Building a Political Donor Tracker with FEC Campaign Finance Data
python
dev.to
Campaign finance data is public by law. The FEC publishes every donation over $200 to federal candidates. This data powers investigative journalism, civic tech, and political research. Here's how to build a donor tracking system. FEC Data Sources Bulk data: Downloadable CSV files updated nightly API: REST API at api.open.fec.gov (free API key required) Website: fec.gov with searchable database Using the FEC API import requests import time from collections import d