FEC Campaign Finance Scraper

🗳️ FEC campaign finance data for contributions, candidates, committees, and spending

FEC Campaign Finance Scraper helps researchers, journalists, compliance teams, civic tech builders, and campaign analysts collect official FEC campaign finance records in one Apify run. Use it to return contribution, candidate, committee/PAC, spending, independent expenditure, committee total, or grouped summary rows with source identifiers and links for verification.

• Look up itemized campaign contributions by donor, employer, occupation, state, date, amount, committee, candidate, or election cycle.
• Find political donations by company or employer for research, compliance review, and public-record analysis.
• Compare political donations by candidate, committee, PAC, party, office, state, or election year.
• Pull campaign finance reports and spending records, including disbursements, independent expenditures, committee totals, and support/oppose values when available.
• Build repeatable FEC data workflows for exports, monitoring, dashboards, webhooks, or internal databases.

📦 Returned data

The actor returns one dataset row for each successful user-visible FEC result. The row shape depends on the selected result scope, but every row includes a rowType, a stable id, and source evidence with an official FEC source URL when available.

Depending on the scope, rows can include contributor details, candidate details, committee or PAC metadata, transaction amounts and dates, spending recipient details, financial summaries, grouped aggregate totals, and deterministic enrichment. Source evidence can include PDF URLs, image numbers, file numbers, transaction IDs, report types, and source load dates when the FEC data provides them.

The actor is designed for source-grounded records. It does not infer political beliefs, hidden intent, or unsupported affiliations. Missing or source-limited facts are represented as null values or completeness notes instead of being guessed.

▶️ How to run

1. Choose the Result scope: itemized contributions, candidates, committees and PACs, spending and disbursements, independent expenditures, committee totals, or grouped summary.
2. Add only the filters that match your scope, such as contributor names, candidate names or IDs, committee IDs, employer names, recipient names, election years, dates, amount range, state, party, office, or support/oppose.
3. Set Maximum results to control how many accepted rows you want back.
4. Optionally add your FEC API key if you have one and want authenticated source access for larger runs.
5. Start the actor and export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML from Apify.

For a quick campaign contributions lookup, select contributions, enter one or more contributor names, add a cycle such as 2024, and keep the default output mode as individual records.

🎛️ Input

Input	What it does
resultScope	Required. Selects the FEC data type to return.
contributorNames	Searches contribution records by donor or contributor name.
candidateNamesOrIds	Searches or filters by candidate name or FEC candidate ID.
committeeNamesOrIds	Searches or filters by committee, PAC, or FEC committee ID.
employerNames / occupations	Filters contribution records by employer or occupation.
recipientNames	Filters spending or disbursement records by recipient.
electionYears, dateFrom, dateTo	Limits results by cycle or date when the selected scope supports it.
minAmount, maxAmount	Filters financial records by amount when applicable.
state, party, office	Filters geography, party, or office when supported by the selected scope.
supportOppose	Filters independent expenditures by support or opposition.
outputMode, groupBy	Returns individual records or deterministic grouped summaries.
maxResults	Maximum successful rows to return.
apiKey	Optional FEC API key for authenticated source access.

🧾 Output example

{
  "rowType": "contribution",
  "id": "C00703975-2024-123456789",
  "source": {
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/",
    "pdfUrl": "https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/123/202401239999999123/202401239999999123.pdf",
    "imageNumber": "202401239999999123",
    "fileNumber": "1789012",
    "transactionId": "SA11AI.12345",
    "reportType": "Q3",
    "loadDate": "2024-10-15"
  },
  "contributor": {
    "name": "Jane Smith",
    "firstName": "Jane",
    "lastName": "Smith",
    "employer": "Acme Inc",
    "occupation": "Engineer",
    "city": "Los Angeles",
    "state": "CA",
    "zip": "90001",
    "canonicalId": "jane-smith|acme-inc|ca"
  },
  "candidate": {
    "id": "P80001571",
    "name": "Candidate Name",
    "party": "DEM",
    "office": "P",
    "state": "CA",
    "district": "12",
    "electionYear": 2024,
    "incumbentChallengeStatus": "I",
    "firstFileDate": "2023-01-15",
    "activeThrough": 2024
  },
  "committee": {
    "id": "C00703975",
    "name": "Example Committee",
    "type": "Q",
    "typeFull": "PAC - Qualified",
    "designation": "U",
    "organizationType": "Corporation",
    "committeeKind": "super PAC",
    "party": "DEM",
    "state": "CA",
    "treasurerName": "Alex Treasurer",
    "filingFrequency": "M",
    "firstFileDate": "2021-02-01",
    "address": {
      "street1": "123 Main St",
      "street2": "Suite 400",
      "city": "Washington",
      "state": "DC",
      "zip": "20001"
    }
  },
  "transaction": {
    "amount": 250,
    "date": "2024-06-30",
    "description": "Digital advertising",
    "aggregateYtd": 1200,
    "twoYearPeriod": 2024,
    "electionType": "P",
    "electionYear": 2024
  },
  "spending": null,
  "financialSummary": null,
  "aggregate": null,
  "enrichment": {
    "metro": "Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA",
    "sector": "Technology",
    "confidence": 0.98,
    "completenessNotes": ["Employer was not provided by the source record"]
  }
}

💳 Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You are charged only when the actor saves an accepted result row to the dataset. Empty runs, failed lookups, setup checks, and no-result searches are not described as charged.

The primary event is Result row at $0.0009 per successful user-visible FEC campaign finance result row. A result row can be a contribution, candidate, committee/PAC, spending, or selected aggregate row.

🔌 Integrations

Use this actor with Apify integrations, API clients, webhooks, scheduled runs, and dataset exports. Send results to spreadsheets, BI tools, databases, or your own app after each run.

❓ FAQ

Are political donations public record?
Many federal campaign finance records are public through the FEC. This actor helps retrieve official FEC campaign finance records and keeps source links or identifiers in the output when available.

Can I use this as a campaign contributions lookup?
Yes. Select the contributions scope, then filter by donor or contributor name, employer, occupation, committee, candidate, state, date, amount, or election cycle when relevant.

Can I find political donations by company?
Use the employer filter for contribution records or grouped output by employer. The actor returns source-grounded data, so employer coverage depends on what the source record provides.

Does it cover candidates and committees, or only individual political contributions?
It supports contributions, candidates, committees/PACs, spending, independent expenditures, committee totals, and grouped summaries.

Do I need an FEC API key?
The input form supports normal public/default access and an optional FEC API key. Add your own key if you have one and want authenticated source access for larger runs.

Is this a replacement for the FEC website or API?
It is an Apify workflow for collecting, exporting, scheduling, and integrating FEC data. Use the official FEC site or API directly when you need manual browsing or custom API development.

Will the actor explain FEC meaning, filing deadlines, Form 1, or Form 2?
No. It returns campaign finance data rows. For legal definitions, filing obligations, deadlines, or form instructions, consult official FEC guidance.

📝 Changelog

• 0.0.1: Initial release.

🆘 Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, file a ticket and I'll fix or implement it in less than 24h 🫡

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