How do I find out who is funding a candidate?
In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that outside groups can spend unlimited money on election-related advertising, so long as they do not coordinate with candidates. Since then the amount of money spent on politics has exploded. Many voters are concerned that elected officials are now more responsive to big spenders than they are to local voters. So how do you know who might be influencing votes? Candidates and political groups still have to report some information about their fundraising and spending. This tutorial is your guide to finding that information.
If you are researching a U.S. representative, U.S. senator, or presidential candidate, you can find information at the Federal Election Commission website. Other groups provide additional tools and insights, including Open Secrets and Influence Explorer.
If you are researching a candidate for state legislator, executive councilor, or governor, go to the Secretary of State’s campaign finance website, here. The rest of this tutorial will focus on finding data on that website.
Before you begin searching New Hampshire’s campaign finance website, you need to know that New Hampshire campaign finance reports can be written by hand and scanned into the system. Some of the information on these handwritten reports will not show up in search results because the handwriting is stored like a picture. This handwritten information can also be difficult to read; New Hampshire even had to a pass a law that campaign finance reports must be legible! So, before you begin, either be ready to spend some time reading scanned reports or be prepared to miss some of the whole picture.
There are several ways to search New Hampshire’s online campaign finance system, listed around the middle of the website’s homepage.
If you want to find information about an individual running for office, use the “Search Candidate and Candidate Committees” bar.
If you want to find information about an advocacy group that is not affiliated with a specific candidate but is running advertisements in the election, use the “Search Non-Candidate Committees and Political Advocacy Organizations Profiles” bar. This would cover organizations such as “603 Forward” and “Americans for Prosperity.”
If you want to find information about a specific advertising payment or donation, use “Search Transactions.”
Keep in mind, there is no spellcheck in New Hampshire’s campaign finance system, or a “did you mean” prompt. There can also be small variations in how an individual or group is listed in the system in different years. Last but not least, some information will only be listed if it was submitted electronically. As noted in the previous step, donations that are recorded on handwritten reports will not show up as searchable records.
The search results for candidates, committees, and political advocacy organizations will have a similar look.
If you are looking for the most current information, pay attention to the column titled “Election Cycle.” You will most likely see results for the same candidate or organization over several different election cycles. You can filter by election cycle to eliminate older results.
If you want more detailed information, click the hyperlinked committee name.
The information you see on this page will vary depending on whether the individual or organization has filed a handwritten report or submitted a digital report.
If only handwritten reports are available, you will see hyperlinks to individual reports. These scanned PDFs will show the same information from digital reports, but that information will not be aggregated or searchable. In other words, you can click an individual report to read the names of donors and how much they gave, but if you want to filter the donors by category or sort largest to smallest, you are out of luck.
If a candidate or organization files digital reports, you will have a lot of quick information at your fingertips.
Whether it is a paper report or a digital record, here is some information you may find insightful:
Receipts
“Receipts” are money raised. In the New Hampshire House of Representatives it is not uncommon for candidates to raise and spend less than $1,000, which is the legal threshold to file a campaign finance report. However, some of the high-profile representative candidates raise $10,000 or more.
There is a lot more money in state Senate races. These days it’s not uncommon to see state Senate campaigns raise over $100,000.
You can also see individual donations (on later pages in a scanned paper report). These lists show the name, address, and job for individual donors, as well as how much they have donated. You may be interested to see who gave a large amount of money, or how many donors are in-state versus out-of-state.
Expenditures
“Expenditures” show how much money was spent. For candidates, this often includes paper advertisements, website hosting, and snacks for meetings. For political committees and organizations, expenditures include donations to candidates as well as any of their own advertisements or events. You may find that some organizations give to both the Republican and Democratic candidates in a race, perhaps aiming to curry favor no matter who wins.
Candidates and their committees can also donate to each other. Candidates who are especially strong fundraisers may be more likely to donate to other candidates, or even back to their political party.
Lastly, you may even see some donations to charity, particularly when a candidate has money left over at the end of a campaign. For example, former state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro has donated to the New Hampshire Food Bank and the New Hampshire Troopers Association.
Anytime you see a political mailer or other advertisement for or against a candidate in New Hampshire, state law requires it to include information about who paid for that ad. You can look up that name on the Secretary of State’s campaign finance website to see where their money comes from, if the money is from New Hampshire, and what other political interests they might have.
In addition to election-related spending, elected officials must report when they receive gifts or are reimbursed for some expenses.
For example, many state legislators are invited to conferences where national organizations present their policy ideas; the organizations then offer to reimburse legislators for the travel costs. Other times legislators are gifted tickets to events or offered compensation for participation.
Legislators must report all of this. You can find their reports on the Secretary of State’s website, here.
Unfortunately, these reports are scanned documents without a search function. You must browse each report by the official’s last name.
