12 Dems qualify for October presidential primary debate


 Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing

October 2, 2019: Twelve Democratic candidates qualified for the Oct. 15 presidential primary debate. Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee together raised $125 million in the third quarter of 2019.

Presidential Facebook ads, 2019-2020 (September 23-29, 2019)

Notable Quote of the Day

“By now, the New Hampshire primary is usually all but decided.

But for the first time in recent memory, there’s no clear frontrunner among the top Democratic candidates as they enter the final stretch before February — intensifying the pressure they face to avoid a distant second or third-place finish that could sink their campaigns.

It’s been years since New Hampshire had a Democratic primary this close, this late in the election cycle. At this point in the 2008 cycle, Hillary Clinton had a 20-point lead over Barack Obama. At this point in the 2016 race, Sen. Bernie Sanders had a double-digit lead over Clinton, and he went on to win the state by 22 points.”

– Daniel Bush, PBS NewsHour digital politics editor 

Democrats

Republicans

Resource Spotlight

The Archive of Political Emails was founded in July 2019 to compile political fundraising and advocacy emails sent by candidates, elected officials, PACs, nonprofits, NGOs, and other political actors.

Web developer Chris Herbert said in an interview with Ballotpedia that the project could fill a gap in the public record.

“The dream is for it to be something like the Wayback Machine for political emails,” Herbert said. “Ideally, it would be something that is around for years or decades so that people can look back and say, ‘This is someone’s first congressional campaign and now they’re running for president.’ It’s a glimpse into how they communicated long ago.”

Presidential email campaigns present a unique technical challenge to capture, however. 

Herbert explained, “These campaigns are very sophisticated and they are going to segment their list down to the point where someone in a different zip code is going to potentially get a different message than someone in another zip code, or someone who has donated vs. someone who hasn’t donated, or someone who is male vs. female. There are a lot of ways they are segmenting their lists, so this is a narrow window into what they are sending out.”

To learn more about the Archive and view screenshots and searchable text from emails sent by 2020 presidential candidates, click here.

What We’re Reading

Flashback: October 2, 2015

Former President George W. Bush attended a fundraiser for his brother, Jeb Bush.