 7% that Ojeda received in "two national polls" was actually the same poll conducted by Emerson College, where they asked respondents their preference both as to a larger group of candidates (Ojeda got 1%) and as to only the candidates who had actually entered the race that that time (Ojeda got 7%). See and the Results linked from there. Hence, in the question in that poll where Ojeda got 7%, both Biden and Sanders were omitted. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:08, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm definitely against C, as a candidacy does not need to be successful to be high profile. Option B seems best of those presented, but it shuts out Ojeda's campaign only because it was relatively short. Including some form of 'substantial media coverage' would allow us to reflect the reality of the primaries a little better, I think, and it would seem to me that we should seek to define what that might mean instead of looking for alternative solutions. >5% in a poll (specifically, 7% in the Emerson poll of those candidates already in the race) could, alternatively, qualify him on his own. --PutItOnAMap (talk) 10:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Option A - the proposed thresholds for the other two are just too inconsistent. Option C would be to the exclusion of some individuals that actually made the debate stage, which is obviously too harsh. Option B allows some municipal positions based on population, but no state positions except for the top job, regardless of how many people are represented by each state district. If the criteria is that a relevant city is one of the top 100, that means that the minimum number of people you have to represent to be a notable major candidate is about 200,000. The only difference between a city with 200K people and a district with 200K people is that one of them is called a city and one of them isn't. Fourteen states have no cities that meet the criteria, which means that the only non-federal position that's relevant enough is the governorship. I'm not even so sure that I like the 200K population cutoff, because that number was decided solely because 100 felt like a nice number to choose for how many cities are notable enough. In my opinion, option A (the current version) has been working perfectly fine, and option B creates more problems than it solves. Vanilla   Wizard  💙 20:14, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * A The current rules have caused no problems, and if it's not broke, don't fix it. Also, putting a relatively serious candidate like Ojeda in with Ami Horowitz seems less accurate than putting him with people like Mike Gravel Devonian Wombat (talk) 20:53, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * We had lots of discussion over Yang and Williamson before they reached the 5-poll mark. Once they did, they would have qualified under either Option A or Option B. Since neither of them has ever held public office, they would have been in exactly the same position under A or B. The only difference between A and B is which public offices are automatic qualifiers (all vs. some). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:28, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, during most of the 2016 campaign, we used a 5-poll criterion only. That was sufficient to include every candidate who was considered major enough to be included in either the Democratic or Republican debates, plus Lawrence Lessig who did not get included in the Democratic debates. We added the "held public office" criterion for the current campaign apparently to accommodate John Delaney, a U.S. representative who entered the race so early (July 2017) that there hadn't even been 5 polls held yet (and it took a while for him to be included in polls anyway). But "held public office" was so broad a criterion that it eventually brought in Ojeda, too, even though his public office was much less prominent than Delaney's. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:08, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * It was my understanding that the rule about substantial media coverage being enough for inclusion on the table was introduced after constant disputes over whether Andrew Yang qualified as a major candidate, and Option B would eliminate that pathway. Devonian Wombat (talk) 03:44, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, Option B would eliminate "substantial media coverage" as a sufficient qualification to be a major candidate. So would Options A and C, though. I would consider eliminating the "substantial media coverage" qualification as a point in favor of all three options given how subjective that criterion is. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:15, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You can measure it fairly easily with the likes of MediaCloud and set thresholds for what qualifies as "substantial." While I like option A, I'd prefer to qualify that with 'elected public office', and then there comes the issues of someone who was once a councillor being defined, by that standard, as a major candidate. Could we specify state sens./reps. as qualified over and above local councillors? In addition, we could require that candidates who qualify via this means must have a wikipedia page but that seems arbitrary and in any case would likely prompt creation of wikipedia pages for candidate otherwise defined as major.
 * C, then B, and lastly A on the basis that "major candidate" should carry some meaning. --Comment by <b style="color:#14866d">Selfie City</b> ( talk about my  contributions ) 20:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This is another reason why we need a separate candidates' page. Oneja qualified in all accounts. "Major candidate" is there to distinguish those who are actually serious and have a snowball's chance in Hell (but not much more) from those who somehow find a thousand bucks and decided to waste it on a ballot space in New Hampshire. If someone gets on the ballot in at least five states is a major candidate. Rocky de la Fuente is a good example. He is focusing on getting on the ballot in as many states as possible and got nearly 70 thousand votes last time. Votes count. The above rules become moot when the actual results come in. Arglebargle79 (talk) 22:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Timeline graph color
On November 5, User:Spiffy sperry reverted the revision made by 108.36.235.167. In order to match the legend and graph colors, the latter user's changes were indeed correct. Ploticus uses a different coral color ( #f29798 ) than the coral from the CSS color code. See the following image of the differences made possible with color picker tool using Chrome. It's a subtle difference but noticeable for anyone who spends more than a minute looking at the graph. As such, the color on legend should be changed back to #f29798 and not the default coral.

Side by side as in the image: background:#f29798 background:coral

--02:12, 9 November 2019 (UTC)Peterljr888 (talk)
 * Done! WittyRecluse (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Ballot status
I added "ballot status" to the candidates' chart. The first deadline is at 5PM CST and a bunch of people have filed in New Hampshire. Arkansas starts next week. I figure that ballot status is important. If Messum doesn't even TRY to get on the ballot in NH, then he's not a major candidate anymore. Same with Castro and Sestak. Yang is filing next week and Biden today. I guess the rest of them will file next week, too. But it's something to think about.Arglebargle79 (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure this is necessary. It's doubtful that any active candidates won't file to run in a particular state. Regardless, these need cited if they are truly necessary. --KD0710 (talk) 15:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Without any citations and a note stating which in states each candidate is/isn't on the ballot, this information is not helpful. Jacoby531 (talk) 16:30, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * sigh* It's necessary. Messum and Castro aren't going to be on the ballot in Alabama and maybe not New Hampshire. It shows the state of the race. Messum gave up a while ago and Castro is imploding. this is the best way of showing the strength of the candidates for the two months before the actual voting starts. Arglebargle79 (talk) 19:39, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Is it really necessary for an encyclopedia to reflect the state of the race at this very moment? I certainly don't think so. This level of presentism is not appropriate for an encyclopedia and borders on punditry. A lot can change in the race, and your personal analysis that Messam "gave up a while ago and Castro is imploding," while possibly correct, should not color the way we treat them as candidates. I should add, it is spelled Messam, not Messum. I do not mean to be pedantic, but it really is important to spell candidates' names correctly. Finally, I don't think it was necessary for you to preface your response with "sigh". I don't know how you intended for it to be received, but to me, it came off as being needlessly antagonistic and quite rude. I already mentioned this recurring issue on your talk page. Jacoby531 (talk) 20:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I should. The 2020 primary is an ongoing event, and ongoing events change all the time. As to Messam, he is not on the ballot in Alabama. He may have sent that check and affidavit to Concord, I dunno. But keeping ongoing events up to date is necessary. Wikipedia's reputation as an encyclopedia requires that everything be up to date and as accurate as possible. You chastise me for getting Messem's name wrong here on the talk page. you will notice that it is correct on the main page. We need to reflect the results of the race, and between now and the end of January, the number of state ballots a candidate can get him/herself on is a tangible result. In just two months we are going to have an entirely new page. The number of states on the right will be replaced by popular vote totals and delegates won. There will be a separate candidates page (there should already be one), and this one will be primarily results charts and commentary. Look above at the argument over who's a major candidate. Soon that will be totally moot as we will have actual votes. We'll have pictures of the top six candidates on the upper right-hand corner. Presentism, whatever that is, is in fact absolutely necessary for an ongoing event. If I had my druthers, this article and its subsidiaries would be templates ready to be filled in. but there's a "consensus" not to have that. I have had to put most things up twice. Not cool or necessary. Arglebargle79 (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jacoby531. It is not our place to insert commentary on the race. If reliable sources are publishing articles about "Messam giving up" or "Castro imploding", then maybe we can include their commentary on the candidates' campaign articles, but there is no reason to put that here or for us to write it up because it's what we personally think. I also don't think ballot access is that important of an issue right now. If a candidate decides not to put their name on a primary ballot, then I'd say they're probably not gonna be in the race by the time that primary happens, and we can talk about them dropping out when they actually do so. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 22:34, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Attempting to show Messam as not being on the ballot is not a reason to clutter up the main table with another section that will quickly become redundant. A better idea would be to add a note next to Messam's picture saying something like "Messam is not on the ballot in any state". Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:40, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * It's not cluttering anything up. The thing is a temporary measure that will reflect the state of the race until popular/delegate totals arrive. It would be better to have a results chart to replace the one we have now. Arglebargle79 (talk) 22:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Arglebargle, and I would hazard that "presentism" is a close cousin to "pedantry," which always seems bad when someone else is doing it, but that when one does it oneself, despite trying not to, one should always be forgiven for. WordwizardW (talk) 01:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

