More info
Explorable Colorado state campaign finance data.
About this site
#FollowtheMoneyCO is a campaign finance data site operated by Sandra Fish. It began in 2020 as a joint project of the media collaborative COLab and the Colorado Sun, funded by the Colorado Media Project and the Colorado Sun. The goal is to make Colorado campaign finance data more accessible to journalists and the public.
The most recent redesign of the site was accomplished with Claude Code.
The latest
This Datasette was rebuilt in late March 2026 to cover only this year’s statewide, state House and state Senate elections. If you would like information from prior elections or additional contests, let me know.
Where the data comes from
Every figure here comes from bulk downloads on TRACER, the Colorado Secretary of State’s campaign finance system. Nothing is hand-entered or estimated.
The tables are built with Python, Pandas and Jupyter Lab. They are pared down from the originals and include full names for contributors and payment recipients. These names have not been standardized — the same donor may appear several ways, so search broadly.
For legislative and statewide candidates, the TRACER data is merged with a list of candidate committee numbers. The other tables are built by selecting committee types.
What is included
| Section | Tables | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Statewide candidates | state_cont, state_exp | Governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and other statewide offices |
| State House | house_cont, house_exp | Candidate committees by House district |
| State Senate | senate_cont, senate_exp | Candidate committees by Senate district |
| Super PACs | super_pacs_cont, super_pacs_exp | 527 committees and independent expenditure committees |
| Issue committees | issue_comm_cont, issue_comm_exp | Ballot measure campaigns |
| Independent spending | iec_0803 | Independent expenditures, with the candidate supported or opposed |
| Candidate loans | cand_loans | Loans to candidate committees, repayments and balances |
Tables ending in _cont are contributions; those ending in
_exp are expenses.
Super PACs and the committee_type column
Super PACs here include both 527 committees and independent expenditure
committees. A 527 will often collect money and then donate it to an IEC
with the same name, so always filter on
committee_type to tell the two apart. When writing up
a large contribution, use a query that captures all of the
contributor’s records rather than a single row.
Caveats
- Candidates typically transfer cash on hand into the new election cycle. Those amounts have been removed from both the contribution and expense tables.
- Some large contributions are refunded in full or in part later on, and appear as negative amounts.
- Contributor and recipient names are not standardized.
- Independent expenditures naming more than one candidate were divided equally among the candidates.
Contribution limits and context
Contribution limits for the various committee types are listed on this page from the Secretary of State’s office. NCSL’s campaign finance resources are useful for broader context.
How often it updates
The data is refreshed after each state filing deadline. Because committees can amend earlier reports, figures for past periods may change as corrections are filed.
Questions and corrections
Email fish: fishnette (at) gmail (dot) com
Prefer raw tables and SQL? Browse camp_fin_2026, or read using SQL.
Source: bulk data downloads from the Colorado Secretary of State’s TRACER system.