In TPM’s election coverage we’re generally tightly focused on congressional elections. But over the last three-plus months we turned our attention almost exclusively to the presidential contests. But with the primary season coming to a close and particularly with the hiatus in contests on the Democratic side of the ledger, we’re digging back into the congressional races. And we’d like to ask for your help.
One of the reasons I’m so keen on our congressional coverage is that it’s in our coverage of hundreds of races around the country that our model — relying on tips and leads from readers around the country — really shines.
So keep us posted on what you’re seeing in the local press, local candidate events and what you’re hearing in your area. Just by way of example, during the Social Security battle in early 2005, I think TPM had political intelligence as good as anyone in the country — in terms of what was happening in the field, I think better than all the pols and political committees. And it was entirely because a piece couldn’t appear in a local paper or in constituent mailings or be heard at a townhall without one of our readers tipping us to it. Google and Nexis are great levelers of the investigative playing field. But as they say in the intel world, there’s no substitute for robust human intelligence.
Whether you’re just a close reader of the election news or involved in a campaign or reporting on one for a newspaper in your area, it is simply invaluable to us if you can keep us up on the details of the races in your state and district.
