All the money

Candidates

Where candidates’ money came from

• Individual contributions, itemized ($200 and up from one donor)$1,629,242,268.24
• Individual contributions, unitemized (small-dollar)$805,034,131.83
• PAC and other committee contributions$489,076,960.77
• Party committee contributions$4,528,811.15
• Candidates’ own money: contributions$246,412,279.59
• Candidates’ own money: loans$358,821,531.06
• Transfers from joint fundraising and other authorized committees$433,335,983.85

Party committees

Coordinated party expenditures (spent by parties in coordination with their candidates): $342,934,346.68. Transfers from state parties’ non-federal accounts: $121,192,670.38.

PACs

Connected PACs by sponsor: unions $395M · companies $378M · trade groups $158M · membership groups $154M · cooperatives $7.5M raised.

PACs’ raised money is not split by party; the note under each line shows where their contributions to candidates went.

Super PACs and hybrid PACs

Super PACs’ raised money is not split by party; outside spending below shows whom it was spent for and against.

Largest organizational donors to the biggest super PACs

Companies, unions, PACs and other organizations only. People who give are counted in the totals but are never named here. A pass-through donor is an LLC or a group that reports political spending as a non-committee: the original source of its money is not disclosed.

Outside spending

• Independent expenditures reported by the groups that made them: super PACs $1,886,896,178.78, hybrid PACs $465,587,966.22, parties $385,291.48, other PACs $24,218,350.41, groups that are not political committees $13,638,020.20$2,390,725,807.09

For and against, by party

The FEC has matched $892,269,004.60 of this to the candidates it was spent for or against so far; the rest is still being processed.

FEC totals of independent expenditures by candidate, retrieved October 24, 2026 (FEC). They come from the spenders’ regular reports; spending so recent that it appears only in 24- and 48-hour notices is not included yet.

• Electioneering communications (broadcast ads naming a candidate shortly before an election)$4,262,691.75
• Communication costs (companies’ and unions’ messages to their own members or staff)$1,169,606.03

Sources: FEC electioneering communications; FEC communication costs.

Money that is only partly visible

• Spent by groups that are not political committees, such as 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) nonprofits: spent, donors not disclosed (independent expenditures $13,638,020.20, electioneering $4,262,691.75)$17,900,711.95

These groups (such as the governors’ associations) mostly work on state races. Their Form 8872 reports list contributions and spending of $200 or more, so smaller amounts are not included. They are shown on their own line and are not added to the federal total. Donation platforms’ non-federal accounts, which pass money on to state campaigns, are left out.

Some political spending is legally undisclosed and isn’t counted here.

Shown but not added in

Donation platforms that forward contributions earmarked for candidates and committees: ACTBLUE $2,546,952,947.58, WINRED $907,590,234.20. The receiving campaigns report that money as their own contributions, so it is counted there and not again here.

How we built this total

The total starts with every receipt reported to the FEC by federal candidates, party committees, PACs, super PACs and joint fundraising committees in 2025–26 (the FEC’s committee summary file, download, last updated Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:13:52 GMT). Then:

1. Receipts reported by every federal candidate, party, PAC, super PAC and joint fundraising committee$16,714,363,627.13
2. Less transfers from other committees (joint fundraising distributions, party and affiliated transfers)−$1,340,680,882.66
3. Less contributions received from party committees−$63,744,422.61
4. Less contributions received from PACs and other committees−$2,002,631,513.35
5. Less contributions refunded to donors−$160,711,404.72
6. Less refunds and rebates received (offsets to operating expenditures)−$101,403,240.34
7. Less repayments received on loans the committee made−$4,097,700.00
8. Plus spending by groups that are not political committees (independent expenditures, electioneering communications and communication costs)$19,070,317.98
9. Federal campaign money, counted once$13,060,164,781.43

Each subtraction removes money that already counted once at another committee, or money that came back to the same committee. Donation platforms (ActBlue, WinRed) are left out because the campaigns they forward money to report it themselves. Loans are counted as money raised; repaying them is not counted as spending. The Democratic and Republican figures cover candidates and party committees only, after the same subtractions. Contributions from committees that do not report to the FEC (some state and local groups) are also subtracted, so the total may slightly understate new money. The FEC’s own statistics publish raised and spent by committee type without removing every transfer between types, so they add up to more than this total.

State and local money

All state races in 29 states, from each state’s own campaign finance records. Where a state’s records are read in full, its page lists every state and local race, party committee, PAC and ballot-measure committee it reports. State money is kept separate from the federal total, and the figures here are what candidates raised; party, PAC and ballot-measure money is on each state’s page.

States whose own records could not be used yet

• Alaska: Wikipedia only. APOC reports sit behind a DataDome captcha (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Arizona: Wikipedia only. seethemoney.az.gov returns its data only after a Cloudflare bot check (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Colorado: Wikipedia only. TRACER’s terms prohibit robots and data mining without permission (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Maine: Wikipedia only. The Ethics Commission moved to mainecampaignfinancedisclosure.com, which sits behind a Cloudflare bot check; the old site is down (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Mississippi: Not added: the Secretary of State’s campaign finance portal (cfportal.sos.ms.gov) answers TerraCivic’s fetcher with a Cloudflare bot challenge (HTTP 403; checked 2026-10-25). Mississippi has no 2026 state races. Where to find its records.
• Nevada: Wikipedia only. nvsos.gov sits behind Incapsula bot protection (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• New Hampshire: Wikipedia only. cfs.sos.nh.gov refuses scripted requests (HTTP 403) (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• New Mexico: Wikipedia only. The New Mexico system loads a bot-protection script before any search (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Ohio: Wikipedia only. The Secretary of State’s campaign finance search returns a maintenance page (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Oregon: Wikipedia only. ORESTAR searches are refused by the Secretary of State’s F5 bot protection (session token check) (checked 2026-10-23). Where to find its records.
• Virginia: Not added: the Department of Elections’ CSV files (apps.elections.virginia.gov/SBE_CSV) refuse TerraCivic’s fetcher (HTTP 403 from the Akamai firewall; checked 2026-10-25). Virginia has no 2026 state races. Where to find its records.