Where's the Money, Lebowski?
← Look up your ballot
LiveThe 2026 midterm debate
DemocratYour side, maybe
RepublicanOr this one
Tonight's debate

Two parties.
Same sponsors.

These 12 PACs each gave to Democrats and Republicans running for Congress this cycle, and neither party got more than 60% of any one PAC's money.[1] Tap a patch to see the split.

96%

For the typical member of Congress, that's how many of the PACs giving to them also gave to the other party's candidates. Republicans: 95%. Democrats: 97%. The lowest of anyone: 74%.[1][4] Counting company, union and trade-group PACs, among the 484 members who took money from at least 20 of them.

The sponsor board

The 12 that gave the most while splitting closest to even. Every dollar went to candidates' own campaigns.

To DemocratsTo Republicans
All 683 PACs that gave $100,000 or more →
$3,500The most you can give a candidate, per election.[7]
UnlimitedWhat a super PAC can take from one donor. 2,419 of them had raised $2.49 billion by June 30.[7][9]
$5,000The most a PAC can give one candidate, per election.[7]
491candidates got checks from the Realtors' PAC anyway: 240 Democrats and 251 Republicans.[1]
$65,300What a political party was allowed to spend helping one of its House candidates.[10]
No capThe Supreme Court removed that limit on June 30, 2026, by a 6 to 3 vote.[11][12]
6 seatsOn the Federal Election Commission, the agency that enforces these rules.[13]
2 filledIt needs 4 members to act. Since May 2025 it can't investigate, fine anyone, or make rules.[13][14]

Tap a tile to flip it back.

The fine print ↓
The fine print

Behind the podiums

01 · Both sides

Who pays both teams

1,686of the 2,244 company, union and trade-group PACs that gave to candidates gave to both parties.[1]
47 of 50of the PACs that gave the most gave to Democrats and Republicans.[1]
5 of 5Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, RTX. Each gave to both parties. None gave either side more than 62%.[1]
The whole sponsor sheet →
02 · The rules

The limits, and no referee

$3,500is the most you can give a candidate per election. A PAC: $5,000. A super PAC spending on its own ads: no limit.[7]
2 of 6seats are filled at the FEC, the agency that enforces these limits. It needs 4 to investigate or fine anyone.[13]
307complaints about election-money violations are waiting at the FEC, which can't rule on them. The pile doubled in a year.[13]
The rulebook →
03 · The board

The biggest campaigns

$77.3Mraised by Jon Ossoff's Senate campaign in Georgia, the most of anyone through June 30.[15]
$32.6Mraised by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York through June 30, the most of anyone running for the House then.[16]
$20.5Mraised by Mike Johnson, the Speaker, in Louisiana, through June 30. Third in the House then, and the first full page we built. Open it →[16]
The top 50 lists →
The ad bill: $11.21B Every filing ↗

