Campaign Finance ExplorerCFE
Overview Compare Search Methodology

Data Sources & Methodology

Covering $71.3B in contributions and $94B in expenditures across 51 states with real data.

Primary Data Sources

The Accountability Project (Primary)

Pre-cleaned CSV datasets from the publicaccountability S3 bucket. Covers 33 states with contribution and/or expenditure records spanning from the early 1990s to 2026.

State-Direct Bulk Downloads

Official bulk data from: California (CAL-ACCESS RCPT_CD, 13.2M records), New York (SBOE, 16.5M records), New Mexico (CFIS), New Jersey (ELEC), Oklahoma (Guardian), Nebraska (NADC), and Pennsylvania (expenditure reports).

FollowTheMoney API (Supplementary)

Candidate-level campaign finance summaries overlaid on state data. Rate-limited; covers select states for the 2023-2024 cycle.

Seed Data (Placeholder) — 0 states

show population-weighted estimates. These are clearly labeled and will be replaced as real data becomes available.

Data Processing

Raw CSVs are streamed through a normalization pipeline that maps each state's column names to a common schema (contributor, amount, date, recipient, party, office). The pipeline supports 15+ alias arrays covering variations like "ContributorName", "donor_name", "CTRIB_NAML", etc.

Contributor names are normalized: "LAST, FIRST" is reversed to "FIRST LAST", common suffixes (Jr, Sr, Inc, LLC, etc.) are stripped, and whitespace is collapsed.

Entities are classified into individual, committee, organization, or government using ~50 keyword patterns applied to name strings.

Amendment deduplication: For states with amendment tracking (e.g., California), only the latest amendment per filing is kept. CA's 19M raw records reduce to 13.2M after dedup.

Aggregate/placeholder entries ("Aggregate Donations Under $100", "Unitemized", etc.) are excluded from top-N rankings but their dollar amounts still count toward state totals.

Coverage by State

51
Both Contribs & Expends
0
Contributions Only
0
Expenditures Only
StateDataYearsContribsExpendsTotal ContributionsTotal ExpendituresRecordsSources
Alabama ALReal2010-2024✓✓$501.6M$447.5M1.1M
APftm
Alaska AKReal2002-2024✓✓$267M$329.6M1.7M
APftm
Arizona AZReal1994-2024✓✓$1.2B$519.9M6.1M
APftm
Arkansas ARReal2015-2024✓✓$76.5M$48M395K
APftm
California CAReal1990-2026✓✓$16.7B$47.3B20M
AP
Colorado COReal1990-2026✓✓$1.3B$1.1B3.5M
APftm
Connecticut CTReal1998-2024✓✓$415.7M$222.2M1.7M
APftm
Delaware DEReal2000-2024✓✓$179.6M$209.4M504K
APftm
Florida FLReal1990-2025✓✓$6.2B$856M26M
APftm
Georgia GAReal2006-2022✓✓$907.2M$359.9M2.1M
AP
Hawaii HIReal2006-2023✓✓$271.8M$143.5M560K
AP
Idaho IDReal1999-2022✓✓$167.8M$71.3M535K
AP
Illinois ILReal1994-2026✓✓$5.9B$4B6.2M
AP
Indiana INReal1990-2026✓✓$1.2B$982.1M2.2M
AP
Iowa IAReal2000-2024✓✓$589.8M$754.7M2.8M
AP
Kansas KSReal1999-2022✓✓$33.4M$39.7M76K
AP
Kentucky KYReal1992-2024✓✓$1.1B$624.3M878K
AP
Louisiana LAReal1998-2022✓✓$12.2M$1.2B1.5M
AP
Maine MEReal2008-2020✓✓$348.6M$247.7M552K
AP
Maryland MDReal1991-2020✓✓$872.4M$845.7M6.2M
AP
Massachusetts MAReal1993-2026✓✓$1.3B$1.8B4.9M
AP
Michigan MIReal1992-2020✓✓$1.6B$1.4B18M
AP
Minnesota MNReal2000-2023✓✓$540M$216.1M364K
AP
Mississippi MSReal2008-2023✓✓$10.2M$67.7M26K
AP
Missouri MOReal2001-2023✓✓$1.1B$780.9M1.7M
AP
Montana MTReal1998-2026✓✓$9.1M$102.4M192K
AP
Nebraska NEReal2006-2026✓✓$214.1M$259.8M177K
AP
Nevada NVReal2006-2021✓✓$860.8M$429.4M581K
AP
New Hampshire NHReal2014-2023✓✓$21.3M$58.1M107K
AP
New Jersey NJReal2006-2025✓✓$204.5M$1.4B790K
AP
New Mexico NMReal1997-2020✓✓$169.2M$176.7M716K
AP
New York NYReal1999-2026✓✓$5.5B$7.2B17M
AP
North Carolina NCReal2000-2020✓✓$2.6B$714.1M9.8M
AP
North Dakota NDReal2014-2025✓✓$22.2M$2.2M16K
AP
Ohio OHReal1990-2026✓✓$3B$3B14M
AP
Oklahoma OKReal2017-2026✓✓$351.5M$349.2M2M
AP
Oregon ORReal2002-2018✓✓$273M$317.7M424K
AP
Pennsylvania PAReal1990-2026✓✓$4.7B$4.2B23M
AP
Rhode Island RIReal2002-2022✓✓$24.1M$203.4M403K
AP
South Carolina SCReal2000-2023✓✓$277.8M$302.6M1.1M
AP
South Dakota SDReal2014-2026✓✓$32.5M$144.4M56K
AP
Tennessee TNReal1990-2026✓✓$266M$91.3M487K
AP
Texas TXReal1994-2023✓✓$5.8B$6.2B33M
AP
Utah UTReal2000-2023✓✓$269.4M$229M1.3M
AP
Vermont VTReal2014-2024✓✓$42.3M$29.1M134K
AP
Virginia VAReal2008-2023✓✓$1.8B$1.1B2.5M
AP
Washington WAReal1994-2026✓✓$1.7B$1.7B6.9M
AP
West Virginia WVReal2015-2023✓✓$95.3M$69.6M241K
AP
Wisconsin WIReal1993-2023✓✓$63.6M$1.1B858K
AP
Wyoming WYReal2008-2022✓✓$38.2M$46.2M127K
AP
District of Columbia DCReal2003-2026✓✓$112.5M$114.9M420K
AP

Known Limitations

  • Data freshness varies by state. Coverage years are shown with freshness indicators (green = current, amber = through 2020-2022, red = may be stale).
  • Historical data completeness varies. Some states have digital records going back to the mid-1990s; others only to the 2000s or later.
  • Contribution limits differ significantly by state. Dollar amounts are not directly comparable across states without adjusting for these limits.
  • Name normalization is approximate. The same individual may appear under slight variations (e.g., "Robert Smith" vs "Bob Smith").
  • Party affiliation data depends on state reporting requirements and may be incomplete for non-partisan races.
  • 0 states () show estimated seed data pending real data ingestion.
  • 0 states have contributions but no expenditures; 0 have expenditures but no contributions.
  • Expenditure categorization varies by state. Categories have been normalized to a common set but some nuance may be lost.
Data compiled from public records. Original sources available at each state's disclosure agency website.