The Start of needed and massive revisions
We need to remove the candidate list as is, and move it to a separate article. (there was consensus on this last March, but it was rejected). Filing has begun, and while I'm happy to see this mentioned, at last, a new chart where results can easily be entered, should be in place. We need to do it now so we don't have to do it later.

The article should look like the 2012 and '16 articles. 2012 would be better as a model as there are still 17 candidates while in '16 there were only three. We should also split off the timeline, as there's not going to be room for it. It's already unwieldy as it is now. Or we could add stuff to the general timeline page that is in this one and not that one and that would be fine too.

So I ask consensus on the splitting and for a discussion as to how we should remake the page and exactly when. A schedule as to what should be done between now and Iowa's voting should be agreed upon. The "let's wait until it's too late" just won't cut it.

If you disagree, please explain why and in detail. Just saying "there was a consensus a year ago" won't cut it. I"m still ticked off that I wasn't informed about that and there wasn't. Just five guys. Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:32, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree for the following reason: everything that will need to be added can be added within the framework of the current page. All that will be added to the page are delegate votes and contests won, additional timeline information, and additional campaign finance information. When Iowa comes, the table can have delegate totals, popular vote totals, and contests won added as columns to the table, with "experience" changed to "most recent position" if the table becomes too wide. Ballot access can be an added column if we decide that is relevant. The additional timeline information can be added to our current timeline, and the additional campaign finance information can be added to the campaign finance table. If the candidate table gets too large, or the timeline gets too long, or the campaign finance information gets too bloated, then at that point in time separate articles can be created and the relevant information transcluded back into the page. There is no reason to do massive revisions to the page, we should work within the current framework until at such time that it becomes too bloated to display information in an informative manner, and that time is not now, and it won't be after Iowa, and it might not even occur at all. WittyRecluse (talk) 15:32, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * What was wrong with the last two election series? they worked pretty well. BTW; it's bloated now. Arglebargle79 (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Nothing was wrong, this is just the way it is now and unless there's a consensus that it is bloated there is no good reason to change it. WittyRecluse (talk) 18:05, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * it is bloated and it's going to get worse. Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that the list should necessarily be removed, but ultimately the goal should be to have this page focus on the primary contests themselves. Information on the candidates, especially with regard to the ones who dropped out before primaries began or ones who did not appear on any ballots (such as Robby Wells, Harry Braun, and Jeff Boss), as well as potential candidates who declined to run, should placed on a dedicated 'Candidates' page. I agree that the page will become bloated once contests start. Cookieo131 (talk) 22:47, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Just a clarification: I meant to say (such as Robby Wells, Harry Braun, and Jeff Boss in 2016). Cookieo131 (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Results chart
Remember: Getting on the ballot is in and of itself a result (you can't win a primary if you're not on the ballot). So here's the results chart. Feel free to criticize and help improve. I need all the help I can get.

...Arglebargle79 (talk) 15:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)


 * IMO, this is phenomenal. It's a tall order to put this primary season (with all of its candidates) into a manageable, succinct, and easy to read table. I think you've done it very well. Granted, I am very much a lay person when it comes to coding & tables. PrairieKid (talk) 19:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Is there a need to include this as a results table three months before any results are released? I think it makes sense to first use it as a ballot access table, then change it to results after there are actually results to post. WMSR (talk) 01:17, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with WMSR, it's way too early to have a results table in the article. The table looks great design-wise, but we don't need it until the primaries are actually underway. Until then, I think we should either follow WMSR's suggestion of converting it to a ballot access chart for now, or hiding it until the primary elections get started. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 01:37, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with the two users above. A ballot access chart is a good idea for now, and we can put results on the page when we have results to show. WittyRecluse (talk) 15:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Bloomberg from New York City
Each of the candidates is listed by the office they hold or have held. The home state is a different thing. In the table of current candidates, the three mayors (Buttigieg, Castro, and Messam) are listed as mayor of their city. I see now that you have changed "mayor of New York" to "mayor from New York", which makes more sense. However, if you prefer it this way, then Deval Patrick should say "Former Governor from Massachusetts" to be consistent.— Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 18:17, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Deval Patrick
Per The New York Times: "Former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts told senior Democrats Wednesday that he will enter the presidential race, according to two party officials, reversing his decision last year to forgo a run and adding yet more volatility to an unusually fluid Democratic primary.

Mr. Patrick was calling a list of Democrats to inform them of his decision and is expected to begin his campaign with a video before appearing in person in New Hampshire to file his paperwork to be on the primary ballot there."

Per CNN: "Plans for the timing of his formal announcement are still in flux, with attention on impeachment, but Patrick is likely to reveal his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination by video or social media message on Thursday, with a formal appearance in New Hampshire on Friday to file his papers for the primary there with the secretary of state's office, one person familiar with the plan says."

Sooo...should we put him in declared or announcement pending section? I think Bloomberg also merits inclusion. Why is Holder listed next to two candidates who publicly said that they will announce a presidential bid where he himself has stayed mum on the prospect. Look at the Simple English version of the article --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 20:09, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * He's not yet a declared candidate, but I think this warrants putting Patrick in an announcement pending section. I'll go ahead and implement that now. We still don't have a specific date for Bloomberg's public announcement, so he should stay next to Holder (who, in fairness, has publicly said as much as Patrick with regards to a run). - EditDude (talk) 20:46, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2019
Include Deval Patrick under major candidates and add him to the timeline. Then, take down the protections and stop the gatekeeping. 2600:1700:1120:EF30:80C0:7264:AAD1:C400 (talk) 20:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. DannyS712 (talk) 21:26, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Rocky De La Fuente a Democrat Also?
Rocky De La Fuente ran as a Democrat in 2016, but is running as a Republican this time. Oddly he is apparently a New Hampshire Democratic candidate. Should he be added to the article as a notable person running in this primary (but not a major candidate)?

https://sos.nh.gov/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8589992400ObieGrad (talk) 22:32, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No real reason not too, though it is very odd. Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:39, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking again, he appears to be on both party ballots but with a different mailing and e-mail address. I presume its the same person but it's really odd.ObieGrad (talk) 21:27, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Brian Moore
It appears that Brian Moore, the socialist activist and 2008 minor candidate, is running again. He filed to be on the ballot in New Hampshire as a Democrat. Shall we add him to the list, then?

