About PlainInfluence

PlainInfluence tracks political money, campaign donations, lobbying, and federal contracts from official federal sources.

Our Mission

PlainInfluence exists because every citizen deserves to know how money moves through American politics. Campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and federal contract awards are all public record, but they are scattered across three separate federal databases, each with its own format, terminology, and search interface. The barrier to understanding political influence should not be technical proficiency.

Our mission is to combine these data streams into a single, searchable platform where anyone can trace the connections between organizations, politicians, lobbying issues, and taxpayer-funded contracts. We believe transparency is the foundation of accountability, and that public data should be genuinely public, not just technically available.

PlainInfluence is nonpartisan. We do not assign ratings, make endorsements, or editorialize. We present federal data as reported and let users draw their own conclusions.

Data Sources

All data comes directly from official federal sources:

  • Federal Election Commission (FEC) - Bulk candidate and committee data for the 2024 election cycle. Tracks PAC contributions to political candidates. Source: FEC Bulk Data.
  • Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) - Lobbying registration and activity reports filed by registered lobbyists, 2023-2024. Source: Senate LDA Database.
  • USAspending.gov - Federal contract awards from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). Shows which organizations receive government contracts and from which agencies. Source: USAspending.gov.

Methodology

The key innovation behind PlainInfluence is entity resolution - linking the same organization across all three databases. A company like Boeing appears in FEC data as a PAC contributor, in Senate LDA data as a lobbying spender, and in USAspending as a federal contractor. We link these records to show the full picture of an organization's political influence.

The matching process normalizes company names, resolves parent-subsidiary relationships, and connects PAC activity to lobbying spending to contract awards. We download bulk data files directly from the three federal systems and run them through our entity-resolution pipeline. All monetary figures are taken verbatim from the source filings, we do not estimate, interpolate, or editorialize.

What We Track

  • 1,410 politicians with recorded PAC contributions or outside spending activity, out of 7,124 candidates tracked in FEC filings
  • 21,545 organizations with tracked activity across contributions, lobbying, or federal contracts
  • 79 lobbying issue areas from health care to defense
  • 56 states and territories with aggregated data

Data Currency

PlainInfluence uses the most recently available data from each source. FEC bulk data files are released on a rolling basis, with major updates following quarterly filing deadlines (January 31, April 15, July 15, October 15). Senate LDA filings are processed quarterly. USAspending.gov contract data is updated monthly.

Our current dataset covers the 2024 election cycle for campaign finance data and the 2023-2024 period for lobbying disclosures. We update PlainInfluence when new bulk data files become available from any of the three sources. All data reflects what has been filed and published by the source agency, there may be a lag between an actual transaction and its appearance in the public record.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainInfluence is compiled by our editorial team. Raw data from federal and state regulatory agencies is transformed into readable profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, validated against the source before publication. The PlainInfluence editorial team, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from licensed providers, operators, or any covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations

This site is for informational purposes only. Political finance data is complex and subject to reporting lags. Important limitations to understand:

  • Entity resolution may occasionally link unrelated organizations with similar names. We prioritize precision but imperfect matches can occur.
  • FEC data only captures regulated political spending. Unregulated influence activities (shadow lobbying, grassroots campaigns below reporting thresholds) are not reflected.
  • Lobbying data covers only registered lobbyists who meet the LDA reporting threshold, actual influence spending is likely much higher.
  • Contract data reflects awards, not actual payments, some contracts are modified, reduced, or cancelled after initial award.

Always verify important information with official sources. This site does not endorse or oppose any political candidate, party, or organization.

Not Affiliated

PlainInfluence is not affiliated with the FEC, the U.S. Senate, USAspending.gov, or any government agency. We are an independent data portal presenting public information.

Contact

For questions or feedback, email hello@plaininfluence.com.