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REST APIPolitics & Elections

OpenFEC API (Federal Election Commission)

OpenFEC API (Federal Election Commission) is a rest api from U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) providing politics & elections data. The first official RESTful API for U.S. federal campaign-finance data, exposing FEC filings on candidates, committees, receipts, and disbursements. Polymarket bots use it to track fundraising momentum and cash-on-hand — leading signals for election, primary, and nomination markets where money raised often precedes polling shifts.

At a glance

ProviderU.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC)
TypeREST API
CategoryPolitics & Elections
Real-timeNo — request/response
AuthAPI key
PricingFree (US government service); API key via api.data.gov — DEMO_KEY: free, no signup, heavily rate-limited (for trying out only), Standard key: free, signup ~2 min, up to 1,000 calls/hour, Elevated key: free on request to APIinfo@fec.gov, 7,200 calls/hour (120/min)

What data it provides

  • Candidate records — office sought, party, election cycles, incumbency (House, Senate, President)
  • Committee receipts & disbursements — total money raised and spent per filing period
  • Individual contributions (Schedule A) and operating expenditures (Schedule B)
  • Independent expenditures and electioneering communications (outside/PAC spending)
  • Cash-on-hand and financial summaries per committee/cycle
  • Filing index and raw FEC filings (efile + processed reports)

Features

  • Free key gives 1,000 calls/hour; elevated tier 7,200/hour on request via FEC email
  • 100 results per page max; pagination + full-text and field-specific search
  • Data refreshed nightly via materialized views; responses cached up to 1 hour (not real-time)
  • Deep historical coverage back to 1970s/1980s filings across all federal cycles
  • Open-source backend (fecgov/openFEC on GitHub); OpenAPI/Swagger spec published
  • Key issued and rate-limited through api.data.gov shared gateway

Links

Use it in a bot

Other politics & elections data sources

Listed, not endorsed. Pricing and capabilities change without notice — check the provider's own documentation before you depend on anything here. Browse the full data resources directory or the strategy database.
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