Thursday, November 7, 2019 - Brian Moore, Florida (5559 Cactus Circle, Spring Hill, FL 34606) – filed by mail biranmor@tampabay.rr.com  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.173.177.104 (talk) 20:58, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I thought he already was on the list on the NH primary page.Arglebargle79 (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Sestak Logo
I apologize, I'm not familiar with the process. Can we add the Joe Sestak logo? There is one on the top left of his website: https://www.joesestak.com/.ObieGrad (talk) 17:46, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , no, because it is copyrighted and the image appears on his bio page per WP:FAIRUSE. WMSR (talk) 18:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Ballot Access table
Do the primary and caucus states/territories need separate ballot access tables? I would suggest merging them and using an asterisk to signify a caucus, since there are only a few of those. Merging the tables gives you an accurate timeline, whereas separating them means you need to jump between them to work out the chronology. --Mrodowicz (talk) 04:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I support this, having two tables is confusing Devonian Wombat (talk) 05:16, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I also support this change - the current format hides the caucuses. SCC California (talk) 06:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 17:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Distinction and Consensus on when candidates should be marked "No" vs. left blank on the ballot access table?
I propose that candidates should only be marked as not being on the ballot until after the deadline for entering the ballot has passed, and their spots should be left blank until it is no longer possible for them to make the ballot. This is the system that we are using for some candidates (see: Messam in NH), but we had already marked Bloomberg as not being on the ballot before the deadline due to reports that he would not file. Of course this specific case is no longer going to be an issue since the NH deadline has passed, and both Messam and Bloomberg should now both have "X"s, but we should better codify our procedure. Another candidate for whom this is the case is Deval Patrick in Michigan; though he was not on the list given by the party, he can still make the ballot by gathering 11,345 signatures by December 13 (source: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/Pres_Prim_Date_2020_08022019_662286_7.pdf). The same applies in Michigan to "Other" as well. I will go ahead and change the "X"s to blanks on Michigan for this reason. Cookieo131 (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If a reliable source indicates that a candidate either will or will not appear on the ballot in a given state, that should be reflected. Otherwise, it should remain blank. WMSR (talk) 00:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * In Michigan, getting the 11 thousand three hundred signatures requires organization, something Patrick does not have as yet. He could have asked the head of that state's DSC to suggest he be put on the ballot, and that was after the Sec. of State published her list. But he didn't. Getting on the ballot via petition is an extremely difficult task in those states where the SoS's office just publishes a list. With such lists, it should be "no" until it becomes "yes" by petition. So no.Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:36, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Wayne Messam again
Wayne Messam has not filed his candidacy in any of the 3 primaries where he was anticipated to file so far (Alabama, Arkansas & New Hampshire) whilst in the fourth, Michigan, my understanding is that the state party automatically filed on behalf of all of the longstanding candidates. Messam has not explicitly stated, as far as I know, that he has suspended his campaign, but his approach suggests that his campaign is inactive. Could we create a new section for him (and potentially any others who may follow his path) titled 'Inactive candidates'. I don't think that he should be in the same category as the active candidates. (Bloomberg is also, arguably an inactive candidate). --Mrodowicz (talk) 10:05, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Bloomberg is actively trying to get on the ballot in the super Tuesday states, notably Tennessee and California. He has stated that he is not running in the first four contests. So his campaign is not inactive, only weird. As to Messem, what we do is this: We place him at the bottom of the list. The list will soon stop using alphabetical order anyway, and this is a good time to start. We also (and this is not beating a WP: Dead Horse, revive the separate candidates' page as THIS one is getting really bloated and clunky and has been for quite a while. So, for the umpteenth time...


