Election Deadlines

Friday has the possibility of being a busy day at the election board. It is the deadline for local political parties to designate candidates for offices in which their respective parties didn't have anyone on the ballot for the primary. It is also has an important impact as far as party strategies go leading into November.

Republicans need only fill the vacancy to meet Win Moses. Moses hasn't faced a challenger since narrowly beating Matt Kelty.

Democrats have numerous vacancies on the ballot. Kevin Knuth's party has two choices to address the situation.

First, they can fill as many positions as possible. This would require a wider distribution of resources to many different campaigns. It also serves as a way to spread the resources of Republicans and potentially underfund a viable race.

The other choice is to fill only a few key races. This would allow for a greater share of the party's resources to be used by those campaigns. This is an "all eggs in one basket" approach. It concedes uncontested races. It also allows Republicans to focus on only the contested races.

Knuth and the Democrats have an unenviable task at deciding which approach they will take. They have until noon to figure it out.