Research Guide

County elections offices typically maintain voter registration records and voting histories. Accessing this information usually requires a public records request, though sites such as https://voteref.com/ post some voter registration information. Identifying the relevant county authority and its public information request guidelines in advance will speed up the research process. Using these tools, you can verify an individual’s voter registration history and the elections in which they cast a vote.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) collects campaign finance disclosure forms from candidates for federal office. In the “Campaign finance data” dropdown menu, choose “Look up contributions from specific individuals” to look for federal campaign contributions by a specific person, such as a candidate, dating back more than 20 years. In the same dropdown menu, select “Committees” to search for a candidate’s official campaign committee and browse both receipts and disbursements. The best way to analyze this data is to export it to Excel and then sort and filter it to search for patterns in the data. Who are the candidate’s largest supporters? Where are they from? What industries do they work in? How has the candidate spent campaign funds? Who are the campaign’s largest vendors? What is the campaign’s total amount of non-itemized disbursements? Also check whether the FEC has sent any Requests for Additional Information (RFAI) to a candidate’s campaign committee. These inquire about potential issues in a campaign committee’s FEC filings and potential violations of regulations, such as donors who may have exceeded contribution limits. In the statement of organization for a candidate’s official campaign committee, the campaign must disclose any joint fundraising committees in which it participates. Joint fundraising committees allow donors to make larger contributions to several candidates at the same time. For example, donors can give up to $6,600 to any one official campaign committee in the 2024 election cycle but can give $19,800 to a joint fundraising committee composed of three different campaigns. From the FEC home page, click on the campaign finance dropdown menu, choose “Spending,” and then click on the “Independent Expenditures” link to search campaign spending by nominally independent political action committees (PACs). The filters in the left hand panel allow you to view only independent expenditures supporting or opposing a specific candidate so that you can identify the key PACs supporting a candidate. “Super” PACs, or independent expenditure-only committees, can raise and spend unlimited funds on expenditures for or against political candidates and are most easily identified through the Independent Expenditures search. Identify the PACs supporting (or opposing) a candidate through Independent Expenditures and then research that committee’s largest contributors, its officers and its vendors. If you are researching a candidate for federal office who previously ran for state or local office, search for campaign finance reports in the relevant jurisdictions as well.

Follow the Money, operated by OpenSecrets, aggregates campaign finance data from the federal, state and local level in a single online database. It is a secondary source, and you should verify findings from Follow the Money through the relevant elections authority.

This site is also an important resource for federal and state-level lobbying information. Here you can find information on lobbying expenditure trends since 2002, including classifications of spenders and recipients. You can also use tools for downloading and manipulating data to understand patterns in lobbying across different states.