Wikipedia:Notability (electoral candidates)

Essay on editing Wikipedia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Editor consensus generally frowns on independent pages for political candidates for election. A political candidate is covered in the corresponding election page unless the candidate is exceptional in coverage (see below).

This is an essay on notability.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

This is an essay on the notability guidelines and common deletion outcomes essay for political candidates.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

Candidates for election are an interesting test for Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Many political candidates receive coverage that could be interpreted to meet the general notability guidelines for people, including profiles from reputable news sources and other coverage that emerges from a typical campaign cycle. However, candidates are frequently deleted in deletion discussions. This essay explains common discussion points around notability for these subjects.

Common arguments

Arguments for candidate notability

It's useful: People come to Wikipedia looking for information when they vote. (Counterpoint: usefulness is not the standard for keeping articles)
Bias: Incumbents tend to have pages more than challengers. This is unfair to challengers and is against the neutral point of view policy.

Arguments against notability

Notability is not temporary. Most failed candidates from elections 10 years ago would not be considered notable today. Candidates for an upcoming election, while they seem important now, they will be forgotten after the campaign cycle ends. Editors using this argument may cite the essay Recentism/WP:10YT, and the policy Wikipedia is not a newspaper/WP:NOTNEWS,
Election coverage is largely routine, and candidates should not be the subject of standalone articles unless they win office. Editors may cite the essay Run of the mill (WP:ROTM).

Challenges with political candidate coverage and discussing notability

Independence: Candidate coverage often lacks independence, being heavily based on primary sources such as interviews and subject-published media. Coverage of politicians and elections can be prone to churnalism, and close attention should be paid to whether information has been vetted. In many cases, information about candidates in news articles comes straight from the candidates with minimal vetting. Care should be taken to ensure that a source has performed some fact-checking or analysis.
Depth: Candidate coverage often lacks depth or significance. Good coverage should have some level of fact-checking or analysis. Simple recaps of campaign events are not notable for coverage. Good coverage of a candidate will at a minimum explain why the candidate's existence in the race is important.
Promotion: There are strong incentives for political candidates and their supporters to abuse Wikipedia for advertising and promotion in order to benefit their candidate. Editors should carefully examine sources and ensure they are reliable.
Neutral point of view: There is a high incentive for supporters and opponents to mis-represent the content and notability of subjects, violating Wikipedia's policies for neutral point of view. Typically supporters predominate in arguing for keeping an article.
Canvassing from partisans is common in discussions surrounding the subject, including on talk pages and deletion discussions, which can distort editor consensus.

Typical outcomes

The typical treatment at WP:Articles for deletion is that most candidates are not considered notable. The most common deletion discussion result is to delete or to redirect to a corresponding election article, such as 2010 United States Senate election in Nevada. An election article will cover all candidates in due proportion (WP:DUE) of significant coverage. A candidate may be considered for a standalone article if they meet the above standards, or based on the existing guidelines (WP:PAGEDECIDE or WP:NOPAGE) on when to create standalone pages.

High-profile candidates in contested elections can result in Keep or No Consensus. Reason one: their candidacy is exceptionally notable (the bar for this is fuzzy and can depend on the judgement of participants). Secondly, editors who are very interested in the candidate argue for notability outside the typical present established at AfD.

Coverage examples

This section details how typical forms of coverage are considered for notability.

Examples of coverage insufficient for notability

The following types of sources are insufficient for politician nobility because of lack of independence or depth in coverage. This list is not exhaustive.

