First published
This week I helped put together data on what fundraising particular candidates and members of congress had done in the latest (April quarterly) reporting period. It wasn't just me, though, I had help.
And to repay that help, and help other people who may find themselves tasked with collecting FEC data and not really knowing where to start, I hope this piece will be of some use.
This will be most useful to you if you have a handful to a big old group of candidates that you want to pull quarterly financial information for.
A roundup of the FEC data products
The efilings RSS feeds
I was interested in getting the quarterly financials as soon as they were published. To that end, the FEC's RSS feeds, which contain a week's worth of filings, were the best solution.
Caveat:
The bulk files
The bulk files update once a day, and aren't always correct.
The FEC API
You can email me at joe.murphy@gmail.com, or tweet me @joemurph.