| Guide | GDE-089 |
| Topic | Campaign finance records |
| Domain | Financial intelligence |
| Last tested | 1 November 2026 |
Short answer: A campaign finance search starts on the FEC's public database, where you find a candidate's committees and filter their itemised donors. Check each donor match against the filed report before naming anyone, because gifts of $200 or less in a cycle are not itemised.
What is a campaign finance search?
A campaign finance search is a lookup in public disclosure records, chiefly the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) database, that shows who gave money to a candidate, party or political committee, how much they gave and when. The same records show how each committee spent the money.
Federal law asks every campaign, party and political action committee (PAC) to file regular reports of what it raised and spent. Any individual who gives a candidate's committee more than $200 in an election cycle is itemised by name, address, employer and occupation, so the records name donors as well as totals.
That makes campaign finance records one of the most useful public datasets for reporters covering the 3 November 2026 midterms, for researchers testing claims about who backs a candidate and for anyone checking whether a donor also wins contracts or appointments. The data is public and every search can be rerun by a colleague.
| • | Identifying who funds a candidate, party or political committee |
| • | Checking whether a named person or company gave to a campaign |
| • | Testing a public claim about a donor, a total or a super PAC |
| • | Tracing outside spending by groups that are not part of a campaign |
| • | Building a dated donation timeline to set against votes, contracts or appointments |
How do you run a campaign finance search on a US candidate?
Find the committees behind the candidate, search their itemised donors, then follow the money that flows around the campaign rather than through it.
Five sources cover most federal campaign finance work, and each one lets you check the others.
FEC campaign finance data: No login prompt on the front page. The official FEC search for candidates, committees, individual contributions, spending and the filed reports behind every figure.
OpenFEC API: Returns FEC data in bulk for donor lists that run to thousands of rows.
OpenSecrets: Federal and state data organised into donor lookups and outside spending and dark money pages.
IRS political organization search: No login field on the search form. Searches Forms 8871 and 8872 filed by section 527 political organisations, plus paper Form 990.
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: Annual Form 990 returns for tax-exempt groups, useful when a politically active nonprofit funds ads or a super PAC.
What we tested: On 1 November 2026 we opened the sources in a browser with no account, key or login, except the OpenFEC API, which asks for a key before any request, using public inputs only: a national party committee name on the FEC committee search and OpenSecrets, and a national political organisation, the Republican Governors Association, on the IRS and ProPublica searches. No individual donor was searched and no donor record was copied. Nothing failed outright. The OpenFEC API was not tested because its documentation says it runs on an API key and asks for one before any request. The FEC data, ProPublica and $200 threshold rows are partly confirmed: the FEC individual contribution search was not run to avoid donor records, ProPublica returned no nonprofit record for the political organisation, and the PAC calendar-year threshold was not confirmed. The statute row was not rechecked and carries its 29 October result.
The committee search loaded and ran with no login or account prompt. A search for a national party committee name returned 33 committees, including look-alike names such as convention and state committees, each with a committee ID, treasurer, type and registration date. We did not run an individual contribution search, to avoid donor records. | ||
The documentation page loaded and says the API runs on an API key, with 1,000 calls an hour for a registered key. It asks for a key before any request, so no key was requested or entered and no request was made. | ||
The site loaded with no login. A site search for a national party committee name returned about 168,000 results, and the party committee's Fundraising Overview page opened with totals for the 2024 election cycle, labelled as based on FEC data released on 16 September 2025. We did not check whether its custom data service carries a fee. | ||
The basic search form loaded with no login field. A search of Form 8872 filings for a national political organisation, the Republican Governors Association, returned one organisation with its EIN. We did not open its filings. | ||
The search ran with no login. The same political organisation returned no nonprofit record and 1,166 filing-text matches, so a political organisation can be missing from the nonprofit results. The page states no cost. | ||
The FEC page on individual contributions confirms House and Senate candidate committees itemise a gift that exceeds $200 or aggregates over $200 in the election cycle, with name, address, employer, occupation, date and amount. The FEC party committee page applies a calendar-year $200 test to party committee records. The PAC rule and the Form 8872 test were not rechecked on this date. | ||
The statute text bars using contributor names and addresses copied from reports to solicit contributions or for commercial purposes, and 11 CFR 104.15 permits news publication where contributor data is not the main purpose. Not rechecked on 1 November; the result is from 29 October. |
These checks are a snapshot from one session on 1 November 2026: one committee search, one organisation search and one party committee page, run in one browser from one location. They show what each source returns for a single public name, not how well a search performs.
The Filed-Report Rule: Open the report behind every figure before you print it. Cite the filing and its amendment status, not the search result alone.