How the data works
What you’re looking at, and what it can and can’t tell you.
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 2024 federal election cycle, with earlier cycles being added, and 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 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.