 * We revive the separate candidates' page and move all the information on real and possible candidates there.
 * We remove ALL the information on withdrawn candidates, "never-rans" and "mere mentions" from the general primaries (this) page, it's taking up needed space.
 * The current candidates' chart on this page should have two boxes added on right, popular vote and delegate totals. As of now, these should all have the number zero in them.
 * We place Messem on the bottom of the chart. The proper order should be Patrick and Bloomberg just above him, followed by those excluded from the November and December debates, in alphabetical order, and above them, in alphabetical order, those that have.
 * We start up a results page. It's not too early, as there are indeed results (ballot places are results), and there's nothing wrong with stubs.
 * We put Bloomberg on the timeline chart as "exploratory commmittee" The Alabama and Arkansas ballot petitions affirm he's running. If he says so on official documents, he's running. Getting on the ballot as a contingency is something that hasn't happened before, AFAIK, and we should be flexible enough to adapt to this situation. So let's have a vote...and don't say "it's too early" it might have been a year or four months ago, but it's not now.Arglebargle79 (talk) 12:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * First, to respond to the original point, I think this is a fair critique. I think a ballot access is important in determining who is a major candidate, so if someone is not on enough states to mathematically have a chance of winning the nomination, they are not a major candidate. That said, we can't make that determination yet, so I think we should either wait until enough deadlines have passed to make that determination or use a general guideline for how close a candidate is to being mathematically eliminated. I initially thought we should just wait until most of the deadlines have passed, but they are all relatively spread out so if Messam (or anyone else) is considered major and isn't on any ballot, we shouldn't have to wait until 51% of the delegate holding states have had deadlines passed to remove him. For that reason, a candidate should, at the very least, be on ~30% of all ballots, until there are enough passed deadlines to determine a candidate is or is not mathematically eliminated from winning. To ensure this doesn't kick people off immediately, I propose we wait until there are 10 deadlines. If Messam (or anyone else) is only on 2 of the first 10 ballots, and isn't attempting to remedy the situation, they aren't a major candidate anymore, and should be moved to either a new inactive section or the minor candidates list.
 * Secondly, to the long list of points above, I disagree on all points. The page is not clunky, it is only ~200,000 bytes. For reference, the Republican primary is ~80,000 bytes and the Democratic primary has 6 times as many active major candidates. I also think this doesn't belong under a section discussing Wayne Messam. This and the previous post's points should be moved to another thread. I won't move someone else's post but feel free to move mine. That said:
 * Please stop bringing this up. I went through the logs of the page and it has been 11 months since the deletion of the page, and every single time you have brought this up you have been the only person in favor of restoring the page. Sure a consensus can change, but there are several recent threads that all state that the consensus has not changed. In fact, to echo the sentiment of the discussion from December 2018, the separate candidate's page is WP:CFORK. What would be on there that wouldn't be here? The 2016 page has a few more candidates who didn't receive a substantial amount of votes and the list of people who declined to run, but I think all notable candidates and those of notable speculation who declined to run are still important until the conclusion of the race. Then, perhaps, a candidate page can be remade, but there is no need for it now. See next point.
 * Withdrawn candidates and those who have stated they are not running are still important. You could argue that some withdrawn candidates and potential candidates aren't important enough to be on the page, but surely candidates like Beto O'Rourke are notable enough to still be on the page, as they had a notable effect on the race. Additionally, persons like H. Clinton who stated they are not running are important, as clearly the fact that the nominee from the last election is not running is important enough to be on the page. So, wiping all of them off the page completely is a proposition I am against. That said, if you wanted harsher inclusion criteria for that section, I could be open to suggestions. Currently, though, I think the criteria works effectively enough.
 * Why would we add two columns that are empty? We shouldn't add any popular vote or delegate columns until votes have been cast or delegates have been awarded.
 * Moving major candidates around the table by any order other than alphabetical is a violation of WP:NPOV. Sure, they all have different relative likelihoods winning the nomination, but that is dealt with in the relative amount of coverage they receive in the page. For example Biden has the highest polling average, which is shown in the polling area (which candidates with averages around Messam's are not even included in). Additionally, just by volume of the number of times their name come up, Biden is mentioned almost twice as often as Messam. We can change the sorting once we have delegate counts and popular vote totals.
 * A results page would be again be WP:CFORK. What would be on the results page that wouldn't be on this page? Literally that entire page would be the same as the Ballot access section.
 * Bloomberg hasn't formed an exploratory committee, so he shouldn't be listed as having formed one. The notes next to his gallery image are sufficient enough to notate his current status.
 * WittyRecluse (talk) 16:42, 16 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree with WittyRecluse on all of these points. Specifically, I don't see any good reason to create new a new article for candidates. At least in my opinion, the article and candidates chart as they exist currently are not bloated at all. Moreover, a results page before Iowa would not be helpful; it would only include the same ballot access chart as we have on this page, as well as some empty charts for state-level results. If anyone wants to create a candidate chart with empty columns for delegates and votes, they are free to do so in their Sandbox, but right now, it does not need to be in mainspace.
 * I also strongly agree that it would not be a good idea to have the candidates in any order other than alphabetical. After the Iowa caucuses, we can re-order by number of votes received, but definitely not before Iowa. In addition to WP:NPOV concerns, I worry that this would open a can of worms with regards to the tiers of candidates. The method described above ("We place Messem [sic] on the bottom of the chart. The proper order should be Patrick and Bloomberg just above him, followed by those excluded from the November and December debates, in alphabetical order, and above them, in alphabetical order, those that have") isn't bad, but it is quite arbitrary. My concern is that we will become caught up on edge cases, and based on the precedent set by a change away from alphabetization, politically biased editors may try to change the order of candidates within each "tier". The best system is the one we've been using this whole time: alphabetical order until votes are cast, at which point we switch to ordering by number of votes. Jacoby531 (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Messam is a major candidate. Until such a time that sources start leaving him of polls and not talking about him as a major candidate (i.e. candidate galleries), he must stay. We should be avoiding making value judgements of who is and isn't an active candidate as much as possible (i.e. "I am running" vs "I am withdrawing"). Again, Michael Bloomberg does not have an exploratory committee. This was decided on the 14th of November, and as he hasn't stated "hey I'm running in 2020", he is not running. As to other proposals -

By this token, O'Rourke, Moulton, Inslee etc. were not major candidates. ::: We can re-create the candidates page if/when the information on this page is too much. I fell that that will only be when a full write up of the process is complete a la 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, and results, instead of announcement dates and D.O.B. etc. are in the candidate tables. Until then, the information will be the same, and is therefore useless repetition. NebuchadnezzarHammurabi (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Wayne Messam is a major candidate. Ballot access is important yes, but it’s not some catch all messiah that can be used to overrule all other criteria. Messam has passed these criteria with flying colours, and to change at this point is both unnecessary and confusing. Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC) Devonian Wombat (talk) 21:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Ballot access should at this moment in time. Deval Patrick is currently trying to get on the ballot in Nevada and several Super Tuesday states. Messam is not trying to get on the ballot anywhere. He has informally suspended his campaign. All the rest are on all the ballots. All the rest have participated in at least one debate. In previous cycles, there are were a bunch of candidates who never bothered to formally withdraw even though they just got on the ballot in New Hampshire, if even that. Messem hasn't had any substantial coverage in the past five months besides a few derisive articles about how he only received Five Bucks in contributions in the third quarter and he hasn't been to a forum in almost as long. By the end of next month, more than half the primary ballots will have been fixed. If Messam isn't on the ballot anywhere besides Michigan, what do we do then?Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:38, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Revising the "withdrawn candidates table
The size of the pictures should be substantially reduced so it looks something like this:

It saves tons of space and looks better.Arglebargle79 (talk) 14:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the empty space around the candidate photos looks bad. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:07, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Richard Ojeda
Ojeda is not on the Political positions of the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary candidates page. Should he be on there, or should he be removed from this page? I know that there was an ongoing dispute, but that seems to be dormant now. --Numberguy6 (talk) 19:04, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Since that discussion seems to have petered out, he should probably be added back to the political positions page. Devonian Wombat (talk 20:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Wayne Messam update
Wayne Messam updated his campaign finance numbers for the 3rd quarter (for which he had initially reported only $5 in income and $0 in expenses). I couldn't figure out immediately how to update the "contributions under $200" columns, so I am leaving it to others to correct his entries. See https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00010827/ and https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00699280/?cycle=2020 for the FEC data to be used. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:42, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * He finally suspended his campaign. That's another dispute that worked itself out.Arglebargle79 (talk) 20:31, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Michael Bloomberg
Is there a way we could move Mr. Bloomberg to a new section I mean he has filed for the Alabama primary (which is a huge step than expressing interest). Perhaps an announcement pending section or a new section? --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 09:31, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could put "Decision expected soon" or something of the sort next to him? WittyRecluse (talk) 10:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Wait for this evening's press release from the Alabama Secretary of State's office. If he's on the ballot, then he's running. If not, he's not.Arglebargle79 (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * TDKR Chicago 101 My understanding is that Bloomberg hasn't filed quite yet. David O. Johnson (talk) 16:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the situation is that he is filing for the primary in case he decides to run. He is not launching a campaign yet and is not set on running. This is just to keep the option open since filing deadlines for the primaries are coming right up. I think until he publicly announces he is running and/or files a national campaign with the FEC, we should wait to move him at all. He did something similar in either 2012 or 16 and did not end up running. PrairieKid (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Getting on the ballot in Alabama requires a declaration that one is a candidate. If he gets on the ballot, he's a candidate. Period. The effort to get on the ballot is a campaign. Arglebargle79 (talk) 22:53, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree. In order to get on the ballot he has to declare that he's running. He might not be running very hard, he might be planning on cancelling later if he doesn't get traction, but as of now, he's officially running. I thus agree that he should be moved to the 'major candidates who are running' table, which would then include 18 people. 2600:1702:B20:701F:9DD6:EBE3:18BE:D1CB (talk) 02:14, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