Press releases, press kits, or similar public relations materials. This includes content sourced mainly from PR materials without vetting or secondary analysis. Some indicators for primary sources in newspapers include the absence of a byline, or seeing the the identical text in multiple sources without attribution.
Polling reports
Fundraising reports
Campaign launch announcements
Debate coverage that repeats what politicians say without analysis
Lists of election candidates, including voter guides
Political platforms
Endorsement announcements
Government documents such as legislation, executive directives, election filings, or compliance reports
Self-published materials such as websites, social media, or vanity press
Interview content without significant degrees of fact-checking or critical questions

Examples of coverage sufficient for notability

A book, scholarly article, documentary, or other long-form media addressing a politician directly and in detail
Significant coverage of a candidate campaign after the fact
Coverage of a person outside of their candidacy

A sample history of deletion discussions concerning political candidates

More information Article, Contest ...

US political candidates
Article	Contest	Year	Decision	When nominated	Consensus
Amy McGrath (2nd nomination)	US Senate	2025	Keep	E+4 years	McGrath received a degree of national coverage higher than "typical" routine coverage, even though she did not win her election to US Senate.
Graham Platner	US Senate	2025	No Consensus	E−1 year	Keep arguments pointed to wide national coverage. The Delete arguments said the coverage focused on a campaign launch announcement and did not show lasting notability.
Curtis Bashaw	US Senate	2025	Redirect	E+1 year	Sourcing of life before candidacy was insufficient, and campaign coverage was routine.
Will Boyd	US Senate	2025	Keep	E3+3 years E4–1 year	Though Boyd had not successfully won office, editors argued that ten years of campaign coverage was notable.
Tony Campbell (politician) (2nd nomination)	US Senate	2025	Delete	E+7 years	Sources cited were called routine coverage and there were few sources outside of the campaign.
Kelly Tshibaka	US Senate	2024	Redirect	E+1 year	While having some significant profiles as a candidate, consensus discounted that coverage for a failed candidate and held that Tsibaka did not have enough coverage outside of her candidacy.
Tim Sheehy (American politician)	US Senate	2024	Redirect	E−4 months	(Nominated four months before election)
Tim Sheehy (businessman)	US Senate	2024	No Consensus	E−1 month	(Nominated scant weeks before the election) More keep votes, but Delete & Redirect had more Policy and Guideline weight.
Bernie Moreno	US Senate	2024	Keep	E−8 months	(Nominated right before the primary election) Most editors argued for keep as the candidate in a competitive US Senate election. (Though long-time participants tended to lean Redirect/Delete.)
Dan Osborn	US Senate	2024	No Consensus	E−3 weeks	(Nominated scant weeks before the election) No consensus would be reached before the election.
Jon Kiper (2nd nomination)	New Hampshire Governor	2024	Redirect	E−4 months	Routine election coverage
India Walton (2nd nomination)	Mayor of Buffalo, New York	2021-11	Keep	E+1 week	Candidate did not win, but coverage was deemed much wider (national) and deeper than for a typical mayoral candidate.
India Walton	Mayor of Buffalo, New York	2021-06	Keep	E−4 months	It was argued that the winner of the Democratic primary was tantamount to being elected in the general (which turned out to be false). National coverage was cited.
Theresa Greenfield	US Senate	2020	Redirect	E−5 months	Coverage of Greenfield's candidacy was not exceptional. Note: This AfD case gained infamy for getting the attention of Jimmy Wales, national media, the Signpost, three deletion reviews [1] [2] [3], and a lengthy ANI thread.
Ammar Campa-Najjar (3rd nomination)	US House	2020	Keep	E−7 months	High amount of significant coverage, more than routine.
Shahid Buttar (4th nomination)	US House	2020	Redirect	E+1 month	After Greenfield (above), an editor nominated this article to determine if consensus had changed. Consensus deemed Buttar not notable for a standalone article.
Mick Rich	US Senate	2018	Redirect	E−4 months	Coverage was solely about the election. Redirected during the campaign.
Chele Farley	US Senate	2018	Redirect	E−5 months	Coverage was solely about the election. Redirected during the campaign.
Christine O'Donnell	US Senate	N/A	N/A	N/A	Not a deletion discussion, but sometimes used as a benchmark by editors, arguing that a candidate with more coverage than O'Donnell would be notable.