Skip to main content

How we count campaign money

Every figure on a profile’s Money tab comes from reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). We show amounts and dates, side by side, with where they come from. We do not grade them, and money from a group is not a claim about how anyone votes.

Campaign totals

Raised, spent, cash on hand and where the money came from are the campaign’s own totals for a two-year period, as FEC processes them. For a senator whose seat is on the ballot we show the whole six-year election. “FEC reports through” is the last day the campaign’s latest report covers: money given after that day is not in the totals yet. Campaigns report quarterly, and monthly or before an election in some cases.

Top donors are totals by donor name from itemized receipts, which list gifts over $200. Smaller gifts are counted in the totals but not named.

Outside spending

Outside spending is money spent by super PACs, parties and other groups for or against a candidate without coordinating with the campaign (FEC “independent expenditures”). It is not money the campaign received. We read every such report filed for the two-year period, for every candidate, under every FEC candidate id the person has had (a House member running for the Senate has two).

Spenders file a notice within 24 or 48 hours of spending close to an election and list the same spending again in their next regular report. We count each notice until that spender’s regular report covers its day, so nothing is counted twice. Rows that name no candidate, and filings from spenders that are not registered committees, are left out.

Tracked groups

Some organizations move money to candidates through more than one committee, which a campaign’s own totals do not show in one place. For these groups the Money tab adds a block that brings their committees together. Every profile with a Money tab shows the block, including when nothing is reported, so its presence says nothing on its own. Each group’s committees are identified by FEC committee id, never by name. We add groups over time and publish how each one is counted here.

AIPAC

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reaches federal campaigns through two committees: AIPAC PAC (FEC id C00797670), which began in December 2021, and United Democracy Project (C00799031), a super PAC AIPAC funds and calls AIPAC-backed.

Through AIPAC PAC

Most of what AIPAC PAC gives is its members’ own gifts, earmarked for a candidate, which the PAC passes on; the rest is the PAC’s own money. We read every report AIPAC PAC has filed, from the FEC’s raw electronic filings, and count each gift it passed on. Before counting a report we check that its itemized gifts add up exactly to the total on its own summary page; a report that does not is held back until it does. When a report is amended, the amendment replaces it. FEC’s summary tables do not break this money out, and a campaign’s report lists only earmarked gifts over $200, which is why we use AIPAC PAC’s own filings.

  • What counts toward a person: money to a committee that FEC lists, for that two-year period, as the person’s principal or authorized campaign committee. Refunds and returned gifts are subtracted.
  • Earmarked gifts and donors: earmarked gifts are part of the campaign’s “Individuals” money. Donors are counted by name and ZIP code, so the count is an estimate: two people with the same name in one ZIP code count once. We do not store or show donors’ names.
  • Share of individual contributions: earmarked money through AIPAC PAC to the campaign’s principal committee, through the last day of the campaign’s latest report, divided by the individual contributions that report counts. Both include gifts of $200 or less.
  • Listed apart, never added to the total: joint fundraising committees that include one of the person’s committees (the full amount, with the number of committees that share it), and leadership or other PACs FEC links to the person.
  • Party and caucus committees are not counted toward anyone.

United Democracy Project

United Democracy Project’s spending for and against each candidate is shown side by side, read the same way as all outside spending above. In 2026 it also gave money to other super PACs. Where its money was 10% or more of such a super PAC’s receipts for the period, that super PAC’s spending is listed on its own line with that share. It is not added to United Democracy Project’s figures.

Not included

  • AIPAC’s lobbying, which is reported to Congress, not to the FEC.
  • Trips and education programs of affiliated nonprofits.
  • Gifts routed through shared conduits used by many groups (such as Democracy Engine), which do not say which group a gift came through.
  • Groups that are not registered with the FEC, whatever their stated ties.
  • Other organizations with similar goals, and donors’ gifts made directly to campaigns.

Timing, and other counts

AIPAC PAC reports monthly, about three weeks after each month ends; each block says how recent its filings are. Independent expenditures are read every six hours. Other trackers count differently: some add up many pro-Israel PACs, a person’s whole career, or donors who also give to AIPAC. Their totals will differ from ours, which cover only the committees named here, by two-year period since December 2021.