How these numbers are computed

In-state share

The percentage of itemizedcontributions that came from donors with an address in the candidate's home state. We compute this from /schedules/schedule_a/by_state/ on the FEC API.

Important caveat: the FEC does not tag unitemized (under-$200) donors by state. So this percentage covers only the itemized donor pool. A candidate with heavy small-dollar grassroots support will have unitemized money that may include many in-state donors not captured here.

Small-dollar share

The percentage of individual contributions that came from donors who gave under $200 in aggregate (the “unitemized” pool, which is the standard FEC grassroots proxy). We compute this from /schedules/schedule_a/by_size/ — the $0–$199 bucket divided by all-sizes total.

% from individuals (vs PAC + party)

The percentage of political money that came from individuals, rather than from PACs or party committees. Computed from the candidate's /committee/{id}/totals/ endpoint: individual_contributions / (individual_contributions + other_political_committee_contributions + political_party_committee_contributions).

Note on ActBlue/WinRed:these are conduit services, not PACs. The FEC's individual_contributions field already counts conduit pass-throughs as individual money (because they are), so this number is not distorted by how a candidate's donors choose to give.

Top employer donors

Aggregated from itemized donor records via /schedules/schedule_a/by_employer/. We filter out non-employer values like “Retired,” “Self-Employed,” “Not Employed,” and “Information Requested.”

These are employers reported by donors, not corporate PAC donations. If twenty Blackstone employees each give the campaign $1,000, Blackstone appears at $20,000 — but that does not mean Blackstone-the-corporation gave any money. (Corporate PAC money would appear in the PAC totals above, separately.)

Outside money — independent expenditures

The principal campaign committee is only part of the story: individual contributions are capped at $3,500 per election ($7,000 for primary + general combined). The mega-donor money — the multi-million-dollar checks from people like Stephen Schwarzman, Jeff Yass, the Mellon family — flows through super PACs, which can take unlimited individual contributions but legally can't coordinate with the candidate.

We surface this with FEC /schedules/schedule_e/by_candidate/ — the “independent expenditures” schedule, which records spending abouta named candidate (TV ads, mailers, digital), grouped by whether it supports or opposes them. Each committee links to its FEC profile, where the committee's own funders are disclosed.

Conduit committees excluded. ActBlue and WinRed process small-dollar donations directly to candidate committees (Schedule A receipts) — they are not super PACs and do not make independent expenditures, so they structurally cannot appear in this section. We also apply an explicit committee-ID blocklist as defense in depth.

What's missing from this picture. Super-PAC IEs cover the visible part of the outside-money iceberg. Below the waterline are 501(c)(4) “dark money” groups that fund super PACs without disclosing their donors. Tracing those chains requires IRS Form 990 work beyond the FEC dataset; see Susan Collins's page for an example of the full chain reconstructed.

What cycle the numbers cover

For senators up for re-election in 2026, the numbers cover the 2026 election cycle through the latest report FEC has ingested. For senators not on the 2026 ballot (e.g. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, John Thune), we show data from their most recent campaign cycleinstead, since that's the most recent comprehensive picture FEC has on them. Each candidate's page displays which cycle it's showing.

What is and isn't on this site

This site shows data from each candidate's own principal campaign committee — the FEC committee they personally registered to fund their re-election. It does notshow outside money: super PACs that spend independently on a candidate's behalf, 501(c)(4) organizations that fund those super PACs, or joint-fundraising committees. For some candidates (Susan Collins in particular) there's extensive editorial reporting on the outside-money side as well; see Collins's page for that.

Sources

• OpenFEC API — committee details, totals, by-state, by-size, by-employer aggregations.
• FEC public data portal — every figure on each candidate's page links here for reverification.
• OpenSecrets — complementary view of the same FEC data plus industry roll-ups. Useful for cross-referencing.