Shawn Griffiths
Polling shows most Americans are concerned about the impact money has in politics. Ask any voter, Republican, Democrat, or independent, and they are likely to tell you that there is too much cash being injected in state and federal elections.
However, tracking all that money has traditionally meant knowing where to look. It meant several Google searches and opening 19 different browser tabs to identify how much money is being spent, where it is being spent, and who is spending it.
Federal campaign contributions might be found in one database. State races in another. And some information is not easily obtained because it requires navigating a complex labyrinth of disclosure rules and bureaucracy.
Now, OpenSecrets is trying to make the process easier. The nonpartisan organization announced this week the launch of a new public dashboard that combines historical state and federal political finance data into a single searchable platform.
Shawn Griffiths
The stated goal is to allow journalists, researchers, and voters to follow money across different levels of government in one, easy-to-access location.
“Understanding how money influences politics shouldn't require a degree in data science or dozens of browser tabs,” OpenSecrets Executive Director Hilary Braseth said.
The dashboard allows users to look at broad spending and contribution trends while also digging deeper into individual jurisdictions and donors. OpenSecrets says users can analyze financial activity in gubernatorial, legislative, and judicial elections alongside federal contests.
Users can also filter contribution data by characteristics including geography, industry, employer, gender, and donation size.
According to OpenSecrets, it is the first time its federal and state campaign finance information has been aggregated into a single unified platform, which could be useful for people who want to track monied interests that operate across multiple levels of government.
And across state borders.
For example, a company, advocacy group, or network of individual donors may be active in congressional elections while also putting money into state legislative contests. The new platform could help make it easier to identify patterns.
The endeavor is the culmination of a merger that happened 5 years ago.
The Center for Responsive Politics, which was best known for tracking money in federal politics through OpenSecrets, merged with the National Institute on Money in Politics in 2021. The latter specialized in state campaign finance data.
The combined organization became OpenSecrets.
“When the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute for Money in Politics merged to form OpenSecrets, our vision was to eliminate the artificial wall between federal and state political spending data,” OpenSecrets Board Chairman Daniel Doktori said.
The organization says this is just the beginning. It plans to update its dashboard with current state election data, additional ballot measure tracking and information related to the 2028 presidential election.
The dashboard is free and available through OpenSecrets’ State Profiles section.