Campaign Finance Summary
Description:
Last Updated:
This dataset contains campaign finance summary records for candidate and committee campaigns for the last 10 years. The data present a summary with one record per candidate or committee for an election year that summarized the campaign contributions ,expenditures, debts, etc up to the point in time the summary was generated.
For candidates campaigns, the number of years is determined by the year of the election, not necessarily the year the data was reported.
This dataset is a best-effort by the PDC to provide a complete set of records as described herewith and may contain incomplete or incorrect information. The PDC provides access to the original reports for the purpose of record verification.
Descriptions attached to this dataset do not constitute legal definitions; please consult RCW 42.17A and WAC Title 390 for legal definitions and additional information regarding political finance disclosure requirements.
CONDITION OF RELEASE: This publication and or referenced documents constitutes a list of individuals prepared by the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission and may not be used for commercial purposes. This list is provided on the condition and with the understanding that the persons receiving it agree to this statutorily imposed limitation on its use. See RCW 42.56.070(9) and AGO 1975 No. 15.
| Field Name | Data Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| registered | calendar_date | The date the campaign first submitted a registration. Candidates may not have a date registered if they have declared their candidacy with the Secretary of State or submitted a financial affairs statement indicating their candidacy and have not submitted their registration. |
| declared | calendar_date | The date the candidate campaign declared their candidacy with the Secretary of State. This field only applies to candidate campaigns. |
| withdrew | calendar_date | The date of withdrawl when a candidate withdraws their candidacy. |
| discontinued | calendar_date | The date the candidate campaign discontinued their campaign. |
| receipt_date | calendar_date | The postmark date of the relevant candidate C1 or political committee C1pc registration. A political committee is not required to submit a new or amended C1pc every year. It is possible that a C1pc may be several years old if there are no updates to report. |
| election_date | calendar_date | This is the calendar month/day/year of the election where a candidate is elected to office or the date of the election for a ballot initiative committee. |
| updated_at | calendar_date | The last time that the committee information was updated. This includes information such as the contact information or an amendment to the registration as changes in financial information that result from submitting or amending a report. |
| continuing | checkbox | Whether the PAC is continuing or not. Only set for PACs. Null for candidate, surplus, bonafide and caucus. |
| election_year | number | The year of the election for a candidate or the calendar year that a political committee is registered for. |
| jurisdiction_voters | number | The number of registered voters in the jurisdiction. This number is based on the voter count of the prior year's election. |
| contributions_amount | number | The sum total of all contributions reported. Refer to the "Contributions to Candidates and Political Committees" data set for line-item details. |
| carryforward_amount | number | This filed indicates the amount of money that was reported as the starting balance on the first C4 filed for this filer_id and election year. For continuing committees, this is the balance carried forward for the previous year. For all others, this is money that was remaining from a previous campaign. For example, remaining funds from a candidate's 2012 campaign may be applied as the starting balance of the candidate's 2014 campaign. Any value reported here is not new funds, it was reported as a gain on a previous campaign or election year. Nothing in this definition supersedes applicable WAC/RCW. |
| expenditures_amount | number | The sum total of all expenditures reported. Refer to the "Expenditures by Candidates and Political Committees" data set for line-item details. |
| loans_amount | number | The current outstanding loan balance of the campaign as of the time that the most recent C4 campaign summary report was filed. |
| pledges_amount | number | The current total pledges reported by the campaign as of the time that the most recent C4 campaign summary report was filed. |
| debts_amount | number | The current outstanding debt of the campaign as of the time that the most recent C4 campaign summary report was filed. |
| independent_expenditures_for_amount | number | The sum total of all independent (third party) expenditures made in support of the candidate. Independent expenditures are reported by the third party making the expenditure and the amount reported here only includes amounts where the third party accurately reported the name of the candidate. Refer to the "Independent Expenditures" data set for line-item details. |
