Featured Data Sets

This dataset breaks down the spending behind the gun control debate. Includes money to the members of the 116th Congress, NRA spending totals, outside spending, and lobbying totals. For more information visit our issue profile.

The Department of Justice indicted Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, the CEO of an online payment processing company, and George Nader, an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, for concealing the source of $3.5 million in straw contributions to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, joint fundraising committee and pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA. Nader is accused of attempting to gain influence with high-profile lawmakers on behalf of a foreign government while making straw contributions through Khawaja and several others. After President Donald Trump’s election, Khawaja’s company gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and the network of donors switched much of their giving from Democrats to Republicans. Nader acted as an intermediary between the Trump administration and UAE officials. (Photo by Ron Sachs/CNP/Getty Images)

Gordon Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and political donor turned U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, has become a central figure in the latest round of impeachment talks. A campaign to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate President Donald Trump’s political rivals came to light after a series of text messages between Sondland and the acting ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, were released publicly in October. This data set contains Sondland’s contribution history going back to 1990. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)

On October 10, 2019, Florida businessmen Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were arrested and charged with violating campaign finance law. The pair, who are associates of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are alleged to have routed foreign money into U.S. elections through an LLC. The contributions in question include $325,000 to pro-Trump super PAC America First Action and $15,000 to 35th Inc, a single candidate super PAC that supported Patrick Morrisey’s 2018 Senate bid in West Virginia. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Ed Buck was charged Wednesday, September 18, 2019 with a number crimes including running a drug house after a man overdosed at Buck’s home. Prior to this incident two other individuals died at Buck’s home in the last two years. Buck is a Democratic fundraiser who has been to giving to federal candidates since 2004. This dataset profiles Buck’s federal political contribution history. (Photo by Ann Johansson/Corbis via Getty Images)

Where are the top 2020 Democratic candidates getting their money? Is Bernie Sanders getting the most from those who work in the Agribusiness sector? Is Elizabeth Warren popular with Educators? Who is getting the most from women? In this data set, we break down their contributions by Sector, Industry and Gender. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jeffrey Epstein was charged Monday, July 8, 2019 on two sex trafficking related charges stemming from allegations made against him in 2005. He died in jail on August 10, 2019. Epstein, a hedge fund billionaire and prominent political donor, was well known for his connections to influential people, including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. This dataset profiles Epstein’s federal political contribution history going back to 1989. (Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)

The ever-increasing influence of money in federal elections makes rejecting corporate money a difficult proposition. But it turned out to be a successful strategy for a group of Democrats elected in November, some of whom were locked in expensive toss-up races. Here are the candidates who made the decision to forgo corporate PAC money before, during and after the 2018 election.

Cindy Yang is a Chinese-American massage parlor owner & entrepreneur whose name rose to national prominence after Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was arrested for soliciting prostitution at a spa founded by Yang. Since then, it has been revealed that Yang has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and worked to sell access to the President by organizing a number of fundraisers at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.

President Donald Trump reported earning an estimated $461 million in income in 2018, according to the most recent disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) compiled by OpenSecrets. That’s slightly down from $486 million in 2017.

As Trump’s reported income dropped, his total assets increased to $1.72 billion, up from $1.66 billion in 2017. (image via MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

On May 16, 2018 the US Office of Government Ethics certified and released President Trump’s 2018 personal financial disclosure. The form sheds light on a number of ethics concerns involving Trump, including the debt owed to Michael Cohen and the amount of income the Trump properties generated during the first full year of his presidency.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Pool / AP/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

In the 2018 cycle, Democratic House candidates were more likely to see high levels of spending translate into success at the ballot box than Republicans were. 95.5 percent of Democratic House victories were in races where the Democrat outspent the Republican. For Republicans, only 81.4 percent of victories came in races where the Republican outspent the Democrat. This is an unusual finding for a wave election – in the “Tea Party” election of 2010, Republicans winning House races outspent their opponents only 77.6 percent of the time. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In January 2018 Stephen Wynn stepped down from his position as finance chairman of the RNC after accusations of sexual misconduct came to light. This dataset profiles Wynn’s federal political contribution history going back to 1989.

This dataset contains contributions from Comcast Corp, Verizon Communications and AT&T Inc to Members of the 115th Congress and their leadership PACs from 1989 to December 2017. For more information on money behind the net neutrality debate visit our page here.

Many of the individuals who contributed to President Trump’s inauguration have a history of making extensive contributions to political causes and campaigns, others made their first ever political contribution to the inauguration. This list contains summary information for the individuals, and the trusts linked to individuals, that made contributions to the 2017 inauguration.

Unlike conventional PACs, super PACs and other outside groups can receive direct contributions from corporate treasuries. This dataset contains the itemized corporate contributions that have made since the 2012 election as well data on the super PACs receiving corporate money. For more information visit our outside spending section.

Political giving in late 2018 shows a number of industries making sizable shifts in party preference. These tables show total contributions by industry for the first 21 months of the election cycle (Jan 1 2017-Sept 30, 2018) versus the pre-general election period (Oct 1-17, 2018), with comparisons to similar periods in the 2014 and 2010 midterm cycles.

What have the success rates been for Male and Female candidates running for the House of Representatives in the last few election cycles? Is 2018 really the year of women? This is limited to House candidates since Senate candidates are a much smaller and more variable group. Active candidates are limited to those who filed with the FEC and were identified as candidates at some point in the cycle. Not every race had a Democratic or Republican primary winner. In addition, there are cases like Louisiana where the technical primary is held on the day of the general election, with a later runoff if necessary. 2018 numbers are preliminary and will change as we get more data.

In Janus v. AFSCME, the Supreme Court considers whether unions can charge “agency fees” to employees who did not join the union, but benefit from collective bargaining. In addition to the breakdown between business and labor spending on campaign contributions here, here we provide a data set showing how lobbying spending breaks down between business and labor.

In April 2018 Elliot Broidy stepped down from his position as deputy finance chair of the RNC after the Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Cohen, on behalf of Broidy, had arranged a $1.6 million payoff to a former Playboy Playmate who said she had been impregnated by the Republican financier and former vice-chair of 2017 Inauguration. This dataset profiles Broidy’s federal political contribution history going back to 1989.

In October 2017 the #MeToo movement was sparked off after more than eighty women came forward with sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. As a result, dozens of Democratic members of Congress began returning or donating the contributions that they had received from Weinstein, who was prominent in left leaning donor circles. This dataset profiles Weinstein’s federal political contribution history going back to 1989.

On March 28th, 2017 the House voted to approve a Senate resolution that would allow internet service providers to sell data about their customers’ browsing history. We took a look at the contributions received by members of the House and Senate from the telecom industry. See this article to learn more.