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National Political Contributor Search

Search every itemized federal campaign contribution by a person’s name or by the company they work for. Results carry a street address, employer, occupation, amount and date, straight from the federal file.

Last name on its own casts the widest net. Add a first name to narrow it, and a city or state to narrow it further.
Leave all unticked to search every cycle at once.

State-level data

This searches the federal file. SkipLook searches the states too.

Federal filings only capture contributions to federal campaigns. A great deal of money moves through state and local races that never appears here. SkipLook runs a state-by-state political contributor search across those additional databases, plus people-search returns with extended detail — on the $25 and $50 plans.

See SkipLook plans

Why an investigator uses this

Federal law requires campaigns to itemize contributions once a donor passes $200 in an election cycle, and the itemization is not a name and a dollar figure. It is a name, a residential address, a city, a state, a ZIP, an employer, an occupation, an amount and a date — supplied by the donor, filed under penalty of perjury, and published.

That makes it one of the few genuinely free sources of a current home address attached to a named individual. Not a mailing address, not a business address. Where they live.

It is also self-updating in a way most public records are not. A person who gives every cycle leaves a dated trail of addresses, which is an address history you did not have to buy. And when the employer field changes between two contributions, you have just found a job change with a date on it.

Searching by business

The employer search is the part most people never try. Every donor types their own employer into the form, so searching a company name returns the people who work there — by name, with addresses. For a business you are looking into, that is a roster you can build in about thirty seconds.

It runs both directions. Find your subject, note the employer exactly as they typed it, then search that employer and you have their coworkers. Associates are often the fastest route back to a person who has gone quiet.

The catch: the employer field is free text. The same company shows up as ACME, ACME INC, ACME CONSTRUCTION, and ACME CONSTRUCTION LLC, and each is a different search. Use the shortest distinctive part of the name. Also expect a great deal of SELF, SELF-EMPLOYED, NONE, RETIRED and N/A — those are real entries and they are worth searching on their own if you are working a specific town.

What it will not show you

  • Contributions under the $200 itemization threshold. Small donors are invisible here.
  • State and local races. This is the federal file only.
  • Dark money. Contributions routed through organizations that do not disclose donors.
  • Anyone who has never given. Most people have not.

Related

Data comes from the Federal Election Commission’s public API. This site stores nothing and sends nothing anywhere except the FEC.