| independent_expenditures_against_amount | number | The sum total of all independent (third party) expenditures made in opposition of the candidate. Independent expenditures are reported by the third party making the expenditure and the amount reported here only includes amounts where the third party accurately reported the name of the candidate. Refer to the "Independent Expenditures" data set for line-item details. |
| committee_id | number | The unique identifier of a committee. For a continuing committee, this id will be the same for all the years that the committee is registered. Single year committees and candidate committees will have a unique id for each year even though the candidate or committee organization might be the same across years. Surplus accounts will have a single committee id across all years. |
| person_id | number | The unique ID assigned to a public office holder or candidate. This id is consistent across years and, offices or candidacies and is the preferred id for identifying a natural person. |
| candidacy_id | number | Candidacy ID |
| fund_id | number | Fund ID |
| id | text | PDC internal identifier that corresponds to a candidate or Political committee record in an election year. |
| filer_id | text | The unique id assigned to a candidate or political committee. The filer id is consistent across election years with the exception that an individual running for a second office in the same election year will receive a second filer id. There is no correlation between the two. For a candidate and single-election-year committee such as a ballot committee, the combination of filer_id and election_year uniquely identifies a campaign. |
| filer_type | text | This column designates if this is a candidate committee (CA) or a political committee (CO). |
| filing_type | text | This field indicated the type of campaign finance reports being filed. "Electronic" indicates that all reports are filed electronically and all of the fields containing financial data are correctly calculated from the filed reports. "Paper" indicates that all campaign finance reports have been filed on paper and all of the fields containing financial data will be empty. "Mixed" indicates that one or more reports are filed on paper and all of the fields containing financial data are potentially incorrect. For both paper and mixed, please consult the individual reports in our "Imaged documents and reports data set to determine the campaign finance details. An empty value indicates that no campaign finance (C3 or C4) reports have been filed) |
| candidate_committee_status | text | The status of a campaign at a point in time: Candidate declared – indicates that a candidate formally declared their candidacy during declaration week in May. Candidate registered - indicates that the candidate submitted their candidate registration to the PDC. Candidate withdrew – indicates that a candidate formally declared and then formally withdrew their declaration in May. Candidate discontinued campaign – indicates that the candidate registered their campaign, may or may not have raised money, did not formally withdraw, and stopped campaigning. Candidate deceased – indicates that the candidate died after registration. |
| filer_name | text | The candidate name as reported on the form C1 candidate registration or the political committee name as reported on the C1pc registration. The name will be consistent across all records for the same filer id and election year but may differ across years due to candidates or committees changing their name. |
| committee_acronym | text | If a political committee is known by an abbreviation it is placed in this column. This acronym is optional. An example would be the WA Education Association, whose acronym is WEA. |
| committee_address | text | The street address of the committee. For candidates, this is the address provided for the candidate committee, not necessarily the address of the candidate. |
| committee_city | text | The city of the committee. For candidates, this is the address provided for the candidate committee, not necessarily the address of the candidate. |
| committee_county | text | The county of the committee. For candidates, this is the address provided for the candidate committee, not necessarily the address of the candidate. |
| committee_state | text | The state of the committee. For candidates, this is the address provided for the candidate committee, not necessarily the address of the candidate. |
| committee_zip | text | The zip code of the committee. For candidates, this is the address provided for the candidate committee, not necessarily the address of the candidate. |
| committee_email | text | The email address of the committee. For candidates, this is the email address provided for the candidate committee, not necessarily the email address of the candidate. |
| candidate_email | text | The candidate’s personal e-mail. This email may be the same as the candidate’s committee email. |
| candidate_committee_phone | text | The committee phone number. In the case of a candidate, this is the phone number of the candidate, not the candidate's committee. |
| office | text | The office sought by the candidate. |
| office_code | text | The numeric code that defines the office. For example the office code 31 defines the office of Mayor. Combined with the jurisdiction_code it defines a particular office such as Mayor of Olympia. |