If Bloomberg does get on the ballot, my preference would be to move him to a new section similar to the "announcement pending" section we had previously been using while campaigns were still being announced. He can be on the ballot, but that does not mean that he has an active campaign, which is something all the "major candidates" have. He can be moved once a campaign is officially announced. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 02:26, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Bloomberg is on the ballot in Alabama (https://www.weau.com/content/news/Michael-Bloomberg-files-to-run-in-Alabama-Democratic-primary-564687921.html) and Michigan (http://aldemocrats.org/blog/qualified_candidates_for_march_3_2020_primary). There might be more states that he has filed for. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Well as is said explicitly in the first article, he still has not yet decided if he is running. So I still stand by my proposal of moving him to a new category or keeping him where he is. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 02:45, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I also support moving him to a new category. He's gone further than just "publicly expressing interest" in running. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Arglebargle79. He's declared he's running so as to get on two (or more) state ballots. If he's started and doesn't follow through, he's just like others who have started and then dropped out of the race. WordwizardW (talk) 05:50, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Bloomberg hasn't said "I am running", though. He's on the two ballots just in case he runs: David O. Johnson (talk) 06:05, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Frankly, I like where it is now. He's still in "publicly expressed interest" but with the additional note. I think the filing in those two states is part of what it means to publicly express interest anyway. Let's leave it as is for now until he publicly states otherwise. PrairieKid (talk) 06:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * IMHO, filing paperwork that declares that you are running as a candidate means that you are running as a candidate. No separate declaration is necessary. Even if you are saying things in public that seem to contradict the legal statements that you filing officially, an official declaration is a declaration. In fact, official paperwork should carrry more weight than vague public commentary. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Bloomberg himself says he is not a candidate yet: "“I’m going to finance the campaign, if there is one, with my own money so I don’t owe anybody anything,” he said." . Besides, he hasn't yet filed with the FEC, which would be the "official paperwork" that makes him a candidate.David O. Johnson (talk) 19:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Per this ref (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-22/michael-bloomberg-files-paperwork-to-run-for-us-president/11727698), Bloomberg has now officially filed. 58.179.205.214 (talk) 21:51, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Bloomberg again
I put him on the timeline as an "explorer" as he's actively trying to get on the ballot in all the super-tuesday states. He should also be on the main candidate list as there were a number of people on there who were listed while they were still 'exploring.Arglebargle79 (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , he has not formed an official exploratory committee, which is how other candidates who were "exploring" were on the list. Until he takes that official step or announces a run, he will not be included in the official candidate list. WMSR (talk) 17:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * , He is on the ballot in three states and has submitted paperwork to several more, including Colorado, California, and Tennessee. That makes him an official candidate. He has a committee, after all, who's doing all that work? Also, he's not like Ted Kennedy in 1972 and '76, when Oregon put him on the ballot and refused to take him off. He has an official campaign, which is getting him on the ballot. So let's recognize that. Arglebargle79 (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I took him off the timeline. Bloomberg hasn't even said whether he is running, so he's not an official candidate. He'd have to file with the FEC to be "official" (which he hasn't done). David O. Johnson (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Can we stop with this. He is not a candidate yet. His team has said he filed for the ballots so he will be covered if he decides to run. He has not made that decision yet, he has only filed so that if he does decide to run he will not have missed filing deadlines. <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 18:28, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * he also sent written declarations, which are made under penalty of purgery, that he IS. He did this in a bunch of states. Getting on the ballot should mean something, right?Arglebargle79 (talk) 19:03, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * As of November 21, he has filed a formal statement of candidacy with the FEC and has designated a principal campaign committee called "Mike Bloomberg 2020, Inc." The form, which he personally signed, says he is a candidate for the office of president as a member of the Democratic Party. Can we remove the yellow highlight now, despite his continued doubletalk? Source:  —BarrelProof (talk) 05:47, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Bloomberg has claimed he has not made a final decision on running. While it is true that he has signed statements that claim he is a candidate, the stated reason he has done this is in case he decides to run. Clearly, he considers a formal statement of candidacy by himself on TV or some such equivalent as more important than the FEC or ballot access statements, as should we. Another way to put it is if Bloomberg announces tomorrow that he is not running, then he never was a candidate. If any of the other candidates announces they are not running, then that means they are ending their campaign, not that they never were candidates. I think this is reflected accurately by the yellow highlight in the table. If we put Bloomberg on the table as a candidate like the rest of them, and then he decides not to run, what do we do then? We said he was an active candidate, but it is inaccurate to say he had an active campaign which he ended. WittyRecluse (talk) 12:25, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Ageism
What is the relevance of arbitrarily mentioning that 4 of the candidates are under 50 years old and 4 of the candidates are 70 or older? Some are in there 30's, some in their 40's, some in their 50's, some in their 60's and some in their 70's. There is certainly no historical or legal relevance to being under 50. 9 previous Presidents were under 50, when they became President. W. H. Harrison was over 68, when he became President. Reagan was about 2 weeks shy of being 70, when he became President and about 2 weeks shy of being 78, when he left office. Trump was 70, when he became President. So even being in your 70's as POTUS is nothing new. If the article was to make some historical relevance to the age of the candidates, it would be a narrower list. The 2 candidates in their late 30's would be the youngest President ever by a few years; but the 3 candidates that are already 77 or 78 would be the oldest Presidents ever, by far. They would be older, when they took office, than Reagan was, when he left office after 8 years. 05:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)Wasp14 (talk)
 * The relevance is that many reliable sources, not just those now cited in the article, discuss the ages of the candidates, and the implications of relative youth and advanced age. Wikipedia editors do not have the right to decide that substantive matters widely discussed by reliable sources are irrelevant. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  05:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No one has listed any sources in that part of the article, that claim that 50 and 70 specifically are magic numbers. I pointed out what I see would be possible relevant points regarding age. Wasp14 (talk) 06:23, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Length of Ballot Access Table
Do we really need to have all the primary and caucuses on the table? There are just a ton of empty states at the bottom, which elongates the page and takes up a lot of unnecessary space. The only information that conveys is that there are a ton of contests that don't have ballot access registration up yet, something I think would be conveyed if the bottom part of the table was removed. WittyRecluse (talk) 22:29, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I certainly would not be opposed. WMSR (talk) 00:13, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I would not be opposed either. Sounds like a sensible move. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 04:53, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * It sounds like a good idea. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:23, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Aside from the first 4 contests, would it be alright if the table only included States that have already announced some of their qualifiers? I think that the blank table looks bad? Juno (talk) 03:03, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * If this were to be adapted, I would want there to be a note that says the contests are then not in order. WittyRecluse (talk) 04:24, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that the contests being in order should stay, just cutting out the States that have not announced yet. Juno (talk) 07:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Ballot Access / Other
In the ballot access table, it is unclear what the other column means, so each state should have a footnote in the other cell listing the qualified candidates if "other" is to be included. It is not necessary to have a check or x in that box. — Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 16:58, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Because the few who think that there's a consensus that this should be the first primary without a separate "candidates page" we cannot as yet have the dozens of people on the ballot in New Hampshire identified outside that state's primary page. Some schnook and his wife decided to spend some of their grandkid's inheritance on getting their names on the ballot in Missouri, and there are always a few others there, and in Oklahoma, Texas, and some other states. we are going to have a cascade of states doing BA next week, and we'll see what happens then. A bunch of "hobbyists" may very well be on the ballot in multiple states (Henry Hewes is already on two) by the end of next week. So we'll figure that out when we get there. Happy Thanksgiving!Arglebargle79 (talk) 13:49, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * "The few" and "consensus" are oxymoronic for a reason. There are not a few who think there is a consensus, there is a considerable majority who think so, hence the term "consensus". WP:DEADHORSE WittyRecluse (talk) 19:19, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think you get what I'm saying. I'm not saying we should remove the column, I'm saying we should have a note instead of a checkbox. I'll just implement it.— Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 19:28, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I think a note instead of a checkbox is a good idea. WittyRecluse (talk) 21:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Why not both? I've added footnotes featuring the minor candidates next to the checkmarks in the "Other" column. - EditDude (talk) 18:37, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Iowa ballot access
The way that Iowa's caucuses work, I don't think that ballot access applies to it. As stated in the Iowa Delegate Selection Plan, p. 24: "There is no specific filing requirement whereby a presidential candidate gains access to the Iowa delegate selection process." --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:53, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
 * That is quite the pickle. Maybe mark everyone as having qualified and put an asterisk next to "IA", and then explain it at the bottom of the table? Juno (talk) 03:05, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I would suggest not having any candidate-specific columns on that particular row and instead having a 19-column-wide box saying something like "Ballot access not applicable", with an asterisk and footnote to explain that if necessary. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:55, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
 * This looks great. Would it be possible to color the cell the same shade of green as the "Yes" columns? Juno (talk) 06:02, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I have put that background color in. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 09:15, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Timeline displaying incorrectly
Hi,

