Research a candidate

A candidate can have records from different offices, election cycles, and filing systems. Confirm that scope before comparing fundraising or spending.

Find the right candidate

Open Search all records (/search) and enter the candidate’s name or complete FEC candidate ID.
Compare the office, state, district, and identifiers in the results. A person’s state campaign and federal campaign can have different records.
Open the candidate result. You can also begin with a race in Races (/races) and follow an available candidate profile.
Select the Election cycle when choices are available. Check the displayed cycle after navigation and note the coverage-through date; the cycle label alone does not mean reporting is complete.

Review the financial summary

Read Total raised, Total spent, Cash on hand, and the debt figure alongside their source and reporting period.

A federal candidate profile includes Campaign finance, Reported funding, Record scope, and Candidate committees. Its headline figures are source-reported candidate-cycle totals. They are not a complete list of individual contributions or payments.

Other candidate profiles can include donor rankings, payees, a fundraising timeline, and itemized source records. Those sections depend on the detail available for the selected cycle. A federal headline total can be available even when itemized detail is missing.

Do not add cash on hand to receipts or subtract an unrelated period’s spending to recreate a balance. Use the reported balance and its reporting date.

Follow the committee

On a federal profile, find Candidate committees and note the committee’s FEC ID and role. On other candidate profiles, look for the principal committee under Filing history and source records.
Select an available committee-name link. It opens a search for that name; compare the committee ID before choosing a result.
To research payments, open Committee & PAC spending (/spending/pacs) and search for the committee name.
Check the committee profile’s cycle and source again. Its scope may differ from the candidate page you started on.

A principal or authorized campaign committee, a joint fundraising committee, and an outside spending group have different roles. Do not combine them solely because they mention the same candidate.

Review contributions and spending

Where the candidate profile offers itemized detail:

Review donor rankings, then open a contributor profile when a link is available. Check that profile’s identity and source coverage before comparing totals.
Review payees and recent campaign expenditures. A reported payee name does not establish that every similar name belongs to the same business.
Keep Outside spending separate from campaign-controlled payments. Preserve the reported support or opposition distinction.
Use Filing history and source records to inspect contribution rows and available filing links. The visible rows and recent filings may be a limited selection.

For committee payments and filings, continue with Research a PAC or committee.

Verify a finding

Record the candidate and committee identifiers, selected cycle, source, and coverage dates.
Open FEC source record on a federal profile, Source record on other candidate profiles, or an available row-level source link.
Match the amount, reporting period, and subject to the originating record. Check amendment information when available.
If a link leads to an agency search page, use the identifiers and report details to locate the specific filing.
Check Data status and methodology (/data-status) before describing coverage as complete or current.

A missing financial summary, donor list, or spending section is not evidence of zero activity. Source-reported totals and available itemized records may cover different records or periods and should not be expected to agree without checking that scope.