Elections Data - Research Guide: Campaign Finance

Search Federal Election Commission data (see below) in a more user-friendly interface. Political donors by name, residence or employer (1979-present); receipts and disbursements by candidate, PAC, party, and 527 organization (1979-present); lobby clients by issues lobbied, lobbyists employed and estimated lobbying spending (1999-present). Restricted to Penn users.

The Federal Election Commission tracks how much Senate, House of Representatives and Presidential campaigns have raised and spent, as well as all donors over $200, along with each donor's home address, employer and job title. Candidates, PACs, parties, and contributors back to 1999 can be searched via the Disclosure Database. For downloading large amounts of data in CSV or XML format, try the Disclosure Data Catalog.

Similar to Political MoneyLine on freely available website. Select Politicians & Elections to search donors, find fundraising by candidate, outside spending, and personal finances, 2004-present. Select Influence & Lobbying for contributions by PACs, 527 organizations, and lobbyists, 1998-present.

Search database of filings for Form 8871, Political Organization Notice of Section 527 Status, and Form 8872, Political Organization Report of Contributions and Expenditures for 527 organizations.

FEC campaign receipt and disbursement data are archived in ICPSR back to 1977. Requires statistical software (SPSS, SAS, Stata).

City of Philadelphia data from 2005 - 2013.

Campaign expenditures of all candidates for governor in the U.S., 1968-2009. In Excel format.

This chart from the FEC lists reporting requirements by state.

Aggregating from state disclosure agencies, the National Institute on Money in State Politics provides access to campaign contribution data for candidates in state-level elections.

For candidates in local elections held from 1989 to 2007 in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Tampa, Lexington, Louisville, Sacramento, and Long Beach. Data were also collected for the counties Hillsborough County/Tampa (FL) and Miami-Dade (FL). The study includes data on funds raised and spent, as well as candidate data and election returns, and both mayoral and city council races. From ICPSR; requires statistical software (SPSS, SAS, Stata).