Something is wrong with the timeline; it has lines near the top of the graph that don't belong. It might be clearer if you compare the current revision to an older revision, like this one:. If someone could fix it, that'd be great. Thanks, David O. Johnson (talk) 17:09, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I was able to isolate the issue to this edit here:. I'm not sure what the problem is, though. David O. Johnson (talk) 17:16, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I noticed the same anomaly when I updated the timeline for Messam. I think it will begin rendering correctly tomorrow, or later today.  You can test this by subtracting one day from the most recent date (i.e., change Dec. 2 to Dec. 1 for Bullock), and the extra lines disappear.  I realize this doesn't explain or fix the problem, but it might be a place to start.  --Spiffy sperry (talk) 18:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Another editor fixed it. It was apparently due to the PlotArea parameters. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Write-in votes
I removed the column for "write-in votes" from the table of candidates who withdrew before the primaries, for the following reasons:
 * The primaries do not start for more than two months, so nobody is going to have any votes, write-in or otherwise, before then.
 * Not all states report write-in votes in primaries, and if they do, they may report write-in vote totals only for those candidates who specifically request in advance to have their write-in votes counted (which none of the withdrawn candidates are likely to do).
 * The number of write-in votes any of these candidates receive in the primaries is likely to be trivial. Looking at 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, for example, we see that only 6 known write-in votes were reported for the three candidates who withdrew before the first primary, combined. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:39, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Reason one: So? It doesn't hurt.
 * some early states like New Hampshire and Vermont do indeed count every write-in vote and publish them whether or not they request it. New Hampshire always counts the write-in votes, in fact, back in the '60s write-ins actually won the primary!!!!
 * not usually. Candidates from the other party always get hundreds if not thousands of primary votes in New Hampshire. Withdrawn candidates, too. Most newspapers stop reporting whoever comes in fourth soon after Super Tuesday. Write-in candidates have won primaries, as have withdrawn ones.Arglebargle79 (talk) 20:57, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Generally, I think it's unhelpful to have a column in a table where every value is zero, as it extends the width of the table (possibly requiring readers to scroll to the right) without providing any additional information. I admit that some states do count and publish the numbers for all or most write-in votes, but I said "not all" states do so, and I believe that few of them go into the kind of detail that you are looking for (NH does go into detail with the write-in votes). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 08:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Those on the ballot will get votes
Starting with Wayne Messam getting on the ballot in Michigan, all candidates were on the ballot somewhere prior to yesterday will remain on the ballot in most of them. thus they will get votes and should be in the "withdrew during the primaries" section and have a place for votes. Yes, the primary has indeed begun. Fun historical example: Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois WON the Illinois primary several weeks after he withdrew in 1988, and a Paul Tsongas nearly beat Clinton in the 1992 NY primary a month after he withdrew. Arglebargle79 (talk) 20:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The primaries have not begun. What are you talking about? David O. Johnson (talk) 20:57, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The primaries began months and months ago. But there are a bunch of withdrawn candidates who are on the ballot and will not be removed, as it's too late. If you go to the 2016 republican primary results page, you will notice that there are a bunch of lesser candidates who were in the primaries, withdrew in December of the year before, and yet still were on the ballot in a number of states. They got tens of thousands of votes each. Thus they withdrew DURING the primaries. Same hereArglebargle79 (talk) 21:04, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The first primary is in February 2020, so it is incorrect to claim today that anyone has withdrawn after the primaries began. In addition, your edit broke the layout of another page (here), since your edit resulted in two sections with the same defined name that is used to provide an excerpt on that page. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 21:06, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Paul Simon did not win any 1988 primaries after he withdrew. He won the Illinois primary on March 15 and withdrew on April 7. Paul Tsongas didn't "nearly beat" Bill Clinton in the 1992 New York primary after he withdrew; he got 29% of the vote compared to Clinton's 41%, but did finish ahead of active candidate Jerry Brown (26%). On the other hand, Tsongas had suggested prior to the NY primary that he might re-enter the race depending on how well he did in that primary, so there was an incentive for his supporters to stay with him. I don't see anything like that happening with the candidates who have already withdrawn in 2019 from the 2020 race. 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries says that Tsongas won the Delaware caucus after he withdrew, but that's incorrect; the DE caucus took place on March 10 while he was still in the race. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 09:04, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * No, Senator Simon "suspended" his campaign on the day after the New Hampshire primary. He won Illinois, a couple of months later, re-entered the race and withdrew a second time when you said he did. He was not in the race at the time of the primary...and there's another example, in 2004, Howard Dean won the Vermont primary well after he left the race. Having a bunch of withdrawn candidates on the main page is a totally different problem that should be addressed. They should not be there at all, especially those from the minor parties, but that's a discussion for THAT page, not this, but that doesn't negate my point. Those candidates who have withdrawn since the beginning of November WILL be on the ballot in several states, and they WILL get thousands of votes. We must address that. Arglebargle79 (talk) 11:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Something will happen in February 2020. This page will be updated to reflect what happens in February 2020.  There is nothing that needs to be done about it now. Your insistence on jumping the gun is disruptive. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 14:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I checked news coverage from Feb. 25, 1988 from three different newspapers -- the New York Times and two of Paul Simon's home state newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. None of them said that Simon had suspended his campaign; rather, he announced that he would not compete in the Super Tuesday states that voted on March 8, in favor of trying to win the Illinois primary on March 15. From the Chicago Tribune: "Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, battered in the early Democratic contests, said Wednesday he is bypassing the March 8 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses because he does 'not have the resources for winning' them. But Simon said he was not dropping out of the race and would continue to campaign to win his home state Democratic primary on March 15 and the contests in the states that follow. 'The campaign will begin anew after Super Tuesday, starting in Illinois,' Simon said at a news conference after a speech to labor activists. 'This is not simply an Illinois strategy; this is a wining strategy,' he declared. ... 'Super Tuesday is likely to result in a very mixed picture,' he said. 'Phase one of the selection process ends on March 8. . . . But we do not have the resources for winning in the Super Tuesday states.' 'Phase two of the selection process begins March 15. I shall use phase two to deliver the message that we must become a nation with leadership characterized by compassion and vision and common sense. It is on to Atlanta with that message.' Simon is on the ballot in all the Super Tuesday primaries, but he said he will do little or no campaigning in those states, except for the nationally televised debates that are a major feature of the next two weeks." The Sun-Times and New York Times coverage was consistent with that. In fact, Simon participated in a Democratic presidential candidates debate in Atlanta on Feb. 27, something which would have been very unlikely for a candidate who had suspended his campaign. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:25, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * What about naming the section "Withdrew Before Iowa Caucus." This is straightforward and avoids any confusion about when the primaries began.  In my view, it is notable who dropped out before any voting actually started.  We can still count their votes if that's consensus.ObieGrad (talk) 21:28, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that is a good idea. WittyRecluse (talk) 22:00, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Eric Swalwell's age is incorrect based on his stated birth date
Eric Swalwell's age is incorrect based on his stated birth date. He should be 39 not 38 as it is past his birthday this year now. Cnaue (talk) 02:57, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * His isn't the only one. Ojeda,Moulton, Gillibrand are also incorrect. Looking at the wikicode, I think the age that is displayed is how old each candidate was when they dropped out. David O. Johnson (talk) 03:46, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yup that's it. As an example, change this wikicode

