Campaign Finance Trace Reports

How hidden political money becomes visible

Voters may see a mailer, digital ad, or TV spot from a local-sounding committee. What they usually do not see is the money chain behind it: upstream donors, pass-through committees, allied PACs, delayed filings, shared vendors, and networks that make the final sponsor look more independent than it really is.

This project turns scattered public records into readable trace reports: who spent, who funded them, what voters saw, and what parts of the influence chain were hidden until the political damage was already done. These examples show the reporting format. For methodology, collaboration, or access to additional material, reach out to the authors.

Case Study Reports

Katherine Abughazaleh, IL-09 2026 Layered federal money trace across donor, intermediary committee, and outside-spending committee records. Haley Stevens, MI Senate 2026 Early-cycle outside-spending field and network-aligned detection through roster matching. Abdul El-Sayed, MI Senate 2026 Negative-control report where the current detector did not identify flagged-network money flowing to the candidate. Scott Peters, CA-50 2024 Federal outside-spending trace where the primary detected pattern is not flagged-network spending. Gavin Newsom, California Governor 2018 California state-level Cal-Access tracing on a large statewide race.

This page is a small public preview. The underlying project includes additional material, methodology, source review, and unpublished work that is not shown here and will not all be published openly. For deeper context, collaboration, or access to more information about the project, reach out to the authors or team.