Primary School Is Back

Well, hi.

I wasn’t expecting to be back, and definitely not so soon. However, as I find myself unexpectedly, uh, between jobs, and facing a job market that broadly sucks in any field in which I might hope to be employed, relaunching the newsletter that I always liked to run when I had the time seems like a good idea. However, it is no longer just a project that I can make a fun but trivial amount of money off of; to get right to the point, the relaunched Primary School will be fully paywalled after a brief reintroduction period, and at higher prices than before. (If you subscribe and like what you get, please, please do share with your politics nerd friends, though.) Past subscriptions have been archived, and if you subscribed in the past you will have to do so again. (I believe I have already refunded the last couple months of Primary School subscriptions from before the last shutdown, but if I didn’t, shoot me an email at primaryschool.hello@gmail.com. I will issue the appropriate refunds again if the newsletter is shut down again.) The relaunched newsletter will, however, aim to be even more comprehensive than we were at our best; I suddenly have the free time—and financial incentive—to make it worth your money. (We also always frankly undervalued the newsletter, owing to our starting with a subsidy from a think tank and then the fact that it was never a primary focus of our lives, pardon the pun.)

That means the return of the three main categories of content:

• The regular weekly issue: writeups of the top stories in races below the presidential level with implications for progressive American politics and regular updates on independent expenditures as they are filed with the FEC. Published each Monday. $12.50/month.
• The quarterly-and-more FEC roundups: tracking and analyzing the fundraising, spending, and cash on hand of Democratic House and Senate candidates at the end of each FEC quarter and each pre-election deadline. $15/month.
• The primary previews: election-eve guides to each contested Democratic primary for House, Senate, statewide office, and state legislature in a race Democrats are likely to win (or an explanation of why I’m not covering it.) Primary previews, like the regular weekly issue, also cover races for local offices in (many) select jurisdictions. Published the day before the election(s) covered. $20/month.

If I’m able to keep up a regular pace for a month or two, I might also begin thinking about doing additional content of some sort, whether that’s more researched deep dives or redistricting stuff or whatever else you might like that I can do. (I’m thinking maybe a map of the week where I draw a map from a reader request or submit one from my own extensive archive on Dave’s Redistricting App for an extra couple bucks a month, I don’t know, some of you are almost as nerdy as me and might like that.) First, I want to make sure this actually sticks, though.

The first regular weekly issue will hit your inboxes this Monday, and will begin with a retrospective on the 2026 primary season to date before recapping July’s top headlines. The first primary preview will hit that same date, July 20, and cover Arizona’s July 21 primaries. The first few issues will be temporarily un-paywalled because I don’t expect blind subscriptions, but the gate will drop—for good—after Hawaii’s August 8 primaries. That means you will have to pay to see anything starting on August 9, including coverage of consequential races in Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Florida later in August, Massachusetts and New Hampshire in September, and across the country in November. If you are on the free tier, you will receive these issues in your inbox, but you will lose access on August 9—and receive no new issues—without an upgrade to a paid tier.

While I’d like to be relaunching under different circumstances, I have missed this. I would appreciate it greatly if you made this newsletter something feasible for me to keep doing by subscribing at any tier, and I really do hope to put more time into it than we were ever able to do before.

Welcome back to Primary School. I’ll see you on Monday with that issue and an Arizona preview. (I may also send some more reminder emails about subscribing, given that I will actually, seriously be paywalling now.)

Finally, if you want to talk about hiring me for a project for your campaign or organization, particularly relating to narrative communications, legislative drafting, research, and/or electoral data analysis, hit me up at primary school.hello@gmail.com.