48

to this for Ojeda's entry

53, preview it and you can see his age is displayed as his current age. It does seem kinda confusing. I'll let others weigh in before changing anything, though. David O. Johnson (talk) 03:55, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess the question is, is a withdrawn candidates age at withdrawl or currently more important. I'd think that the current age is more important until after the election. WittyRecluse (talk) 04:27, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Campaign finance table
I think we should consider changing the PCT column in the campaign finance table to be the percentage of all income that comes from individual donations under $200, rather than the percentage of individual donations under $200. Tom Steyer has the highest percentage in this category, which seems to convey the message that most of his income comes from small donations, when in fact the vast majority comes from his own pocket. In my opinion this gives the wrong impression. — Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 05:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe you could use either (and thus both) of the lines / columns of data *(and thus should have BOTH/two columns of data). MaynardClark (talk) 06:06, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In any case, I agree that percentage of all income from individual donations under $200 is more important for the table. WittyRecluse (talk) 09:30, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Vermont Ballot Access
Per the page rules I cannot re-revert the edit for Vermont ballot access. While the edit is in good faith, the source page says that the list of candidates is not final. Until it is we should not mark candidates with a "no" because Vermont may still add more candidates to the ballot.ObieGrad (talk) 18:56, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The source is now updated rendering this discussion largely moot.ObieGrad (talk) 19:34, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Julian Castro has dropped out. Wiki page is currently out of date
https://www.axios.com/julian-castro-drop-out-2020-presidential-race-4d5a5928-84bb-4397-85cd-49b86866280a.html? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.225.81.18 (talk) 14:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Spiffy sperry (talk) 15:35, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2020
Julain Castro has dropped out of the race for President of the United States. https://twitter.com/JulianCastro/status/1212738343588511747?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet SheltonCOS2020 (talk) 14:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Spiffy sperry (talk) 15:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There's no need to be concerned if we're a day or so slow on removing a candidate's name. We're an encyclopedia, not a news source, and for the most up-to-date information, there are plenty of online news sources available. --Comment by <b style="color:#14866d">Selfie City</b> ( talk about my  contributions ) 16:03, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Nevada ballot access
The date for registering for the Nevada caucuses (and paying a $2500 fee) was Jan. 1st, so all blanks should be filled now. Yesterday, Andrew Yang sent a letter out saying he's going to compete in all four early states (and win). This suggests that there should be a check mark rather than an x in his box. Coould someone check on this? WordwizardW (talk) 13:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Campaign Finance Table Calculation
Presently we calculate total of individual contributions by multiplying the contributions by the percentage displayed. Best I can tell, we are manually computing the percentage and then doing the math since the percentage does not appear in the source (please let me know if this is mistaken). The result of this is that the individual contribution number ends up being slightly off from the FEC website. You can see this if you look at Cory Booker (some of the other candidates amended their filings so all the numbers are off).

I think we should change this so that the percentage is calculated automatically and the individual contribution number is taken from the FEC page. This reduces the risk for error and allows everything to match up.ObieGrad (talk) 18:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I am making some major cleanup to the finance page. While I am not going to remove the under $200 data, I am relabeling it "Unitemized Contributions."  Frankly, I am not sure it has any value at this point.  If you look at the FEC site, many donors made itemized contributions below $200 rendering the <$200 description incorrect.  While the names of such donors are not legally required to be disclosed, many are anyway.ObieGrad (talk) 00:00, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Major candidate inclusion criteria
Per multiple sources and the campaign itself, Marianne Williamson has laid off her entire campaign staff. It seems her plan is to continue her campaign without any staff. While she was clearly a "major candidate" at one point due to her inclusion in polls and participation in debates, it is beginning to appear as though she should fall into the category of "Other notable candidates who have not suspended their respective campaigns". There is currently no mechanism to "demote" a candidate based on the current major candidate criteria. Should there be a change if a once-major candidate is no longer running a serious campaign? I have no opinion one way or the other at this point, just curious about what people think. WMSR (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think a candidate should lose "major candidate" status just because they are running low on money, which is apparently what has happened to Williamson. She certainly meets the criteria for having been a major candidate, as she has been included in over 200 independent national polls (and the minimum is only 5). I don't think we should have a mechanism to demote candidates from major to non-major status. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Ken Nwadike Jr.
I would like to suggest that Ken Nwadike Jr. be moved to the "withdrew before the primaries" section under the heading "The following notable individuals who did not meet the criteria to become major candidates have terminated their campaigns ...."

