Independent Campaign Expenditures and Electioneering Communications in Washington State

Independent expenditures, independent expenditure ads, and electioneering communications reported to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) over the last 17 years. The data covers reportable spending by individuals, businesses, unions, and other entities, including independent expenditures of $100 or more and communications near elections costing $1,000 or more. Columns suggest detailed tracking of sponsors, candidates, vendors, expenditure amounts, and election timing.

Use Cases

• Analyzing spending trends by sponsor using `sponsor_name`, `expenditure_amount`, and `election_year`.
• Tracking expenditures supporting or opposing specific candidates using `candidate_name`, `for_or_against`, and `expenditure_description`.
• Mapping vendor payments and locations using `vendor_name`, `vendor_city`, `vendor_state`, and `vendor_zipcode`.
• Investigating the timing of political advertising using `date_advertising_presented`, `date_expense_obligated`, and `report_date`.
• Linking expenditures to specific candidate campaigns using `candidate_filer_id`, `candidate_committee_id`, and `candidate_office`.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal span, with data reported for the last 17 years.
• Provides granular detail on political spending, with over 30 columns tracking sponsors, candidates, vendors, amounts, and timing.
• Is hosted on multiple platforms (Socrata, Data.gov), indicating its importance and broad availability.

Limitations

• Key metadata is missing or conflicting across sources: row count, size, and license are listed as 'unknown' or 'None'.
• The dataset's description warns it 'may contain incomplete or incorrect information' and is a 'best-effort' compilation.
• The most recent update date differs between platforms (2026-05-06 on Socrata vs. 2026-03-22 on Data.gov), creating uncertainty about freshness.

Provenance

Source

Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC), as reported on form C6.

Collection Method

Reports filed by individuals, businesses, unions, organizations, or other persons as defined in RCW 42.17A.

Time Range

Last 17 years (as of the dataset description's publication).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-06 18:32:31 (according to Socrata).

Geography

Washington State, USA.