The PACrat API
Coming soonAPI access is coming soon
From FEC filings to outside spending, it can take calls to more than 150 different data sets to get a clear picture of campaign finance in the United States. PACrat does that work for you, with a single, thorough data set that tracks all the money in politics. Whether you are following PAC money or looking for industry trends, our constantly updated database has the tools you need to draw quick, solid conclusions.
Don't take our word for it. Check the receipts.
Every piece of data on this site is tied directly to its source. Every inference sits beside its formula, and every pull comes with the document it was taken from.
The record, as filed
A filed value is stored and served exactly as the government published it, forever. A cleaned form, when there is one, sits beside the original and is labeled; it never replaces it.
The formula, beside the figure
Every computed figure is a registered measure: its formula, its version, its numerator and denominator, and where it stands among its peers.
The source record for every data pull
Every automated data load keeps a record of itself and the raw file it read. Each row can be traced to the filing it came from, and each answer says what was searched.
What is inside
Six kinds of records from 199 sources. Each is collected on its own schedule and kept as the government published it, and our computed figures sit beside the filed values, never in their place.
Federal campaign money
Every FEC filing since 1980: who gave, who spent, what each report swore to, and what changed when a report was amended.
- Changes made to filed reports
- Donations of $1,000 or more in the 20 days before an election
- Donations to campaigns
- Loans to campaigns
- +8 more
Outside money and political ads
Independent expenditures, electioneering, the FCC's political files, and the Google, Meta and Snapchat ad archives with their declared targeting.
- Ads naming a candidate, as reported by the ad's buyer
- Facebook and Instagram political ads
- Political ad files posted by radio and TV stations
- Spending for or against a candidate by groups other than the campaign
- +4 more
Congress at work
Roll-call votes, sponsored bills, committee seats, earmark requests, the Congressional Record, STOCK Act trades and the prices behind them.
- What was said in Congress (Congressional Record)
- Which member asked for each earmark
- Prices of stocks members of Congress trade
- State legislators
- +12 more
The states' own records
State campaign-finance records as each state publishes them, plus state bills and roll calls, who is on each ballot, and certified returns.
- Ballotpedia
- Who is on the ballot
- Kentucky bill sponsors
- Massachusetts House roll calls
- 51 states' registers
- +67 more
Companies, lobbying and 527s
Senate lobbying filings and the lobbyists behind them, IRS 527 organizations, SEC subsidiary lists, and the company behind each corporate PAC.
- Bills named in lobbying filings
- Lobbyists and their past government posts
- Company subsidiary lists
- Lobby groups the money suggests
- +10 more
Places, people and more
Census profiles of every district, county and zip; where each campaign's money lives; the prediction markets before an official act; and every other public record we collect, each with its receipt.
- Election betting odds (Kalshi)
- Election betting odds (Polymarket)
- One person across a state's filings
- One person across the registers
- +73 more
Let's talk numbers
Current as of 2026-10-18.
Not just for researchers
With so much information in one place, PACrat makes it easy to do more than research. Here are a few of the things you could do with it today.
Opposition financial research
Track the industries and the donors providing resources to your opponents: who gives, through which committees, in what amounts, and how that changes report by report. Every row is as filed, and every share carries its formula.
Vendor analysis
Compare vendors to their outcomes: what each shop was paid, by whom, for what, and how the campaigns that hired them fared, so you can find the shops that will best serve your needs.
A donor-overlap map
Which givers fund both sides of a race, which fund one campaign and its attackers, and how the overlap changes report by report. Gifts listed one by one, as filed, with the coverage of each window stated.
A race dashboard
Money raised and spent in each reporting period, outside money for and against each side, the share from undisclosed sources, and the sworn totals next to the itemized rows. This covers every federal race and the state races we have records for.
An ad-targeting monitor
Who the political ads on Google, Meta and Snapchat were aimed at, by place, age and gender, tied to the committee that paid, with the FCC's political files for the airtime beside them.
A bill-to-money tracer
From a bill to its sponsors, their votes, the lobbying filings that name it, the firms that paid, and those firms' PACs' gifts to the members who voted. Each link is a filed record, and each figure has its formula.
How it is built
One engine walks every source the same way, and the API speaks a shape you already know.
OpenFEC-compatible
The /v1 API answers in the FEC's own API shapes, so
code written against the Commission's API runs here unchanged, over the same records.
Coverage on every answer
Every /v2 answer carries a coverage block, which says what was searched, and its limits, which say what the records cannot support. Each row carries the ID of the data load that brought it in.
Figures with formulas
Every computed figure is a registered measure: formula, version, numerator and denominator, peer percentile. What every served field means, code by code, is in the data dictionary.
Two tiers, one set of records
The civic tier is free forever. The researcher tier adds keyed API access at cost recovery. Both read the same records, the same formulas and the same receipts.
The civic tier
Free, forever. The site and its public endpoints cost nothing.
- Every page and every public endpoint, as today
- JSON and CSV on the same URLs
- Sources, coverage and formulas in every answer
The researcher tier Coming soon
Keyed access, for newsrooms, campaigns, academics, and tool builders.
- API access: your own key to every endpoint, with higher limits and bulk downloads
- Export from the page: a limited ability to take the data you are looking at straight from the page as a file
- The same records, the same formulas, the same sources
- Pricing that recovers the cost of serving, nothing more
If you'd like early access to an API key, or want more information, email us below.