Campaign finance stories move fast, but the underlying records usually sit in public FEC feeds hours or days before the narrative hardens. This desk treats those filings as primary evidence, not color commentary.

What we pull first

  • Candidate totals from the Commission’s periodic summaries — cash on hand, debts, and cycle-to-date receipts.
  • Independent expenditures on Schedule E — who spent, targeting which race, and whether the spend is support or oppose.
  • Committee-to-committee flows that can signal soft-party or hybrid structures feeding super PACs.

How we package it

Headlines stay punchy. Numbers stay sourced. If a figure is an outside tracker built on FEC exports rather than a Commission release, we say so in the piece. That is the difference between a scroll-stopper and a cleanup job later.

For the live midterm money map already on this site, start with the Commission’s own 15-month snapshot and any Schedule E dashboard cited in the article footer.

Nathan Stanford desk — Documents / Money / OSINT

Sourcing note: Method post based on public FEC disclosure practice and this desk’s midterm money map reporting. No new claims beyond how we read public filings.