A vendor is a firm paid by campaigns or outside groups to perform certain activities, like buying or producing ads or direct mail. This OpenSecrets list shows the top vendors; bear in mind that many o [..]

Political ads have to display a disclaimer about the committee that funded them. But they don’t have to tell you if that committee is entirely funded by one person. Carolina Rising, a 501(c)(4) that s [..]

Technically, these are “independent expenditure-only committees,” organizations registered with the FEC that don’t contribute to candidates but do make independent expenditures. They can take unlimite [..]

This is the Supreme Court decision that, combined with Citizens United, created super PACs. It specifically allowed unlimited contributions to committees that only make independent expenditures. (Link [..]

These are 501(c)(4)s. Technically, 501(c)(4)s are “social welfare organizations” that aren’t devoted entirely to political activity, but many (c)(4)s engage in substantial political activity and face [..]

Soft money refers to cash contributed to a party, candidate or outside group without being subject to limits. Traditionally, these funds have been used for get-out-the-vote efforts, party building and [..]

This refers to when the government provides money for candidates to help fund their campaigns. Requirements to be declared eligible include agreeing to an overall spending limit, abiding by spending l [..]

These are elections within a party to determine who a candidate will be in the general election. At the presidential level, they begin as early as January of the election year. Some primary elections [..]

This comprises the documents of information that TV stations are required to keep and post about political ads they air. They include the time the ad aired (and what show was on), how much each ad cos [..]

A Political Action Committee (PAC) is a committee organized to specifically spend money on an election. There are a lot of different types of PACs — super PACs and hybrid PACs, leadership PACs, candid [..]