| jurisdiction | text | The political jurisdiction associated with the office of a candidate. |
| jurisdiction_code | text | This is a unique code representing a jurisdiction with a reporting requirement. |
| jurisdiction_county | text | The county associated with the jurisdiction of a candidate. Multi-county jurisdictions are reported as the primary county. This field will be empty when a candidate jurisdiction is statewide. |
| jurisdiction_type | text | The type of jurisdiction this office represents: Statewide, Local, Judicial, etc. |
| jurisdiction_reporting_code | text | Jurisdictions have different reporting requirements based on the jurisdiction size and local laws adopted by certain jurisdictions. "N" indicates that there are no mandatory reporting requirements. "F" indicates that candidates are only required to file a financial affairs statement. "C" indicates that candidates are required to file both a financial affairs statement and a candidate registration. Candidates in an "N" or "F" jurisdiction may still have reporting requirements depending on the amount their campaign raises or spends. |
| jurisdiction_reporting_requirement | text | Text description of the codes in jurisdiction_reporting_code |
| committee_category | text | This column contains a category for a political committee (PAC) for example: Continuing Political Committee, Party Committee, committees Affiliated with a party, Single election year committee, School levy committee, Local ballot initiative, Caucus political committee, Statewide Initiative committee. |
| political_committee_type | text | This column designates the persuasion of the PAC; for example, Business, union, PAC, etc. |
| bonafide_committee | text | An X in this column means this is a bona fide party committee |
| bonafide_type | text | The type of bonafide party committee, for example State Party, County Party, Leg Dist Party, party Associated committee. |
| position | text | The position associated with an office. This field typically applies to jurisdictions that have multiple positions or seats. This field does not apply to political committees. |
| party_code | text | Unique code that represents a candidates party. i.e. R represents Republican. |
| party | text | The political party as declared by the candidate on their C1 registration form. Contains only parties recognized by Washington State law. |
| reporting_option | text | This field represents the level of reporting required by the filer. The FULL reporting option requires all contribution and expenditure reports. The MINI reporting option does not require any reports after the C1 registration report is filed. Please consult the PDC web site for more information regarding reporting options. |
| primary_election_status | text | The most recent status for a candidate in the primary election. Upon registration, this field is empty. After the primary election, the status of the campaign is assigned as Lost in primary; Judge certified before primary; Not in primary; Won in primary; Unopposed in primary. |
| general_election_status | text | For candidates, this field represents the status at a point in time. The field starts out as empty; after the general election, the status of the campaign is assigned as Lost in general; Judge certified before general; Won in general; Unopposed in general. |
| election_status | text | This field represent the status of a candidate jurisdiction relationship. The candidate could be an Incumbent running again for the same office. The candidate could be a challenger running against an incumbent. Or, the seat that is up for election could be an open seat meaning that there is no incumbent running for that seat. |
| exempt_nonexempt | text | This column designate whether a party committee is exempt from contribution limits or is non-exempt which means it is subject to limits when giving contributions. |
| ballot_committee | text | An X in this column designates the committee as a ballot committee. |
| ballot_number | text | The ballot number assigned to a Statewide ballot Initiative. Local ballot initiative will probably not have a ballot number because each county labels their initiatives starting at 1. So it is potentially possible for there to be 39 proposition 1's. |
| for_or_against | text | Designates whether the committee supports or opposes the initiative. |
| other_pac | text | An X in this column designates the committee as a Continuing Political Committee. |
| treasurer_address | text | The address of the treasurer as reported on the C1pc registration. |
| treasurer_city | text | The city of the treasurer as reported on the C1pc registration. |
| treasurer_state | text | The state of the treasurer as reported on the C1pc registration. |
| treasurer_zip | text | The zip code of the treasurer as reported on the C1pc registration. |
| treasurer_phone | text | The phone number of the treasurer as reported on the C1pc registration. |
| legislative_district | text | Legislative District |
| treasurer_name | text | Treasurer Name |
| pac_type | text | Pac_type can be bonafide, candidate, caucus, pac, or surplus |
| url | url | A link to a PDF version of the candidate C1 registration report as it was filed to the PDC. |