jimterrapin

Jim Gilliam backed an idea we had to make finding out what you could run for and how to get on the ballot. It developed into the free site runforoffice.org

He was brilliant, fierce, opinionated, and amazing to work with.

He will be dearly missed.

Ha! Thank you for mentioning that. There is an Open Data org in Canada that we've been working with, and we are also assembling the GIS data for the UK. Hope to have it within the year.

Yes to all of this. There are algorithms to be applied, we just need more/better data to fine tune them. Of course, it's politics, so it's more art than science, but there is a lot to be uncovered with patterns. Great thought.

Yes, you're correct. Attorney General, Treasurer positions, Law Enforcement positions, and a few others do require advanced degrees. We have plans to include that in our data. Thanks.

Thanks very much! Yes, it is showing past results, and we probably won't get to fixing those for another 2 weeks. Some states have been completely refreshed, but we have around 30 more to go.

Thanks very much. You're right about including age requirements. We have the project in a stage where we just want to get it into people's hands to use. We have a lot of blank fields that we will go back to fill and make things more searchable.

It's great to hear what people are looking for. Thanks!

I don't have as much experience building/selling software. I'm sure tha practically everyone on this board has better tech chops than me. I come from a poli-sci background and the work on this project is what exposed me to tech. I can happily speak to features that I'd like to see for political software, but when it comes to building software, I'm a poor resource.

Thanks, we do at @rfonb

Ha. Correct. Ironically, today of all days we are having problems with our GIS. One of our stressed out engineers is working on it!

You're right. We are going to have a more robust data set with those types of searchable features.

We'd love it. http://getinvolved.runforoffice.org/volunteer/?recruiter_id=...

Thanks very much!!

The purpose of the project is to do the local offices. If we don't have any for your county/town, it's just a matter of us not having volunteers for there. Local offices, in my perspective, is where all the opportunity and value is at.

Dang. That's not the intention. We do have limited coverage regarding the local offices. We have done 50 of the largest counties in the US, which totals coverage of about 85 million Americans, however, that's only a quarter of the population.

You can contact me directly at jimcupples@gmail.com and I'll have a Contact Us page up in a day or so.

That's incredibly kind of you to say. Thanks!

Yes on missing President. Our focus is kind of the reverse, but we'll definitely be including that information.

We are definitely interested in including both. We do have coverage of about 55 very large counties, but that leaves a lot yet to work on. And, we will include all Tribal government positions that we come across. Thanks!

You are correct. We're behind on updating from the 11/2016 elections, but will get to them within the next week.

I couldn't agree more. You said it perfectly. The federal offices and state offices, all that stuff is easy. The hard work, and where the opportunity is, is figuring out the obscure Water Districts, Port Commissions, and similar positions. Very winnable, and they create momentum.

We have all of the positions in the following counties, as well as all Federal, State, State legislative positions:

County State Population Los Angeles County CA 10,100,000 New York City NY 8,400,000 Cook County IL 5,200,000 Harris County TX 4,300,000 Maricopa County AZ 4,000,000 San Diego County CA 3,200,000 Orange County CA 3,100,000 Miami-Dade County FL 2,600,000 Dallas County TX 2,480,000 Riverside County CA 2,290,000 San Bernardino County CA 2,000,000 Clark County NV 2,000,000 King County WA 2,000,000 Tarrant County TX 1,900,000 Broward County FL 1,835,000 Bexar County TX 1,818,000 Santa Clara County CA 1,800,000 Wayne County MI 1,775,000 Alameda County CA 1,580,000 Philadelphia PA 1,500,000 Sacramento County CA 1,445,000 Palm Beach County FL 1,370,000 Nassau County NY 1,350,000 Cuyahoga County OH 1,270,294 Hillsborough County FL 1,267,775 Orange County FL 1,169,107 Fairfax County VA 1,130,000 Contra Costa County CA 1,066,000 St. Louis County MO 1,000,000 Honolulu County HI 980,000 Bergen County NJ 938,000 DuPage County IL 917,000 Duval County FL 886,000 Ventura County CA 839,000 Pierce County WA 819,700 Montgomery County PA 812,000 San Francisco County CA 800,000 Multnomah County OR 766,100 Washington DC 658,000 Denver CO 649,000 East Baton Rouge Parish LA 445,200 St. Louis City MO 318,400 Livingston Parish LA 134,000 Ascension Parish LA 114,000 Grand Forks County ND 69,000 Lee County IA 36,000

County populations covered: 85,127,576

I have to get to work, but would love to hear from anyone that's interested in this stuff. We are looking forward to building an API and helping people continue to build.

Mostly, we want people to simply know what they can run for and how to get on the ballot.

Inaccuracies on the site are my fault. I work with amazing students, mostly from USC, and we put it together as best we can. The shapefile stuff is also sometimes wonky. A GIS student from UCLA is the awesome person behind that.

You're correct in some regards, but the model of $=victory is not as consistent as it used to be.

I think of David Brat beating House Speaker Jared Cantor in 2014 as being the canary in the coalmine.

There's never an apples to apples comparison, but Cantor had Brat outraised by over 20 to 1, and Brat beat him. On top of that, campaign messages are more and more delivered and received via free mediums, like YouTube, which brings the cost of a campaign down tremendously.

My name is Jim Cupples and I work on RunForOffice.org Thank you for the suggestions and comments.

I'm a politics nerd that likes local government, and believe it has dormant power for movements. I wrote a piece called The Bottom Carries the Top that explains my thoughts on that stuff.

Anyway, I agree with many of the comments and we think the university positions is a great idea.

If you like, feel free to email me at jimcupples@gmail.com or cupples@nationbuilder.com

Hope to hear from you

My name is Jim Cupples and I work on RunForOffice.org

Thank you for the comments and suggestions. We agree with the comment on student governments, by the way, and would be happy to include them.

Anyone can email me at jimcupples@gmail.com if they like