How the Money Trail works

Where the numbers come from

Every campaign in Rhode Island files reports with the Board of Elections. We read the board's own public files, which hold 872,608 donations and 521,152 payments since 2004. Before we save a year, its totals have to match the totals the state prints. If they do not, we keep the old numbers and look into it. The state's file leaves out some refunds, so for refunds we use the state's printed figure.

What counts as raised

Named gifts, small gifts, PAC gifts, party gifts and a candidate's own money, minus refunds. Loans, public funds and interest are shown apart because they are not donations. Totals cover everything given to a member's campaign account, including any run for another office.

Small gifts have no names

A campaign only has to name a donor who gives more than $200 in a year. Smaller gifts are reported as one lump sum, so they have no name, town, employer or date. They are still counted in every total on this site, including each member's. Only the charts by month or quarter and the shares by town leave them out, and those say so.

Companies cannot give

Rhode Island bans donations from corporations and other businesses. So "industry money" means gifts from people who reported working in a field, plus PACs tied to it. A person's employer does not mean their employer asked them to give.

How donors are sorted

• A person goes by the employer on the filing. A PAC goes by its name.
• Each kind of union is its own group: firefighters, police, correctional officers, teachers, building trades, public employees, health care workers, the AFL-CIO councils and other unions are never combined.
• We read and sort employers by hand or by clear rules. "Not sorted" means the employer is missing or we have not reached it yet.
• Lobbying means a firm on the Secretary of State's official list.

Recognizing one donor across filings

Campaigns type names differently. We treat two filings as one person only when the name matches and they share a home, ZIP code, town or small employer. Different middle initials or Jr. and Sr. stay apart. Mistakes are still possible, so every donor page has a link to report one.

Money and votes

For each field that gave to a member, we list the bills that groups from that field took a side on in their own lobbying reports filed with the Secretary of State, with the position they stated, next to the member's deciding vote. Only companies, trade groups, professional associations and unions stand for a field, never charities or advocacy groups. Bills and votes on this site start with the 2026 session. We do not link a bill to a field by its subject alone, and we do not score anyone or say a vote was "with" a donor. A donation or a lobbyist's position does not show that a vote was influenced.

Limits

A person or PAC can give a candidate up to $2,000 a calendar year (it was $1,000 before 2024). We never say anyone broke a limit. A large number in the data may be a typo, a pending refund or a different kind of gift.

What we show about people

Name, town and employer, as the campaigns filed them. Never a street address. We do not even keep street addresses in these records. Pages for individual people are kept out of Google and other search engines.

How fresh it is

We check the state every day. Campaigns file quarterly and shortly before elections, so a gift can take months to appear anywhere.

Found a mistake?

Tell us. If the filing itself is wrong, the campaign has to correct it with the state.