Daily Kos Elections is now a new site, The Downballot

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Monday August 19, 2024 · 5:00 AM PDT

2024/08/19 · 05:00

The Daily Kos Elections team has launched a new, independent site called The Downballot! You can find all of the same great content there, so please update your bookmarks.

For more information on this move, please see our launch announcement and our FAQ.

You can subscribe to The Downballot below. We'll see you over at our new home!

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Daily Kos Elections weekly open thread: The final edition

James Lambert

Community

Friday August 16, 2024 · 3:00 PM PDT

2024/08/16 · 15:00

YouTube Video

Folks, this is it: your final Daily Kos Elections weekly open thread ever. But it’s not our last open thread—not by a long shot. We’ll keep posting these every week over at our new home. See you next week at The Downballot!

Daily Kos Elections Live Digest: 8/16

Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Friday August 16, 2024 · 5:00 AM PDT

2024/08/16 · 05:00

Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news. You can find our collection of public data at dailykosdata.com.

Please note: The Live Digest is a Democratic presidential primary-free space. It’s also a place to discuss elections, not policy.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: This is the final edition of the Live Digest, but Daily Kos Elections is not going away! You’ll find Monday’s Morning Digest—and every edition after that—at our new site, The Downballot. It’s the perfect place to chat in comments!

You can read all about this change right here. Our operations are 100% reader-supported, so we hope you’ll subscribe today. Sign up just below!

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Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Friday August 16, 2024 · 5:00 AM PDT

2024/08/16 · 05:00

_{The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.}

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: This is the last Morning Digest that will be published at Daily Kos Elections, but we’re not going away! You’ll find Monday’s Digest—and every edition after that—at our new site, The Downballot. You can also subscribe by email just below to make sure you never miss a single update:

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You can read all about this change right here. Our operations are 100% reader-supported, so we hope you’ll subscribe today!

Leading Off

● UT-Gov: Utah's three-way race for governor took another unexpected turn on Thursday when Democratic state Rep. Brian King debuted a campaign video co-starring far-right state Rep. Phil Lyman, the election conspiracy theorist who is waging a write-in campaign months after losing the GOP primary to Gov. Spencer Cox. But Cox is exactly what is uniting the two legislators in a piece parodying the governor's "Disagree Better" campaign.

"Now, Phil and I disagree better about most issues," King tells the audience with a wink after the on-screen text identifies him as the "Democratic candidate for Utah governor" and Lyman as "Former (or current depending on who you ask) GOP candidate for Utah governor *litigation pending*)." The two, though, respond in unison that they are united in the belief that "Spencer Cox should not be our next governor." The state representatives go on to politely argue whether voters should write in Lyman's name or cast their ballot for King.

David Nir

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Thursday August 15, 2024 · 5:21 PM PDT

2024/08/15 · 17:21

We are elated to announce our biggest news in the 21 years since we began covering elections: Daily Kos Elections is striking out on its own as an independent site called The Downballot!

If you're already a subscriber to our newsletter, the Morning Digest, you'll automatically be ported over to our new site, and you can expect to receive your first email from The Downballot on Monday. But to make this work, we need folks to become paying subscribers. Much more on that below, but if you're already sold, then you can upgrade your subscription right here!

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But first things first: We're doing this all with the blessing of Daily Kos, from founder Markos Moulitsas on down. Daily Kos has been our home since 2011, and it's been a marvelous one. We've done our best work here, forged incredible connections with our community of readers, and built a reputation for accurate, unbiased coverage that now stretches far beyond these orange walls.

Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Thursday August 15, 2024 · 6:00 AM PDT

2024/08/15 · 06:00

Marconi wireless school, New York. Operators copying messages transmitted from ships at sea, 1912

Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news. You can find our collection of public data at dailykosdata.com.

Please note: The Live Digest is a Democratic presidential primary-free space. It’s also a place to discuss elections, not policy.

Have you seen our big, big news? Daily Kos Elections is becoming The Downballot! We’re a new, independent site, but our mission remains unchanged: shining a spotlight on the thousands of elections below the presidency—races that all too often get overlooked.

You can read all about this announcement right here, and we’ve also prepared an FAQ. But if you have any questions, please fire away. Our operations are 100% reader-supported, so we hope you’ll subscribe today!

David Nir

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Thursday August 15, 2024 · 5:36 AM PDT

2024/08/15 · 05:36

As you may have read, big changes are coming to Daily Kos Elections: We're leaving Daily Kos (with the company's blessing) to create a new independent site called The Downballot! Since we expect folks will have plenty of questions, we’ve put together this FAQ, though feel free to fire away in comments if there’s anything we’ve left unanswered.

