Deletion of Steven Charles Watkins (politician)

Comment: without prejudice against recreation next month if he wins. As always, candidates are not automatically presumed notable just for being candidates per se, but 12 footnotes (of which one is VoteSmart, a |primary source on which ''every'' candidate ''always'' gets a profile, and one is the raw results of a single public opinion poll, is not enough sourcing to mark him out as more notable than most other candidates. For candidates who haven't already won, the notability tests they have to pass are either "already has preexisting notability for other reasons that would have gotten them an article anyway" (i.e. the reason why Donald Trump was already notable long before he ever even tried to run for anything, let alone win), or "is receiving so much more coverage than most other candidates that they have a credible claim to being ''special''" (c.f. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez). If he wins the seat, then he'll obviously clear  #1 on that basis and an article will be recreatable — but none of this is already notable enough to already earn him an article today, or to make him ''permanently'' notable even if he ''loses'' the seat next month
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:No original research (WP:PRIMARYSOURCES||WP:NPOL)

Comment: there's a lot of dancing around with BLP1E, NPOL, NOTPROMO, and other arguments.  All these are good arguments on their own, but they don't really apply here because the subject passes  through the coverage in the news.  I don't buy the "one-event" argument because it's not "one" event, there are a series of events.  NOTPROMO is a great rule, but any promotional wording can be cleaned up as an editing issue rather than a deletion issue. NPOL is also a good argument, but it is "inclusive" and not "exclusive" (there is more than one path to notability). When it comes down to it, the subject has the coverage for a period of time in reliable third party articles.  That's textbook notability.  Any other issues can be handled in editing
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Notability (WP:GNG)

Comment: and merge per Enos733, the controversy can be outlined there, especially since it's all self-generated coverage/ fail, and seems to fail the ten-year test
Stance: merge
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (WP:BLP1E)

Comment: Per  and the  consensus that candidates for office are not notable purely for their candidacy. Article is a mess with only thing of significance his candidacy. Rest of the article is filled with hilarious crap like "Watkins has said Kansas “was always home in my heart
Stance: delete
Cited policy: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (WP:BLP1E||WP:NPOL)

Comment: Neither PROMO or BLP1E imply that we should not have articles on unelected candidates in general.  rejects political {{tq|advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind}} but explicitly says that {{tq|An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.}}—I just went through and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steven_Charles_Watkins_%28politician%29&type=revision&diff=862501741&oldid=862493468 fixed some minor NPOV issues, so that's satisfied. Secondly, a congressional political campaign is not an "|event", but a sustained engagement with the public sphere and a process of great public interest—and Watkins has clearly lost any  status
Stance: keep
Cited policy: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTPROMO||WP:BLP1E||WP:LOWPROFILE)