Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Andahl


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:23, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

David Andahl

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This page exists in a nebulous gray area. Per WP:NPOL, Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability. While this person was elected, they died before taking office. Most of the coverage is related to their death from COVID, which seems to fall into WP:BLP1E. There is some precident here, but it likely does not support keeping this article. For example, Jack Swigert died after being elected to the U.S. House but before he could be sworn in. Despite this, he already satisfies notability guidelines for being a NASA astronaut. Dennis Hof was elected to the Nevada Senate and died before taking office, but he was already notable for owning and operating the Moonlite BunnyRanch and other legal Nevada brothels. Andahl is not notable for anything other than being elected to the North Dakota House of Representatives and then dying before taking office. KidAd  talk  20:48, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep There was news coverage about his death; United States state legislators are notable. Also there was coverage in the news media about he being elected to the state legislature after his death. Thank you-RFD (talk) 20:56, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * He wasn't a state legislator. KidAd   talk  21:00, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment He was also on a local planning/zoning commission for a decade and a half, and got endorsed by the state Governor and junior Senator. That may add notability. If there were a specific Category:Politicians elected posthumously article, I would say he would be better as a section of that, but there isn't, so I'm not sure. Wodgester (talk) 21:03, 4 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep He has received national, not local attention. It's very rare that a dead guy wins an election, and he should be notable for that alone. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 23:02, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep NBC News, Fox News, and the Washington Post among others have published articles about him. This particular election is notable. Beaneater (talk) 02:06, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep The subject passes WP:GNG and has received media coverage as per Beaneater. Abishe (talk) 05:36, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Per above points. JamesVilla44 (talk) 11:09, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect to the elections page, pretty clear WP:ONEEVENT--Ymblanter (talk) 13:12, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete This is an interesting piece of trivia, but there isn't enough to warrant a whole article. Wires77 (talk) 15:15, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. He was elected to the North Dakota House of Representatives, although posthumously. On top of this, being elected posthumously is quite notable in itself, and this has received widespread news coverage, even abroad (examples: Italy, France, Spain). --Pesqara (talk) 17:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets the WP:NPOL presumptive notability threshold (which explicitly includes "people who have been elected to [positions as state legislators] but have not yet assumed them"). The additional coverage he is receiving as a result of his death is just icing on the cake; he would be sufficiently notable even if not for this new national coverage. —Caesura(t) 18:00, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Totally agree this is in a grey area. The question for me is if he would qualify under the whole "people who have been elected to [positions as state legislators] but have not yet assumed them" thing. Which I don't think he does, because it says "yet" and he's never going to fill the position. Whoever replaces him will. He also died before the election. Maybe he only got elected because he died and it was a "sympathy vote" or whatever. Who knows, but I think the clause would be valid if the won and then died before taking office. That's not the case here though. Also, most of the coverage about him is because of his death. Therefore, one can assume if it was not for his death, say he just dropped out or whatever, that there would not be coverage. So, it's not his run that is notable per say. --Adamant1 (talk) 20:37, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per Caesura the coverage of his death is additional to his election per WP:NPOL Spudlace (talk) 04:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Winning is winning, per NPOL, doing anything later has never been required. Look at the bio of the guy this guy beat. Almost thirty years of nothing, and he's far from unique in that. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Contrary to the claims above Andahl was not elected to public office. He won the primary election, not the general election. So he was never elected to public office. Winning is winning, but winning a primary is not being elected to public office, so he does not meet inclusion criteria and the article should be deleted.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:39, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * He beat fellow Republican Delzer in the primary while alive, then beat Democrats Volochenko and Babb in the general while dead (now the seat he legit won while dead is in limbo till some other obscure Republicans pick a living obscure Republican to sit in, unelected). InedibleHulk (talk) 20:25, 6 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment I do not think posthumus election counts. He was not elected than died, he died and was then elected. The claims he won the election before his death are incorrect.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:41, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. As the proposer has stated, there are precedents. Ref (chew) (do) 16:52, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Any proper encyclopedia or biographical dictionary that covered national state legislative election winners would include him - he is officially a winner of a state legislative election. Combined with the uniqueness of the event combined with the resultant media coverage. I think he fits. GuzzyG (talk) 19:48, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:NPOL. I do not think this article's existence is a gray area, or that BLPIE applies. Many other editors have already quoted the exact wording of NPOL, which this article passes as written. I see that Category:Politicians elected posthumously has been mentioned (as has Dennis Hof), but I wish to specifically bring up Roger Aguilar Salazar, Harry Bauler, and Thomas Higgins (Irish politician) as examples of people who were elected to a notable office, but never assumed them. The articles about them exist, as should this one, because the NPOL criterion is written such that service in the notable office is not necessary, just election to the role. Vycl1994 (talk) 02:22, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. He did win the election, and there's verifiability. /Julle (talk) 03:15, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per WP:GNG --Nuujinn (talk) 19:19, 9 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.