So what's The Downballot going to be all about?

If you're a fan of Daily Kos Elections, then you already know, because our mission isn't changing one bit! We'll continue to shine a spotlight on the thousands of elections below the presidency, from Senate to city council, as we have for two decades. We'll bring you comprehensive insights through our Morning Digest newsletter every weekday morning, our unique data sets, and our weekly podcast—just as we do right now.

Why now?

In short, the media landscape has grown increasingly difficult, with plummeting ad revenues leading to serious cutbacks, including at Daily Kos. Our goal is to find a sustainable source of revenue that will allow us to keep focusing on these overlooked but critically important elections.

Here’s how: Instead of relying on advertising, The Downballot will be a subscription-based site, and we're asking you, our readers, for your support. Today's technology has opened up a new model for the media, one that gives small outfits like ours the opportunity to thrive by allowing us to depend on loyal readers rather than fickle advertisers.

Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Thursday August 15, 2024 · 5:00 AM PDT

2024/08/15 · 05:00

Florida state Rep. Tom Leek — Florida Republican Tom Leek (left) and Gov. Ron DeSantis

_{The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.}

Leading Off

● FL State Senate: Next Tuesday's Republican primary for a dark red seat in the Florida state Senate is now one of the most expensive nomination contests for any office in the entire nation, as well as a proxy fight between Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. Longtime state Democratic strategist Steve Schale tweeted Tuesday that more than $13 million has been spent on TV ads for the 7th District, which is more than all but three U.S. House primaries this year.

Three candidates are facing off in this pricey battle to replace their fellow Republican, termed-out state Sen. Travis Hutson, in the 7th District in Florida’s northeast. State Rep. Tom Leek, who chairs the lower chamber's influential Appropriations Committee, sports endorsements from Hutson, DeSantis, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, and other prominent state and local Republicans. There's long been talk that, if Leek wins a promotion to the upper chamber, he could eventually serve as Senate president.

Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Wednesday August 14, 2024 · 6:00 AM PDT

2024/08/14 · 06:00

Welcome to the Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, your liveblog of all of today's campaign news. You can find our collection of public data at dailykosdata.com.

Please note: The Live Digest is a Democratic presidential primary-free space. It’s also a place to discuss elections, not policy.

Subscribe to our podcast, The Downballot! New episodes every Thursday morning.

Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Wednesday August 14, 2024 · 5:00 AM PDT

2024/08/14 · 05:00

_{The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.}

Leading Off

● MO Ballot: After putting up every possible roadblock, Republican officials finally certified an amendment for the November ballot that would allow voters to restore abortion rights in the state of Missouri.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who last week took a disappointing third place in the Republican primary for the state's open governorship, issued a press release Tuesday confirming that the amendment, which will be identified as Amendment 3 on the ballot, had turned in the requisite number of signatures. He also gave the green light to a separate amendment concerning gambling, as well as a statutory measure that would increase the minimum wage.

Daily Kos Elections

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Tuesday August 13, 2024 · 6:00 PM PDT

2024/08/13 · 18:00

WHITING, IN - MAY 03: Jim Facklam votes at the Whiting Fire Department on May 3, 2016 in Whiting, Indiana. Indiana residents are voting today to decide Republican and Democrat presidential nominees. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Downballot primaries continue tonight with races in four states. We'll begin our live coverage at 9 PM ET/8 PM CT when polls close in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We'll be liveblogging the results here and also covering the returns closely on X.

Key Races: Previews | Live cheat-sheet

Results: Associated Press | New York Times | Politico

Jeff Singer

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Tuesday August 13, 2024 · 2:55 PM PDT

2024/08/13 · 14:55

Former Wisconsin state Sen. Roger Roth has not heeded Donald Trump's demand to end his race for Congress

We've entered the final month of the downballot primary season, but there's still more action on Tuesday as voters in four more states choose their nominees for congressional and state offices. Most of the action will be in Minnesota and Wisconsin, which feature primary contests both in key November battlegrounds and contests where winning the primary is tantamount to election.

Connecticut and Vermont are also on tap, but there's less drama in both New England states. No member of Connecticut's all-Democratic House delegation faces any primary opposition whatsoever, and the only one who is vulnerable in November, Rep. Jahana Hayes, already knows she'll be facing a rematch against her 2022 GOP foe, former state Sen. George Logan. There is even less to watch in Vermont, where all the state's prominent officeholders are set to cruise to another term.

Below, you'll find our guide to all of the top races to watch in Minnesota and Wisconsin. When it’s available, we'll tell you about any reliable polling that exists for each race, but if we don't mention any numbers, it means no recent surveys have been made public.

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