Sources

  1. FEC bulk data, Contributions from committees to candidates (pas226), 2025–2026, file of Oct 25, 2026, with contributions dated through Oct 14, 2026 · download page
  2. FEC bulk data, Committee master file (cm26): PAC type and connected organization
  3. FEC bulk data, Candidate master file (cn26): each candidate's party
  4. unitedstates/congress-legislators, current members of Congress with their FEC candidate IDs (file of Sep 24, 2026)
  5. FEC, Political Action Committees (PACs): company, union, trade and membership PACs can collect only from people tied to the organization
  6. FEC, Registering as an SSF: companies and unions can't give their own treasury money to federal candidates
  7. FEC, Contribution limits for 2025–2026
  8. Gallup, Record lows say congressional incumbents deserve reelection, Oct 28, 2026 (14% approve of Congress; 1,200 adults, Oct 1–19)
  9. FEC, PAC Table 1, Summary of PAC activity, Jan 1, 2025 through Jun 30, 2026
  10. Congressional Research Service, Coordinated Party Expenditures: Policy Background (IF13270), updated July 16, 2026
  11. FEC Record, Supreme Court finds limits on coordinated party expenditures unconstitutional in NRSC v. FEC, July 1, 2026
  12. Skadden, NRSC v. FEC: Supreme Court invalidates limits on political parties' coordinated spending, July 2026
  13. CBS News, Weeks before Election Day, the nation's campaign finance regulator can't enforce the law, Oct 7, 2026
  14. FEC, Notice of lack of quorum (court filing), Mar 31, 2026
  15. FEC, Congressional Candidate Table 6a, Top 50 Senate campaigns by receipts, Jan 1, 2025 through Jun 30, 2026
  16. FEC, Congressional Candidate Table 8a, Top 50 House campaigns by receipts, Jan 1, 2025 through Jun 30, 2026
  17. U.S. Census Bureau, TIGERweb: 119th Congress districts (who represents you now) and 120th Congress districts (who's on your Nov 3 ballot)
  18. Wikipedia, 2026 United States House of Representatives elections: candidates in each district, as of Oct 30, 2026
  19. Wikipedia, 2026 United States Senate elections: candidates in each state, as of Oct 30, 2026
  20. FEC bulk data, All candidates summary (weball26), file of Oct 30, 2026: each campaign's total raised and where it came from, through its latest report
  21. Vote.gov (U.S. government): your state's election office and official sample ballot
  22. California Fair Political Practices Commission, Top 10 Contributors Lists, November 2026 General Election, as of Oct 30, 2026
  23. California Secretary of State, Official Voter Information Guide, November 3, 2026: each measure's official title and summary by the Attorney General
  24. California Secretary of State, Qualified Statewide Ballot Measures, November 3, 2026 · Cal-Access, every committee's full filings

How the sponsor numbers are counted: only PACs run by a company, union, trade group, membership group or cooperative (the FEC calls it the PAC's "connected organization"), and only their direct contributions to candidates' own campaign committees (FEC transaction type 24K), refunds subtracted. Not counted: donations from individuals that a PAC forwarded (earmarks), lawmakers' own leadership PACs, ideological PACs with no sponsoring organization, super PACs, and party money. "Both parties" means at least one Democratic and one Republican candidate; Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party counts as Democratic. The typical-member figure is the median among voting members of Congress with at least 20 such PACs. These are the FEC's processed records, which can trail what campaigns have filed by a few weeks. Your ballot: candidate lists come from Wikipedia's race tables, matched to FEC candidate records by name, state and district; a candidate with no match hasn't registered with the FEC (anyone who raises or spends $5,000 or less doesn't have to). Each candidate's breakdown uses the FEC summary of their own campaign: "people" is contributions from individuals, "PACs and committees" is everything from PACs and other political committees (including ones with no sponsoring organization), "party" is party committees, "own money" is the candidate's contributions and loans, and "transfers, other" is the rest, mostly transfers from joint fundraising committees. Candidates are listed by how much they've raised. California propositions: each side's total is the FPPC's sum of the top contributors to committees that raised $1 million or more for that side; a measure without such a committee shows none. A contribution to a committee working on several measures counts toward each of them (marked *), and money one committee passes to another can appear twice, as it does in the FPPC's own totals. Individuals are named only when they gave more than $100,000 to one side; smaller gifts from individuals are added up without names, and individual donors behind a contributing committee are counted, not named. "The name vs. the money" shows each committee's name as registered and the share of its listed top contributions that came from its largest one or two contributors. "The fine print" quotes the Attorney General's official title and summary. "Name check" lists any committee where one or two sources supply at least 75% of its listed top contributions, and at least $100,000, and its registered name mentions neither, by a word or by initials (a "sponsored by" phrase counts only when its words match one of those sources; two names that describe their funders in general terms, "labor unions" and "education and labor organizations", aren't listed). It compares only the name with the state filings, where these committees disclosed their donors as the law requires. The rule is applied to every committee on both sides, and the featured source is the one behind the most listed committees. The Johnson page counts differently (it includes his leadership PAC and forwarded donations), so its totals differ.