Where does FEC data come from?

The Federal Election Commission collects mandatory disclosures from every federal candidate committee, PAC, Super PAC, and party committee. Committees must file regular reports detailing their contributions received, expenditures made, and cash on hand. These filings are submitted electronically through the FEC e-filing system and become publicly available within 24 to 48 hours. The FEC also publishes bulk data files for researchers and platforms like PlainInfluence.

How often do committees file with the FEC?

Filing frequency depends on committee type and election timing. Candidate committees and PACs typically file quarterly, but switch to monthly reporting in election years when they exceed certain thresholds. Additionally, contributions of $1,000 or more received within 20 days of an election must be reported within 48 hours, and independent expenditures of $10,000 or more must be reported within 24 hours. This means FEC data is particularly detailed and timely during the final weeks before an election.

What is an FEC committee ID and why does it matter?

Every political committee registered with the FEC receives a unique identifier (like C00012345). This ID is the key to tracking a committee across multiple election cycles and linking it to specific candidates or organizations. PlainInfluence uses these IDs for entity resolution — connecting PAC contributions to the organizations that sponsor them and to the candidates who receive them. When researching a specific organization on PlainInfluence, the underlying data is linked through these committee IDs.

What is the difference between contributions and independent expenditures?

Contributions are funds given directly to a candidate or committee, subject to federal limits ($3,300 per individual per election, $5,000 per PAC per election). Independent expenditures are spending by an outside group to advocate for or against a candidate without coordinating with the campaign — these have no dollar limit since Citizens United. Both are reported to the FEC, but through different filing mechanisms. PlainInfluence primarily tracks PAC contributions to candidates.

How to Read FEC Data: A Practical Guide to Campaign Finance Filings

The FEC Data Universe

The FEC maintains one of the largest publicly available databases of political financial activity in the world. As of the 2024 election cycle, the database contains millions of individual transaction records spanning:

Candidate committees — every federal candidate's official campaign account
PAC receipts and disbursements — detailed inflows and outflows for thousands of PACs
Individual contributions — itemized donations above $200, including donor name, employer, occupation, and amount
PAC-to-candidate contributions — the specific focus of PlainInfluence's entity resolution
Independent expenditures — outside spending for or against candidates
Party committee transfers — money flowing between national, state, and local party organizations

Data from the FEC and Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings, covering federal campaign finance and lobbying across all 50 states; see our methodology.

What do FEC committee type codes mean?

The FEC classifies committees by type, and understanding these categories is essential for interpreting the data correctly:

H (House) / S (Senate) / P (Presidential) — Candidate principal campaign committees, one per candidate.
N (PAC - Nonqualified) — Standard nonconnected PACs. These include ideological PACs and single-issue groups.
Q (PAC - Qualified) — PACs that have been registered for at least 6 months, have more than 50 contributors, and have contributed to at least 5 federal candidates. They receive higher contribution limits from individuals.
W (SSF - Connected Organization) — Separate Segregated Funds sponsored by corporations, unions, or trade associations. The most common type of organizational PAC.
O (Super PAC) — Independent expenditure-only committees with unlimited fundraising but no direct contributions to candidates.
X / Y / Z — Various party committee types (national, state/district, local).

What PlainInfluence Shows

PlainInfluence focuses on the most meaningful slice of FEC data: PAC-to-candidate contributions. This is where organized institutional money meets elected officials. When you view a politician profile, you see contributions from connected PACs (type W) and other PACs that have directed money to that candidate. When you view an organization profile, you see the total PAC contributions flowing from that organization's sponsored committees to all federal candidates.

The Filing Cycle

FEC data arrives in waves tied to the reporting calendar:

Quarterly reports (January 31, April 15, July 15, October 15) — cover the preceding three months of activity.
Pre-election reports — due 12 days before a primary or general election, covering recent activity.
Post-election reports — due 30 days after an election, covering the final stretch.
48-hour notices — required for contributions of $1,000+ received within 20 days of an election.
24-hour IE reports — required for independent expenditures of $10,000+ within 20 days of an election.

This means data freshness varies throughout the year. Between quarterly filing deadlines, there may be a lag of up to three months for non-urgent contributions. PlainInfluence updates when new bulk data files are released by the FEC.

Common Pitfalls When Reading FEC Data

Even experienced researchers make mistakes when interpreting campaign finance data. Here are the most common issues:

Double-Counting Transfers

Money often passes through multiple committees before reaching its final destination. A contribution from an individual to a joint fundraising committee may be earmarked for a specific candidate and transferred through a national party committee. Counting every transfer as a new contribution would dramatically overstate the total. PlainInfluence focuses on direct PAC-to-candidate contributions to avoid this problem.

Confusing Receipts with Contributions

A PAC's total receipts include transfers from connected organizations, interest income, and other non-contribution revenue. Not all money received by a PAC comes from individual contributors, and not all money disbursed goes to candidates.

Ignoring Election Cycle Context

Contribution limits reset for each election (primary, general, runoff). A person who gives $3,300 for the primary and $3,300 for the general election has given $6,600 legally within the cycle. Comparing raw totals across cycles without adjusting for limit changes (which are indexed to inflation) can be misleading.

From Raw Data to Intelligence

PlainInfluence transforms raw FEC bulk data files through an entity-resolution pipeline that:

Downloads candidate, committee, and contribution bulk files from the FEC.
Matches connected PACs to their sponsoring organizations using committee names, treasurer names, and connected organization fields.
Links the same organizations across FEC, Senate LDA (lobbying), and USAspending (contracts) databases.
Aggregates contributions by candidate and organization for easy comparison.

The result is that you can search for any organization and see its complete influence profile — PAC contributions, lobbying spending, and federal contracts — without needing to manually cross-reference three separate government databases. Check rankings to find the most influential entities by any measure.