{
  "enabled": true,
  "election_cycle": 2026,
  "judgment_date": "2026-10-20",
  "retained_fraction": 0.5,
  "description": "User-selected current-election judgment overlay; not a fitted or historically validated scandal coefficient.",
  "units": "D-minus-R margin percentage points. These are margin penalties, not candidate vote-share points.",
  "scale": {"minor": 1.0, "moderate": 2.0, "major": 4.0},
  "poll_overlap": "Retain half the stated full effect because existing polls and candidate history may already reflect the controversy. This 50% choice is an editable assumption, not an estimated overlap rate.",
  "uncertainty": "Keep existing simulated error scales. This translates current centers and resimulates outcomes; intervals are conditional on the chosen manual adjustment and do not estimate uncertainty about its size.",
  "candidates": [
    {"state":"FL","candidate":"Ashley Moody","side":"rep","severity":"Minor","full_margin_penalty_pp":1.0,
     "coverage_date":"2025-04-22","topic":"Hope Florida settlement and political-spending controversy",
     "evidence":"Prior review traced settlement approval and subsequent transfers. Personal direction of political transfers is not established; her office says another agency negotiated the agreement.",
     "sources":["https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/aug/13/alexander-vindman/ashley-moody-senate-hope-florida-medicaid/"],
     "source_status":"Previously reviewed source; earliest Moody-specific news date remains uncertain."},
    {"state":"GA","candidate":"Mike Collins","side":"rep","severity":"Moderate","full_margin_penalty_pp":2.0,
     "coverage_date":"2025-11-21","additional_coverage_date":"2026-07-16","topic":"Congressional-resource ethics review and son-in-law's extremist-content reporting",
     "evidence":"OCC referral concerns resource use and is not a finding of a violation. CNN reported extremist material shared by Collins's son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II; this was not his son. Collins says others do not speak for him. No separate family-conduct penalty is stacked.",
     "sources":["https://conduct.house.gov/reports/investigations/occ-referral-regarding-rep-michael-collins","https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cg/date/2026-07-16/segment/01","https://www.axios.com/local/atlanta/2026/08/04/mike-collins-david-alan-scheer-white-nationalist-social-media"],
     "source_status":"Official referral and contemporaneous CNN reporting verified."},
    {"state":"KS","candidate":"Roger Marshall","side":"rep","severity":"Moderate–major","full_margin_penalty_pp":3.0,
     "coverage_date":"2026-09-08","topic":"Medical-debt collection and patient arrests",
     "evidence":"New reporting described lawsuits and arrests connected to collection proceedings involving Marshall's former medical practice. Arrests related to court processes must not be described as a conviction of the candidate. The claimed focus-group effect is the user's salience judgment; no representative focus-group estimate has been verified or fitted.",
     "sources":["https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/us/politics/roger-marshall-obgyn-doctor-debts.html","https://monorepo-sample2.nyt.net/2026/09/08/us/politics/roger-marshall-obgyn-doctor-debts.html"],
     "source_status":"NYT indexed reporting located; primary nytimes.com article body was inaccessible through web open."},
    {"state":"ME","candidate":"Susan Collins","side":"rep","severity":"Minor","full_margin_penalty_pp":1.0,
     "coverage_date":"2026-09-22","topic":"New donor-contract and past-investigation reporting",
     "evidence":"Retain disputed donor-contract reporting from the prior review. Collins denies wrongdoing; no bribery charge or finding is asserted. User rates electoral impact minor.",
     "sources":["https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2026-09-22/the-fbi-anti-corruption-squad-was-circling-susan-collins-until-trump-got-in-the-way","https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/26/an-fbi-inquiry-complicates-susan-collinss-campaign-message-maine/"],
     "source_status":"Prior reviewed reporting and contemporaneous follow-up located."},
    {"state":"MI","candidate":"Mike Rogers","side":"rep","severity":"Minor","full_margin_penalty_pp":1.0,
     "coverage_date":"2026-10-14","topic":"Gas-card promotion and family contracting/conflict reporting",
     "evidence":"Reporting describes his wife's gas-card promotion and raises questions about family business contracts during his intelligence-chairmanship tenure. This overlay does not classify the promotion as adjudicated bribery or establish an unlawful quid pro quo. Use one minor candidate-level penalty for both stories.",
     "sources":["https://www.thedailybeast.com/must-win-trump-candidate-mike-rogers-wifes-desperate-gas-stunt-revealed","https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/mike-rogers-wife-kristi-military-contracts-aegis-michigan-senate"],
     "source_status":"Contemporaneous published reporting located; allegations retained as allegations."},
    {"state":"SC","candidate":"Darline Graham","side":"rep","severity":"Minor–moderate","full_margin_penalty_pp":1.5,
     "coverage_date":"2026-07-13","topic":"Family succession, appointment and qualification criticism",
     "evidence":"Darline Graham succeeded her deceased brother and became the Republican nominee. User regards family-succession criticism as a minor/moderate electoral liability. Appointment and related criticism are not themselves proof of unlawful nepotism.",
     "sources":["https://rollcall.com/2026/07/14/darline-graham-sworn-in-senate-sister/","https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/13/trump-recommends-lindsey-grahams-sister-serve-rest-his-senate-term/"],
     "source_status":"Current candidate identity confirmed by existing forecast and contemporaneous reporting; user explicitly confirmed Darline."},
    {"state":"TX","candidate":"James Talarico","side":"dem","severity":"Minor","full_margin_penalty_pp":1.0,
     "coverage_date":"2026-06-22","additional_coverage_date":"2026-10-13","topic":"Gender-policy attack coverage and fabricated health rumors",
     "evidence":"Policy statements and attack advertising generated adverse coverage. Health rumors were false/unsubstantiated and are not coded as candidate misconduct. The minor penalty is the user's hypothesized electoral effect of negative coverage; no measured rumor effect is asserted. Earlier address reporting receives no separate penalty.",
     "sources":["https://politifact.com/article/2026/jun/22/talarico-artificial-intelligence-ads-senate-texas/","https://www.factcheck.org/2026/10/republican-ads-distort-the-facts-in-claiming-democratic-support-for-sex-changes-for-kids/","https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2026/10/what-we-know-about-claim-recording-proves-texas-senate-candidate-james-talarico-treated-ohio-mental-health-facility.html"],
     "source_status":"Fact-check reporting distinguishes genuine policy controversy from fabricated health claims."},
    {"state":"TX","candidate":"Ken Paxton","side":"rep","severity":"Major","full_margin_penalty_pp":4.0,
     "coverage_date":"2023-05-27","additional_coverage_date":"2025-07-10","topic":"Impeachment, affair/divorce reporting and ethics controversies",
     "evidence":"Impeachment and subsequent divorce reporting fall inside the previous-election-for-this-seat window. Paxton was acquitted on the impeachment articles; legal allegations are not convictions. Older resolved allegations are context, not separately stacked penalties.",
     "sources":["https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/16/ken-paxton-acquitted-impeachment-texas-attorney-general/","https://apnews.com/article/b50ad9782f9a89e017696ffa2c4d6679","https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/22/angela-paxton-ken-paxton-divorce-adultery-republican-women/"],
     "source_status":"Acquittal and subsequent public reporting verified."}
  ]
}