We’ve added several features to our Crib Sheets that we’d like to bring to your attention. Several of these additions are in response to feedback we’ve received from our subscribers.
Race Ratings: Each contested primary race has received a preliminary rating from one star (not at all compelling) to five stars (very hot) based on our initial assessments of incumbent vulnerability, fundraising competitiveness, endorsement quality, consulting expenditures, various “political intangibles” and meaningful consequence of the outcome. These ratings will likely change as new campaign finance reports are filed, new endorsements are made and those intangibles shift. We are only rating primary races right now. Once the primaries are over, we will release our initial general election ratings.
We’ve also created a special set of Crib Sheets focused just on hot state and legislative races (rated four or five stars), contested Republican primary races and contested Democratic primary races. A federal version is coming soon. Year-end campaign finance reports are due January 31.
Key Endorsements: Two years ago, we tracked the endorsements of about two dozen business and trade associations, ideological groups and other organizations. We’re in the process of adding those as we find or receive details about their 2018 primary endorsements. Right now, we have eight organizations’ endorsements entered, including Empower Texans, the Texas Medical Assoc. TEXPAC and the Texas Assoc. of Realtors TREPAC (If you’re from an organization who’d like to be included in our endorsement highlights, we’d love to hear from you.).
Consultant Expenditures: We are also in the process of adding key campaign consultants, based on campaign expenditures made to them or their firms. We have 14 consultants and firms loaded so far, including Jordan Berry, Kevin Brannon, Luke Macias and WPAi (If you’re a consultant who’s not in our system, we’d love to hear from you.).
Printable Version: Printing spreadsheets loaded with candidate details has always posed its challenges. When we transitioned our Crib Sheets to more flexible, interactive data bases, we multiplied those challenges. While we work with the vendor on some flexible printing options, we’re happy to provide a printable Crib Sheet for statewide, legislative and State Board of Education races. It shows only current lists of filed candidates, their latest campaign finance information and their hometowns, but it’s printable on letter-sized paper. We will update the printable version only following key campaign finance deadlines (because it’s kind of a pain to create). Click the link below:
Printable State Crib Sheets 20180121 (PDF)
A federal version will be created early in February after year-end campaign finance results are reported.
Crib Sheets are how we got started. They’ve always been unwieldy beasts, but they capture so much information about the state of play in an election cycle. My consulting clients and our subscribers have found them to be indispensable tools from the very beginning. We are so happy to have evolved them from Microsoft Excel sheets to PDF attachments to online table tabs to Airtable’s interactive bases.
We hope you agree that the 2018 versions are the coolest ones we’ve ever had. If you haven’t looked at them, take a few moments and check them out. You can sort any field, hide and show fields, filter records (such as see just contested Republican primaries for Senate seats) and expand individual candidate records. You won’t affect the underlying data. Just refresh your screen to restore the base views.
More features are in development, including details and statistics about all 181 legislative and 36 congressional districts. Thank you for being a Texas Election Source subscriber!
Jeff
©2018 Texas Election Source LLC
