This is our first time during this panel doing this pencil since 2014. We are grateful to our host at net roots nation. We will be taking questions from the folks in the room and folks online. You can tweak us to our twitter account and we will try to get your questions as well. The blogsrit of though, this panel has been about interactivity. Im going to give extreme the quick introductions about who we are and we are going to get to our questions because we think arming progressive with information about the elections they need to be fighting in is what is going to make this the most effective we can be heading into the 2018 midterms. My name is david nir, and i run the part of our website called daily kos elections. We have the morning digest which covers every key race for senate, house, governorships, and the down ballot including state legislatures, mayoral races, and more obscure than that. Obscure than that. We are responsible for daily kos candidate endorsement program. The team here is all involved in helping us choose who we decided to support and who we feel we should ask our community to support. On the panel, starting from my left is david nir. He works for the nfl. His specialty is International Elections and he is one of the main writers on our monthly International Elections digest, which is a great will if you want to know about what is going on. Just to my left is jeff singer. Jeff is our senior elections writer at daily kos elections. He has been with the team since 2013. Among other things, jeff is the guy responsible for calculating 2016residential president ial Election Results for every Congressional District. We are in the process of calculating it for every legislative district. Everywhere you see that Hillary Clinton won 58 in such and such a district, the reason we know that is because of jeff tossed efforts. Our newest member of the team yeah, i think that deserves a round of applause. [applause] david and it was member of our fiddler. Carolyn jarman once described it as the indie label of Democratic Party committees because there are so many thousands of legislative radiu races that knowing who to support and which seeks to target and which chambers to target, that is all very difficult information for normal civilians to come by, and that is what they are focused on. Those legislative races are so important. The legislators who create the the Congressional District that affect the house, and those gerrymandered, are part of why republicans are in charge for now. Yn, and sherol writes her own newsletter which covers exactly that. Goingson in the legislature and state governments throughout the country. Donner. Ight is Daniel Daniel is from portland, oregon. s focus is maps and charts and graphs of all kinds. He loves to visualize the data we pull together. In particular, he has been working on a lot of data visualizations about the special elections we have seen since trump was elected where trump has been far outperforming all manner of historical trends. Im sure he will want to talk about that later today. Last but not least, david jarman from seattle, washington. David has been working with the Daily Kos Elections Team since 2008. Among his many specialties, he loves to take deep dives into the demographic big pictures and in particular, he has been looking at the role that education played in defining the electorate in 2016 and what that will mean Going Forward. That is enough from us. We are going to turn it over to it looks like we have a microphone here. Just speak loudly. I will repeat the questions for the audience on livestream. Go ahead. Ok . I wanted to ask a question about a topic i am ashamed to say i do not know a lot about the background but omaha. What happened in omaha . What was the situation there . David the question is about the election in omaha. I presume youre talking about the omaha mayoral race that happened earlier this year. This was a difficult situation that daily kos found itself in. We endorsed a candidate, hes ath, who was running for the mayoral race in omaha. I will be very forthright. We did not do the Due Diligence on him that we should have. It turned out that he had a record on abortion rights that a felt was not acceptable for Progressive Community like daily kos to support him. I want to be very clear. We did not say that we thought that democrats should not support him and we should kick him out of the party. For daily kos, we have to be selective about the endorsements that we make. We were not as selective as we should have been. When we learned about his record on abortion, we chose to withdraw endorsement, but we did not attack him publicly, and we stated our reasons for the withdrawal, and we moved on. Heath mello wound up losing to the republican incumbent. There are folks that they mello lost because of what happened with the endorsement. Other organizations and folks were unhappy about mellos abortion stance. Others were unhappy about people making issue with his abortion stance. The math seems to be fairly simple. In the first round, the incumbent mayor was the republican. Ory were separated by two three points. The problem was, there was a third candidate running in the race who was also a republican. Mello andf between the republican mayor, the third candidate the other republican endorsed the incumbent, and ultimately, that was the margin that she prevailed by. So i am sure it did not help mellos campaign. In the end, it turned out the electorate in omaha in 2017 was republican for him to overcome, particularly facing a republican mayor. I actually have two, so feel free to answer the first. Alabamas Senate Special election. Any update on what is happening . So does john has some outside kennedy has some outside shot . That was sort of on the target list this year, but the first anyannouncements slightly more reputable people . David n. that is fine. We will get to both. We appreciate the short and to the point questions. Andspecial election recruitment in new yorks 11th district based in Staten Island. For