Click here (and bookmark) this incredibly valuable tool. It's the Swing State Project's sortable calendar of filing deadlines, primary dates, and, where applicable, runoff dates in all fifty states. Very useful - try it! (We'll also permalink it in the right-hand sidebar under "SSP Resources.")
I also wanted to take this opportunity to ask: which states have party conventions instead of or in addition to primaries, and how do they each work? I know, for instance, that Minnesota, Connecticut and Utah all have conventions, but their effects on ballot access differ somewhat from one another. Convention experts, please enlighten us.
The thing is, at least on the federal level, there aren't too many interesting seats left to fill. Also, it's getting awfully late. Last cycle, almost every plausibly competitive challenger had filed by now. One of the few who did not, Dave Mejias in NY-03 on Long Island, gave Peter King his toughest re-election fight ever, but was hampered by his late start. Mejias didn't get in until late May, but that was only because another candidate, David Denenberg, himself entered late and then dropped out just two days after announcing.
Disappointingly, NY-03 appears to be without a candidate deep into the season once more. I'd hate to give King a free ride. In any event, are there any other unfilled races in the states on this list that you think we might have any kind of shot at?
The federal filing deadline in Illinois, which has the earliest congressional primary in the nation, has already passed. The second-earliest primary is in Maryland, and their deadline is coming up in just a week. Here's a look at the deadlines looming over the next couple months:
State
Deadline
Maryland
12/03/07
Texas
01/02/08
Ohio
01/04/08
Mississippi
01/11/08
West Virginia
01/26/08
Kentucky
01/29/08
You can find SSP's complete, sortable calendar of all filing deadlines and primary dates at this link.
Follow this link for a cool new SSP feature: a sortable calendar containing congressional filing deadlines, primary dates and run-off dates. The best part is that you can click on the column headers to re-arrange the list. So you can view things alphabetically by state, or chronologically by filing deadline or primary date.
We've drawn on data collected by the FEC (PDF), so it should be accurate. But if you notice anything that looks amiss, kindly let us know. Please note, though, that the SSP calendar does not contain presidential data. The FEC file does have that information, and the Green Papers does an admirable job of keeping up-to-date with the constantly shifting presidential primary calendar.
In any event, please check out our calendar and let us know if it works for you. I've tried it successfully in both Firefox and IE for Windows, but not on a Mac. Just make sure you have JavaScript enabled. We'll also place a permalink to it in our new "Resources" section on the right-hand sidebar. (Look just below the "About the Site" section.) Thanks, and enjoy!
