How the data works

Where it comes from

DonorTrail’s federal data comes directly from the Federal Election Commission’s bulk data files — the FEC’s own published record of candidates, committees, and itemized contributions. We currently cover the 2022 and 2024 federal election cycles, with earlier cycles being added. We refresh from the FEC as it publishes new data.

What’s covered

We show itemized individual contributions — gifts the FEC requires to be reported with the donor’s name. A committee generally must itemize a donor once their giving to that committee passes about $200 in a cycle. Contributions below that line aren’t disclosed at the individual level by anyone, so they don’t appear here. “Total given” on a donor’s page means total itemized federal contributions — not every dollar that person has ever given.

We currently cover federal races only: President, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and the federal party and political committees (PACs and super PACs). State and local contributions are kept in separate databases and aren’t included yet.

How we count a member’s money

A member’s total adds up the itemized gifts to their own campaign committees and leadership PACs. Four rules decide what counts.

Refunds subtract. When a committee returns money to a donor, the FEC records the refund as its own entry. We take it off the total, and off that donor’s amount in the top donors list. A refund is not counted as a gift.

Conduits are not donors. ActBlue, WinRed and similar conduits pass along other people’s money, and the FEC already lists each real donor. We leave conduit rows out of every top donors list and every total, so no dollar counts twice.

Joint fundraising is shown apart. A joint fundraising committee raises money for several candidates at once. The FEC links its full receipts to every participant, so the same dollars would appear on several pages. We leave it out of the headline total and show it on its own line. We do not try to split it into shares.

Party committees and wrong links are left out. The FEC file that links candidates to committees also links them to party committees and, rarely, to committees that have nothing to do with them. Party committees never count. Links we have reviewed and found wrong are excluded by name. Everything else the FEC links to a member counts, including a former campaign committee the FEC has re-labeled after a race ended.

How we group donors

The same person files under many spellings — “John A. Smith,” “SMITH, JOHN,” “J Smith.” DonorTrail groups contributions into a single profile using the donor’s name together with their state and ZIP code. We deliberately err toward caution: when we aren’t confident two records are the same person, we keep them separate. A donor’s giving can occasionally split across more than one profile as a result — but we would rather under-group than wrongly attribute one person’s donations to another. This grouping is ours, not the FEC’s; the FEC publishes individual contributions, not donor profiles.

Provenance

Every contribution links to the original FEC filing it came from. If a number here matters to you, open the source document and read it yourself. That traceability is the point: DonorTrail is a window onto the public record, not a replacement for it.

Limits to keep in mind

Itemized only — sub-$200 giving isn’t shown, because it isn’t disclosed.

Federal only — for now.

Donor grouping is a best effort, not a legal identification of any individual.

Filings contain errors and later amendments; we reflect the FEC’s data as it is published.