the Alabama Senate race, the primary is this tuesday. If no one gets 50 takes majority there will be a runoff between the top two candidates. It is alabama. It is a very, very, very tough race. Nobody is going to deny that. We do have a democrat, a former u. S. Attorney, who has connections, some profile. If lightning strikes and then some, maybe he is in the right place at the right time to pull off something. He has a fews, people running against him, including Robert F Kennedy junior. He is not related to the kennedy family. There is nothing against the law saying you cannot run for office if you are not a real kennedy. [laughter] but the issue is, it is a pretty low energy race. The worry is that democratic voters will vote for the name they recognize even if he is not the Robert F Kennedy junior or anything like that. We have seen some democratic luminaries endorsed the jones jones. Doug no one is spending much money here. We are going to have to see on to say how things look, and maybe we will have a runoff. Hopefully, kennedy will not win outright, but we will have to see how that goes. Democrats are aware this is a problem. We are some effort into it. Can we turn off all cell phones, please . Thanks. District ons 11th Staten Island is the only part of new york city that trump won, and trump did very well in Staten Island. He went from a district that mccain had narrowly won, and went to trump by double digits. Republican incumbent is the former set mylan the district attorney. He did not indict the police ,fficer who killed eric garner and that was a big controversy. He won very easily. It is a very tough district. That mylan is for typical prototypical trump Staten Island is prototypical trump territory. He is an army veteran. His name escapes me at the moment, but he is a purple heart veteran. Profile,have fit the but it is a really tough district. New york city is the most tv adsve place to air then, except for parts of new jersey. It is one of those district where we should compete there, and if a year from now, we are talking about thank you. Hello, my name is Kathleen Allen and i am running for the house of representatives in georgias district. Seventh[applause] i am a progressive and my platform is prohealth. Four parts. We need to move to single payer. I would lose my job and i am ok with that. Trial lives, and i not, i mean respecting the life of the mother as well as the baby. And men, women, and children from before birth to old age. , in myeer, which is district, majority minority. And we need to make progress on issues in our nation. More that needs to be done before they vote on issues. They need to be more willing to do the hard work. My question to you is, how early in the process do you and yours a progressive endorse a progressive candidate . Do you wait until after qualifying . Do you wait until after the primary . Do you do first come, first serve . The question to us is how we go to our endorsement process. That is a terrific question. I am in the works of a lengthier post explaining it. I will try to answer in brief. Generally speaking, dailykos avoids endorsing in the primaries. It is not a hard and fast rule. But we usually do. The reason why is we dont want to be perceived as the big national group, big footing into a local race, telling people who to vote for when local folks can , do an excellent job of picking candidates. Typically, we wait until after primaries or until after a filing deadline if there is only one candidate running. , we probably will wait on our 2018 endorsements until 2018. That gets to the question of timing. I could go on for far too long on this question. There are so many criteria and so many factors. The one that i will mention is that generally speaking, we try to get involved in races we are not going to get huge amount of attention from organizations. The reason we do that is because if you are a toptier candidate running in a multimillion dollar race, they will come in with money for you. Even if we could raise 100,000 in small donations, which is a lot of money the bang for the , buck in a multimillion dollar race is going to be smaller than a lower tier race are there is less money involved. In the event there is a big wave we have a chance to capitalize on, we can help expand the playing field. If the deterrent policy hypothetically if the deed triple c hypothetically if dccc hypothetically is claiming seats, we want to claim the next. We can afford to take the risks. Our community is very open to backing candidates who are longer shots. I have always been very proud of it. Sometimes, the longer shots win. Thank you. I do work with the dmo. I am looking anyone on any hot cake on any big races. Most seats are mostly nonpartisan. We have about 22,000 municipal in november of this year. Anything that is not big city stuff that we are not aware of that we should get progressive in . [applause] the question is about which municipal races that are below the radar since there are so many of them, that progressives can or should get involved in this year. Past thatt was in the i think was a positive sign was in san antonio, where there were a number of democratic victories. In the spring, they included the most republican part of san antonio, the democrats were able to win. That certainly points towards positive results Going Forward in those places that are urban or suburban and historically republican. In terms of the 22,000 municipal races, it is difficult for us to cover those races, just as a reality of the number people in the races involved. I think there are some great blogs. Bleeding heartland in iowa. It does really great work at the state level and can drill down to a lower level than those of us looking federally and nationally can do. Chip in. One specific race is the detroit city clerks race that has come across the radar. Did he get through yesterday . Yes. In detroit, there have been voting problems from a number of years. The clerk there is being challenged by a young rising star, a guy named garlin gilchrist. That