Federal Election Commission

Every dollar someone gives to a federal candidate or political committee gets reported to the FEC. This dataset is the full record: who gave how much, when, where they live, what they do for work, and to whom. You can see donation trends, identify major donors, track which campaigns are getting small-dollar surges, or spot regional giving patterns. It's the raw material behind "who's funding this race" stories.

Follow the money between political groups. This shows every time a PAC gives to another PAC, a party committee sends funds somewhere, or a joint fundraising group splits donations. You can see who's moving money to whom, how much, and when. It's the behind-the-scenes financial network of American politics.

When a campaign or PAC writes a check, they have to report it to the FEC. This dataset is the complete record of those checks from 2008 onward. You can see exactly which vendors got paid, where they're located, what they were paid for, and which campaign paid them. A consulting firm might have worked with dozens of campaigns across different cycles. A media buyer might show up in thousands of records. This is how you trace money flow through the political ecosystem and see who's doing business with whom.

When a Super PAC or advocacy group spends money to boost or attack a candidate in a federal election, they have to tell the FEC about it. This data is all those reports from 2010 through the 2026 elections. You can see who's spending, how much they're spending, which candidate they're targeting, and whether they're for or against them. The FEC demands quick reporting close to elections, so you can also track when the money actually ran versus when the report arrived. It's a window into outside money flowing into federal races.

Every committee that raises or spends money in federal elections has to register with the FEC. This file lists all of them for 2023-2024. It's basically the phone book for political money. You get the committee's name, what type it is (candidate committee, PAC, Super PAC, etc.), which party it's affiliated with, who runs it, and where it's located. If you want to know where campaign money actually flows from, you use this file to connect donor records to committee records to candidate records. Without this, all those donation numbers are just IDs with no names attached.

Want to know who ran for Congress or President in 2024? This is the master list. It tells you their name, which party they represent, what office they were running for, whether they were the incumbent, and which state they're from. You can use candidate IDs in this table to look up how much money they raised or spent, who donated to them, and where the donations came from.