The evidence that he has terminated his campaign is:
 * 1) His main website, https://kennwadikejr.com/, makes no reference to him being a presidential candidate.
 * 2) His campaign website, http://kenny2020.com, is now unsafe due to an expired security certificate.
 * 3) His campaign committee has not submitted a financial report to the Federal Election Commission for one and a half years; they failed to file for the 3rd quarter of 2018, year-end 2018, the 1st quarter of 2019, the 2nd quarter of 2019, and the 3rd quarter of 2019. (See and.
 * 4) His Twitter page used to identify him as a "2020 Democratic Candidate for President of the United States", but now it no longer does. (The third-most-recent tweet mentions his campaign, but is dated 13 November 2018, more than a year ago.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Do we need an official declaration of termination of a campaign for it to be considered terminated? WittyRecluse (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I hope we don't. But I'd like to get a consensus on this. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If it has become unambiguously clear that the candidate is no longer actively campaigning, as seems to be the case here, I would agree that that meets the definition of a "suspended campaign". --WMSR (talk) 19:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Removal of the “polling of the four early states” section
This is based off of just one source and doesn’t hold much meaning for the race. Could the graph be removed? Aleaniled (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I would agree with dropping that graph because I don't think it's meaningful. The polling in an individual state may be meaningful, but not the combination of four different states. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I second (third?) this. This poll provides no insight into anything really. --WMSR (talk) 19:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't particularly mind removing the graph, but I do not see the point in removing the link to the overall state-by-state polling. This change is rather significant and makes it a lot harder to find information that was previously readily available. I suggest that the polling section is changed to remove the sub header "Nationwide polling aggregation" and change the subsequent article to "Main articles: Nationwide opinion polling for the 2020 Democratic Primary presidential primaries and Nationwide opinion polling for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries". Below the links to these articles, the text above the national graph should also clearly state the graph represents national polling. Fjantelov (talk) 18:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Call for opinions on debate lines in graph
Editors are invited to voice their opinion at Talk:Nationwide opinion polling for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. — JFG talk 00:22, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I think this deserves some fresh discussion now. — PutItOnAMaptalk 19:11, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2019
THe democratic candidates who dropped out of the democratic presidential race for 2020 so far, the 14 caondidates, some of their ages are incorrect next to their photos and DOB ,in the list, please correct them. 84.52.41.178 (talk) 17:15, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The ages are how old each candidate was when they dropped out. David O. Johnson (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that really makes much sense. In fact, showing the age when the candidate dropped out might be confusing. --Comment by <b style="color:#14866d">Selfie City</b> ( talk about my  contributions ) 13:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Otherwise their ages cannot be compared like they are supposed to be.— Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 02:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I adjusted it for all of the withdrawn candidates. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Write in Candidates
When a major candidate is a recognized write candidate, like Yang in Ohio, should they be given a check in the ballot access chart? My personal view is that the check should only be given if a name is actually printed. Since my edit was reversed, what is consensus?ObieGrad (talk) 00:10, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It definitely should not be a green checkmark if the candidate will not be on the ballot. I changed it to a yellow checkmark, but am not opposed to that changing to an X or something else. --WMSR (talk) 01:59, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the yellow is a good compromise.ObieGrad (talk) 17:02, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Please note that in a little over three weeks we are going to rid of that chart, as it will have outlived its usefulness and would be replaced by a modified results chart. Arglebargle79 (talk) 16:39, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 January 2020
Resize Cory Booker's image to 160px rather than 200px to be consistent with the portraits of the other candidates who dropped out TomatDividedBy0 (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Fix Number Typo
Under the section for withdrawn candidates, the article states 16 candidates have dropped out. This number should be changed to 17 after Booker has been added to the list of drop-outs. TomatDividedBy0 (talk) 16:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 January 2020
change total candidates in lead and in list from 13 to 12 to reflect booker quitting 148.77.10.25 (talk) 16:23, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Getting ready for the big show
I noticed that someone removed all the vote totals (currently zero, but easy to plug in numbers) from the candidate charts. Why did you do that? The simple fact is, is that all the candidates still running are on the ballot in most states and six candidates who have withdrawn will still be on the ballot somewhere. In fact, Booker, Williamson, and Castro are on more ballots than some of the people still running, and through the end of March, it's too late to get them off.

Yes, three ex-hopefuls are on just two or four states, but that doesn't mean they won't get thousands of votes. The reason that I put the empty vote totals where they were was to get ready for the big show that's only three weeks away! We want this page not only to be informative to the reader but easy to edit as well, and that means we have to start splitting things up and having space for things that are going to take up bandwidth in the very near future. If you look at the 2012 and '16 republican pages, you will note that there are maps and stuff and that the candidate charts are split up. We should start doing that now, split them up by polling so that in three weeks' time, it's going to be easy to plug in the numbers. It's not a question of "it's too damn early!!!" anymore. The thing is upon us, and early voting starts in Minnesota in 73 hours. Arglebargle79 (talk) 17:11, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Can someone find a source for this statement?
On this page: Factions in the Democratic Party (United States) "During the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and caucuses the following major presidential candidates are running as moderates: Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Steve Bullock, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Amy Klobuchar, and Seth Moulton." — Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 02:57, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure the statement you listed, in addition to the statements in the sections for liberals, progressives, and democratic socialists are all original research. I haven't been able to find a source that cohesively categorizes every candidate into a specific faction, but I have found sources that describe a specific candidate as belonging to one faction or another. I do have to say though, whoever added these statements made one mistake, considering multiple sources are identifying Buttigieg as part of the moderate faction, not the liberals.  <b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b> <b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b> 17:11, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't buy this for a few reasons. First, candidates don't necessarily keep the same political stance through their entire campaign and (potentially) their presidency, so labelling them as "moderate" or "left-wing" isn't necessarily helpful and could, in situations, even express a degree of recentism. It also opens a pandora's box over which candidates qualify as moderate and which don't. That depends on a complex set of qualifications that make debate easy and consensus difficult. Additionally, there are likely some leftists within the party who see Bernie Sanders as moderate, and there are likely also independents and Republicans who see none of the candidates as moderate. Long story short, as I see it, saying who's a moderate and who isn't is too controversial to include within the article.
 * However, coming from Wikivoyage, I might have some different opinions on whether controversial topics should be included within the content or not. --Comment by <b style="color:#14866d">Selfie City</b> ( talk about my  contributions ) 03:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Steyer Indiana Ballot Access
A recent edit put Steyer on in Indiana, but the reference only supports a submission of signatures, not a verification of them. As such, it is my understanding that Steyer is in the process of getting on the ballot but is not currently on the ballot. Is this correct? WittyRecluse (talk) 12:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree with this assessment. This is the procedure we are following - submission of signatures alone isn't enough.  I removed this for now but we should readd IN as soon as signatures are verified.ObieGrad (talk) 14:17, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * My bad. Thanks for removing. --WMSR (talk) 17:17, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

"Objection Pending"
In IL Bloomberg's ballot filing has an objection pending. https://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionOperations/CandidateDetailEO.aspx?CandidateID=sce0zeFDTGoG32GUJrKemQ%3d%3d&ElectionID=e%2f2KVQBCgW0%3d

Should we note this on the chart, either by a note or by removing the green check for now?ObieGrad (talk) 17:09, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Is this another potential use for the yellow checkmark? WMSR (talk) 17:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Does that mean they might cancel his ballot access? If he currently has ballot access, he should still have a green check with a note next to it.— Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 17:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that the yellow checkmark should be exclusively used for write-in access. I would prefer a green checkmark with a note, as stated above. WittyRecluse (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * In theory, doesn't everyone have write-in access everywhere? The question here is whose names are actually on the ballot. --WMSR (talk) 04:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think if you write in someone who is not an eligible write in candidate, that vote is discounted as void. WittyRecluse (talk) 11:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Turns out it depends on the state, which potentially complicates matters pertaining to Yang's yellow checkmark. For example, if anyone can be a write-in candidate in New Hampshire, should Bloomberg be changed to a yellow checkmark as well? --WMSR (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This does create a somewhat confusing situation. In states like NH all write-in votes count, in states like OH write-in votes only count if the candidate has registered as a write-in candidate (like Yang has).  In the lead into the table, I described the yellow checkmark as a "recognized write-in candidate" to get at this distinction.  If necessary, we could add more verbiage to explain this in more depth but given there is only one yellow check mark so far maybe it isn't merited.ObieGrad (talk) 01:41, 18 January 2020 (UTC)