has come across the radar because of the importance of election administration. These races tend to get ignored. On a bigger level , secretary of state races are also important. On the municipal level, we times as many10 people on the panel to hit those, but we really try to Pay Attention to the nuts and bolts races, attorneys general, secretaries of state, the kinds of things that really matter and affect peoples daily lives but that we dont really think about. Thank you. Actually i would like to add the , level of excitement i have seen on the state legislative level, under most peoples radar, already does not this year a Record Number of , candidates are running. Candidates are stepping up to run all over the country. We will see the level of excitement manifest itself. I am really excited. Im jesse. It sounds like im just trying to stop you, but i really dont know whats going on in these races. [laughter] there is a state election in mississippi, but candidates dont run with party labels in special elections in mississippi, so i have not been certaintytermine with with the democrat is. Less obscurely, i have been heartened by the virginia races. I see that one dropped out. I was wondering if you had any insight if there is a replacement in the race . The question is there is a virginia legislative race for democrat a democrat who recently dropped out and do we have an insight to a replacement . The answer is yes. On tuesday, there is a local caucus to replace the seat. A woman who ran last cycle or the one before is setting up to run. It brings the total of women running in seats Hillary Clinton won in the Virginia House of to she won 17 10 11. Of the current seats. That is taken care of. , experience. Es excited about virginia this year. Mississippi, you make a good point in terms of the special elections and nonpartisan nature. Mississippi is a really special animal when it comes to state legislative elections. Do you know the state legislator can overturn the results, like they did a couple years ago . They are difficult to track because of the nonpartisan nature in terms of who is what down there, but its a really unique system. We are keeping an eye on it. For the folks watching on the livestream, you can tweet us. Next question. A question on dana rohrabacher. Because we have the top two primary system, would that change your mind to endorse . Talk thatn time with mark walker, multiple democrats could screw us over and have republicans advance. The question is about dana rohrabacher, very provladimir putin republican in california. The 39th district . 48, excuse me. That district is where arrested development is set. [laughter] so the question is whether democrats are concerned about not being able to get to the november general election past the top two primary, and would daily kos endorse in that race early as a result . It would require remarkable circumstances of the second republican candidate whose name is eluding me. We have no idea whether he has anything going for him, other than the ability to self fund. We would need a replay of the San Bernardino seat, where the republicans managed to split the republican share down the middle, and four democrats split the democratic share almost equally as well, so you have 25, 181818 situation. Its possible, but i wouldnt overly sweat it. I cannot talk about the endorsement process. I do not think we will endorse until after the primary, which may be too late. Theres also a chance that through the natural sorting process that one of the democrats develops a stronger profile, whether through beating the other one through fundraising or just natural campaign talents. We will wait and see. Unfortunately. The next question . Good morning. Im jim. I am running for congress in new jerseys fourth district. [applause] thank you. You may be called twoandahalf years ago when governor christie screamed at that guide to sit down that guy to sit down and shut up. That was me. [laughter] [applause] that is my political calling card in new jersey. Most people know me as the sit down and shut up guy. I am running on a very progressive campaign. I was a delegate for bernie sanders. Full,unning on a very bold progressive campaign. I appreciate the fact you hold on not endorsing until primaries are over. I understand the difficult nature of it. I have 11 months until that happens, what would be your top three suggestions for someone like myself to engage the Daily Kos Community . I write somewhat regularly. Are there things you would say to do to help raise my profile within the community and get the support im going to need to win the race . That is an excellent question. What should a candidate who is interested in an endorsement to from daily kos do to raise the profile on the website . You mentioned you had been writing on the website. Thats the number one way to get people excited. Campaigns reach out was very often. I say if you do not already, create an account. I recommend you say for congress in the username so that they know you are running for congress. Post regularly. The thing that people are familiar with, it is a very big site. Theres a lot of content churning through. Not everything you write is going to get attention. Its not possible. That is true even for the stuff that we write. The rest of the time, its all right, but it moves on. Try to not get discouraged. Keep posting. Also, responding comments to users. People have questions. Even if they dont have questions, just remarks, engage with them. That is how you will find supporters in your district or state. They will want to volunteer. Those are the best ways. Also, share the stuff you write on social media, possibly with your supporters directly on your email list. Having your supporters come to daily kos is a good thing. Not all of them will be familiar with it. You do not want to say, everyone, sign up and say how awesome i am. You dont want that to look like sock puppetry. You want it to be organic. Those are things i would emphasize. When the Community Gets excited about someone,