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FEC Campaign Finance Search - Candidates, Donors, PACs & Political Contributions

Search Federal Election Commission campaign finance data. Find political candidates, PACs, Super PACs, individual donors, contributions, and campaign disbursements. Look up who donated to any campaign, track how committees spend money, and analyze fundraising by election cycle, state, or party. Covers the 2020 through 2026 election cycles. No API key required.

Data comes directly from the official OpenFEC API maintained by the Federal Election Commission.

What You Get

Candidates

Committees (PACs, Super PACs)

Individual Contributions (Donors)

Disbursements (Spending)

Use Cases

• Political research — Track fundraising and spending for any candidate, party, or election cycle with structured, exportable data.
• Journalism — Investigate donor networks, PAC spending, or campaign finance patterns without navigating the FEC website manually.
• Opposition research — Pull contribution histories for specific donors or analyze where a candidate's money comes from.
• Compliance verification — Verify candidate or committee filing status and financial disclosures for regulatory purposes.
• Academic research — Build datasets of campaign finance activity across election cycles for political science analysis.
• Watchdog and transparency tools — Monitor Super PAC spending or dark money committee activity by filtering on committee types.
• Advocacy and activism — Identify donors to specific causes or candidates for outreach or accountability research.
• Financial due diligence — Screen business partners or executives for political contribution history.

How to Use

Step 1: Open the actor on Apify

Go to the actor page and click Try for free.

Step 2: Configure your input

Option A — Search candidates

{
"searchType":"candidates",
"query":"Biden",
"office":"P",
"cycle":2024,
"maxResults":10
}

Option B — Search PACs and committees

{
"searchType":"committees",
"query":"America First",
"cycle":2024,
"maxResults":50
}

Option C — Search individual donor contributions

{
"searchType":"contributions",
"query":"Elon Musk",
"cycle":2024,
"minAmount":1000,
"maxResults":100
}

Option D — Search campaign disbursements

{
"searchType":"disbursements",
"state":"TX",
"cycle":2024,
"minAmount":50000,
"maxResults":200
}

Step 3: Run and export

Click Start. Most queries return within 15 seconds. Click the dataset tab to preview and export results.

Input Reference

Cost Estimate

This actor uses the OpenFEC public API, which is free. Apify charges only for compute time.

• Actor start fee: ~$0.10 per run
• Compute: Very low — most runs complete in under 20 seconds
• Typical cost for 500 contribution records: under $0.15 total

For high-volume research requiring thousands of records per run, providing your own free FEC API key (available at api.data.gov) increases rate limits from 40 requests/hour to 1,000 requests/hour.

Output Formats

Results are stored in an Apify dataset and can be exported as:

• JSON — Full structured output
• CSV — Flat format ready for spreadsheet or database import
• Excel — Direct download from the dataset view
• Google Sheets — Connect via Apify's Google Sheets integration
• Zapier / Make — Automate downstream processing on run completion

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. The actor uses a public demo key by default. For high-volume use or to avoid rate limits, you can provide a free personal API key from api.data.gov — registration takes about 2 minutes.

What election cycles are covered? The OpenFEC API covers election cycles from 2020 through 2026. Use the cycle field to filter to a specific cycle. Leave it at 0 to search across all available cycles.

What is the difference between candidates and committees? Candidates are individuals running for federal office. Committees are the fundraising entities — every candidate has at least one authorized committee, but committees also include PACs, Super PACs, party committees, and independent expenditure-only committees.

Can I look up Super PAC donors? Super PACs must disclose donors who give more than $200 per year. Search the contributions endpoint by committee name or ID to find disclosed donors. Some contributions from LLCs or shell entities may have limited traceability.

How current is the data? The FEC updates its database on a rolling basis as committees file reports. Data currency depends on the most recent filing deadline — major filing periods are quarterly and around election dates.

What does the minAmount filter do? For contribution and disbursement searches, minAmount filters to records above that dollar threshold. This is useful for focusing on significant donations (e.g. contributions over $2,900, the individual contribution limit for federal candidates).

Are these contributions to federal elections only? Yes. The FEC only regulates federal elections (President, Senate, House). State and local campaign finance data is maintained by individual state election agencies.