Political money is public record, and most of it can be followed from the Federal Election Commission's own filings. This page follows one of the most-discussed flows in recent Congressional elections, the two committees connected to AIPAC. It then steps back to what the same data shows about money in Congress as a whole, including whether richer places raise more.
AIPAC runs two committees registered with the FEC, and between them they move money in three legally different ways. A single "AIPAC spent" figure would blur all three, so this page keeps them apart.
A political action committee can give a candidate's campaign up to $5,000 per election from its own treasury. AIPAC PAC's own giving is a small part of what it moves.
Most of the money passing through AIPAC PAC comes from individual donors, who send contributions earmarked for a named candidate. The PAC acts as a conduit and forwards them. FEC filings label these "EARMARK OF [donor]".
A super PAC cannot give candidates anything. It can spend unlimited amounts on advertising for or against them, as long as it does not coordinate with any campaign. Much of UDP's spending has been against candidates.
Receiving a contribution, or being the subject of independent spending, is legal and a matter of public record. It is not evidence of how anyone votes or why, and this page makes no such claim about any person named on it.
Figures are the FEC's own committee totals for each two-year cycle. The 2026 cycle is not over and runs through the latest filing (2026-07-31). AIPAC PAC's figure is money sent to candidate committees, most of it earmarked by individual donors. UDP's figure is independent expenditures. Independent trackers report matching figures — see cross-checks.
current members of Congress received AIPAC PAC contributions at some point from 2022 to 2026. Pick a state to see who they are and their parties. Switch the map to show UDP's independent spending by state instead.
The list shows who received money. It deliberately leaves out how much each one received. The FEC's bulk data captures only about a ninth of AIPAC PAC's earmarked contributions, so a dollar figure next to a name would be wrong, by an amount that differs from person to person. The committee-level totals above come from the complete FEC figures.
| Member | Party | Seat | Received in cycle |
|---|
United Democracy Project spent in races from 2022 to 2026. Each result below comes from reporting cited beside it. Outcomes after mid-2026 are confirmed by at least two separate outlets.
"The side UDP backed won" describes the result, not the cause. UDP chooses where to spend. Several of the candidates it supported were already favoured, and some it opposed were already struggling. A win rate cannot separate money that decided a race from money that followed a likely result. The largest single effort in the record, more than $30 million in Michigan's 2026 Senate primary, went to the side that lost.
Race totals add up individual filings, with repeated and amended filings removed. They match the FEC committee totals to within 0.5% for 2022 and 2024. For 2026 the race figures run higher, because 24- and 48-hour reports filed after the committee totals' 31 July coverage date are already included.
Every candidate for the House and Senate, 2006 to 2024: where their campaign money came from. Individual donors have always supplied most of it. What changed is the PAC share, which stayed near a quarter until 2016 and has been about an eighth since 2020.
Earmarked contributions routed through a conduit, as through AIPAC PAC, count as individual contributions on the candidate's own report. Part of the rise in the individual share is money that moved through PAC-run conduits instead of PAC treasuries. The shares don't reach 100% because transfers and other receipts are left out.
Most campaigns are paid for in similar ways. The median House incumbent took of their 2024 money from PACs and from individual donors. The candidates below are the furthest from their peers on where their money came from. Each group was chosen by a fixed rule, printed with it, so nobody is on this page by editorial choice. Every result comes from official returns or the source linked beside it.
Where a campaign's money comes from is public record. It is not evidence of how anyone votes or why. The explanations below describe patterns in the filings and in published research, not anyone's motives.
Usually, but that is not the same as money winning races. Money flows to candidates who already look likely to win: incumbents, favourites, people in safe seats. So the headline rate mostly reflects who gets funded. The more useful number is what happens when a race is close and the money is roughly even.
The strongest evidence on whether campaign spending persuades anyone comes from 49 field experiments analysed by Kalla & Broockman (American Political Science Review, 2018). They put the best estimate of persuasion by campaign contact and advertising in general elections at roughly zero. That is why these rates are described as patterns, not effects.
That question hides two separate ones. One is whether money gets spent in rich places, meaning raised by the candidates running there. The other is whether it comes from rich places, meaning given by people who live there. Their answers can differ, so they are tested separately.
Across 48 states and four presidential cycles, a state's income does not predict how much its House and Senate candidates raise per voter. A competitive Senate race on the ballot does.
Money raised by all House and Senate candidates in each state, per vote cast for president, 2008–2020, from FEC candidate summaries. Income is per-capita personal income (Bureau of Economic Analysis), weighted by county votes. The regressions include cycle fixed effects, with standard errors clustered by state. DC is excluded because it has no voting member of Congress. Tested: .
A race's cost is what the candidates' campaigns spent in the 2023–24 cycle, primaries included, plus independent spending reported for or against its candidates. Money a campaign moved to the same candidate's other committees is not counted twice. Median household income is from the Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey, 1-year estimates, on the district lines used in November 2024. Zip codes are Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas with 2020–24 incomes, the only estimates published at that level. A zip code that crosses a district line is split by land area, which is approximate. The richest and poorest zip codes named have at least 1,000 households and most of their land inside the district. $250,001 is the Census top code, meaning $250,000 or more. Senate races are statewide, so their figures cover the whole state.
The FEC reports contributions by the donor's home state, but only through its web API, and its public demonstration key allows ten requests an hour. That was not enough to finish the pull. This half of the question will be answered when the data is in. Until then, no answer is given.
Every figure on this page comes from the Federal Election Commission. Race outcomes are cited individually above. Other trackers were consulted to check the totals, and each is listed below with what kind of organisation it is.
Built 2026-09-11 from data/money/money.json. 2026 figures are cycle to date
and will change. Last verified 2026-09-10.