U.S. political money statistics

Name: PlainInfluence U.S. Political Money Statistics: Key Findings
Creator: PlainInfluence
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Abstract

Standalone, citable statements from the linked federal extracts. Free to reuse with attribution to PlainInfluence (CC0 data; cite the page).

22,531 organizations are linked across FEC PAC contributions, Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings, and USAspending.gov contract awards in the 2024 cycle extract PlainInfluence publishes.
7,124 federal politicians appear in the politician registry for this extract; 1,410 of them (19.8%) have either a recorded PAC contribution total or an independent-expenditure support or opposition record in the linked FEC data.
21.1× Senate LDA-reported lobbying spending ($10.1B) exceeds PAC contributions to candidate committees ($479.3M) in this linked extract. Lobbying dollars and PAC dollars are separate reporting regimes and are not summed into one "influence" total here.
$545.1B in federal contract obligations are attributed to organizations in this USAspending-linked extract for the same cycle window. Contract dollars are obligations, not campaign contributions.
$4.4B in independent expenditures (outside spending for or against candidates) appear in the linked FEC extract. Independent expenditures are reported separately from PAC contributions to committees and are not combined with them on this page.
$909.2M in Senate LDA-reported lobbying spending is concentrated under the "Taxation/Internal Revenue Code" issue code (TAX), the single largest issue total among 79 issue areas, with 2,713 organizations filing on that code.
$26.2B is the largest combined recorded activity total for any single organization in this extract (Unitedhealth Group Incorporated). The combined figure is an arithmetic sum of PAC contributions, LDA lobbying, and contract obligations: three distinct disclosure regimes, not a causal influence score.
$3.5M is the highest FEC-recorded PAC contribution total among politicians with receipts in this extract (Jason T Smith, MO House). Totals reflect committee filings in the displayed cycle, not all money raised under every legal channel.