About GA FastMoney

GA FastMoney is a project dedicated to making Georgia's campaign finance data more accessible, understandable, and insightful for journalists, activists, and the general public. My goal is to shine a light on how money flows through Georgia politics, who the key players are, and what patterns emerge from the data. The site was designed, architected, and developed by me, Aaron Baker.

Where Does the Data Come From?

Georgia campaign contributions, candidate totals, committee filings, and independent expenditures come from the Georgia State Ethics Commission's Peachfile disclosure system and earlier state exports. Federal campaign totals and parts of the upstream committee research come from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Other sources, including candidate portraits and election information, are documented with the underlying site data or the relevant story.

The site now includes 2026 fundraising and outside-spending records, alongside earlier campaign history. Coverage varies by candidate, committee, and reporting period; it is not a complete database of every Georgia election. The 2026 statewide matchups compare major-party nominees in state races and the U.S. Senate race.

The all-races directory adds state legislative, congressional and local candidate lists derived from Georgia's official primary and runoff results, eligible November qualifiers, reviewed county sample ballots and official city notices. Named certified write-ins appear separately with qualification sources, without an inferred party affiliation. The ballot matchup lookup matches state and federal districts using GA FastTrack's district maps, plus reviewed local maps in Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Camden, Forsyth, Bulloch, Oconee and Hall counties. Verified city limits are available for Kingsland, St. Marys, Pine Lake, Watkinsville and Flowery Branch; verified District 2 electorates are available for Brookhaven, Stonecrest and Statesboro. Hall commission coverage is limited to Districts 1 and 3, not school-board districts. Watkinsville's numbered council posts and Flowery Branch's Post 3 are elected citywide, not from separate wards. Holly Springs' current 2026 district plan supports manual selection, not automatic address matching. City and ward eligibility is never inferred from a county, mailing address or a candidate's residence requirement alone. Local district contests are kept separate when boundaries are unavailable. Municipal coverage and local replacement, withdrawal and write-in checks are not yet statewide. Ballot questions are excluded. My Voter Page remains the source for a complete personal sample ballot.

Address lookup sends the requested address to Google Maps. GA FastMoney does not store that address, coordinates or ballot selection. Manual district selection does not use Google Maps. Campaign accounts are matched by candidate, office, party and district or jurisdiction; missing financial data is shown as unavailable, not zero.

Data is refreshed periodically, not live. A download date is not the date through which every campaign has reported donations. Check the reporting dates and source notes on the page you are using; state and federal reports can cover different periods and can later be amended.

How Does It Work?

The site turns reported transactions into searchable donor profiles, campaign comparisons, and investigations:

1. Collection: Official exports and published filings provide the starting records. Refreshes preserve source information so totals can be checked.
2. Donor matching: Names and addresses help identify repeated contributors. Compatible middle initials can be accounted for when supporting address information is present, but similar spellings alone are not enough to treat different first names as the same person. Donation labels retain the reported name where available. Matching can still be imperfect, and differently spelled organization names can remain separate.
3. Classification: Contributor types use reported codes where available. Industry Categories describe classified organizations, not individual donors' employers. Classifications are analytical labels, can be incomplete or incorrect, and do not establish that a donor represents an entire industry.
4. Campaign comparisons: Statewide headline fundraising uses Peachfile's reported campaign-to-date contributions. Federal comparisons use the FEC reporting period stated on the page. Donor charts are calculated from transaction records rather than adjusted to force a match to the headline.
5. Analysis: Charts, rankings, and stories highlight patterns worth investigating. Some candidate profiles include automated AI analysis, which can make mistakes and should be checked against the underlying records.

What Do the Fundraising Numbers Mean?

Contributions, total receipts, cash on hand, and spending are different measures. Fundraising comparisons exclude loans, loan repayments, and interest; in-kind contributions can be included in reported contribution totals. Refunds are shown separately where reconciled. A large fundraising total is not the amount a campaign has left to spend.

In statewide matchups, identified self-funding is separated from other individual donations. State candidate-name matches use curated name variants, not fuzzy matching, and do not automatically include relatives or associated organizations. Federal self-funding uses the FEC's reported candidate-contributions field. Matchup geographic comparisons exclude identified self-funding and describe reported donor addresses, including organizations, rather than donor counts or verified residency.

Federal geographic charts use the FEC's itemized-address aggregates for the 2025–26 cycle, not the full fundraising total. These omit unitemized gifts and separately reported candidate contributions, retain unknown addresses, and can include authorized transfers. Federal Industry Categories describe reviewed PAC sponsors and organization sectors, not individual donors' employers or official FEC industry codes. Unclassified organizations remain unclassified. Financial research currently covers the major-party federal nominees; missing summaries and newly added write-ins are not shown as $0.

A campaign can have records under more than one filing ID. Earlier records are combined only after identity and date-overlap checks. Missing records, amendments, refunds, and account-history differences can prevent donor-level figures from matching an official summary exactly. Reconciliation details are available in the matchup source notes; missing data is not treated as proof of zero fundraising.

What Does the Dark Money Section Show?

The Dark Money investigation follows independent spending and the organizations funding outside committees. This spending is separate from a candidate's own fundraising and can support one candidate or oppose another.

Not all outside spending is dark money. Dark money describes funding whose original sources are not fully disclosed. A publicly reported independent expenditure does not, by itself, establish that its funding is anonymous. Where records allow, upstream traces connect a committee's reported donors to earlier funding sources, with source and confidence information.

A contribution to a committee is not proof that it paid for a particular advertisement. Funding paths can overlap and should not be added together as new money. Matchup spending totals use exact campaign-committee and office matches and exclude shared-target expenditures rather than assigning the full amount to multiple candidates. "None matched" means no qualifying records were matched in that snapshot, not proof that no outside spending occurred.

Federal spending comparisons use the FEC candidate ID and show support and opposition from periodic independent-expenditure reports. The cycle can include primary, special and general elections. Recent 24/48-hour notices are listed separately and are not added to periodic totals because they can overlap. "None reported" means none in the checked records, not proof that no spending occurred. These reported expenditures are not a verified dark-money-only total.

Why Is This Important?

Understanding campaign finance is crucial for a healthy democracy. By following the money, you can better understand:

• Which donors and classified industries contribute to campaigns.
• The different fundraising strategies of political parties.
• How candidates rely on self-funding, other individual donors, and organizations.
• Which outside groups are spending around a race, and how much of their funding can be traced.

Donations alone do not prove influence, a conflict of interest, coordination, or wrongdoing. I hope this tool helps you ask better questions, check the filings, and hold elected officials accountable.