We’re elated to announce our largest information within the 21 years since we started overlaying elections: Every day Kos Elections is placing out by itself as an impartial web site referred to as The Downballot!
When you’re already a subscriber to our e-newsletter, the Morning Digest, you will mechanically be ported over to our new web site, and you’ll anticipate to obtain your first e-mail from The Downballot on Monday. However to make this work, we’d like people to grow to be paying subscribers. Way more on that beneath, however if you happen to’re already bought, then you possibly can improve your subscription proper right here!
However first issues first: We’re doing this all with the blessing of Every day Kos, from founder Markos Moulitsas on down. Every day Kos has been our dwelling since 2011, and it has been a fabulous one. We have performed our greatest work right here, solid unimaginable connections with our group of readers, and constructed a popularity for correct, unbiased protection that now stretches far past these orange partitions.
Alongside the way in which, our relentless concentrate on downballot elections—these 1000’s of races beneath the presidency—has helped elevate these important however often-overlooked contests, resulting in essential victories. We have revealed knowledge utilized in each nook of the political world, established particular elections as an indispensable analytic device, and even actually put candidates on the map. We could not be prouder of the work we’ve performed.
However the media panorama has modified significantly in our time right here. Newsrooms throughout the nation have confronted cutbacks as promoting revenues have plummeted, and Every day Kos is not any exception. On the similar time, we all know that so many individuals have come to depend on the service we offer. We wish to be sustainable for years to come back.
So we’re altering, too. As an alternative of relying on promoting, The Downballot can be a subscription-based web site, and we’re asking you, our readers, on your help. At present’s know-how has opened up a brand new mannequin for the media, one that offers small outfits like ours the chance to thrive by permitting us to depend on loyal readers slightly than fickle advertisers.
When you discover our work worthwhile, we hope you will additionally discover our value modest: $7 a month, or a closely discounted $60 a 12 months. You possibly can subscribe proper right here:
We’re a lean, imply machine, with not a nickel of pointless prices. We dispense with all the flamboyant, costly instruments and depend on free merchandise, like Google Docs. We estimate that 98% of our bills are for personnel.
We estimate we’d like at the very least 5,000 paid subscribers to achieve break-even (it will depend on the month-to-month vs. annual breakdown, plus we now have to fork over as much as 18% in charges for each subscription).
However we now have a aim past that as properly, and it isn’t a monetary one. Moderately, we all know that numerous individuals have come to depend on our work analyzing and elevating downballot elections, together with journalists, activists, political professionals, teachers, and fans. As a couple of individual has advised us, we have grow to be a public utility—a key piece of infrastructure within the political ecosystem.
And we might actually wish to keep public. Meaning we don’t wish to put up a paywall—and, at the very least in the beginning, we cannot. There are different profitable newsletters that function in the identical means: They’re capable of hold all their content material free as a result of their supporters select to pay for a subscription though they do not should. We would be over the moon if we might pull that off too, however in fact, we’d like you to make it occur.
So we’re asking people to contribute to our trigger the identical means you may to NPR or PBS—or Every day Kos itself. We have preached the mantra of donors getting the perfect bang for his or her buck for years. Effectively, we will assure that your contributions can be put to extraordinarily good use, and not using a single wasted penny.
And one additional be aware: We’ve got no massive backers—no company sponsors, no billionaire benefactors. Our operations are 100% supported by particular person subscribers.
All proper, so what precisely will The Downballot be doing? Glad you requested!
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We’ll publish our one-of-a-kind e-newsletter, the Morning Digest, each weekday morning with out fail. The Digest summarizes and analyzes each necessary improvement in each aggressive downballot race throughout the nation, from Senate to metropolis council, guaranteeing that our readers are the perfect knowledgeable of their fields.
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We’ll hold producing all kinds of distinctive knowledge units that make clear all of those elections and set the gold customary for accuracy and transparency. And we’ll do every little thing we will to make sure this knowledge stays publicly out there.
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And we’ll put out our podcast each Thursday morning, the place we take a more in-depth have a look at the important thing downballot tales making information every week and interview main political gamers for insights into their work. Our company have included members of Congress, prime knowledge analysts, and even Julia Louis-Dreyfus!
Our focus contains—however is certainly not restricted to—contests for the Senate, the Home, governor, lawyer common, secretary of state, state supreme court docket, state legislature, mayor, county govt, district lawyer, sheriff, and metropolis council, in addition to poll measures. If there is a race too obscure for us, we now have but to come back throughout it.
These workplaces maintain great energy, however they seldom get the eye they deserve. Our mission is to rectify this imbalance, and we all know we have had an impression. However there may be a lot, far more work to be performed.
If you would like to hitch us on this journey, you possibly can subscribe beneath.
And since we all know you might have questions for us, we have put collectively an FAQ that hopefully solutions them. However please be at liberty to fireside away in feedback in case you have any others. We won’t await what comes subsequent!
