This is the first in a series of posts where I do preliminary campaign finance research on upcoming elections using the app I’m developing, Informed, as well as online resources like FEC.gov and opensecrets.org. My goals are (1) to familiarize readers with how to do basic campaign finance research and (2) to demonstrate the functionality of Informed to improve the app, guide users, identify gaps, and find bugs.

There are three upcoming elections I’ll look at here: House elections for Florida 1 and Florida 6 to replace Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz, respectively, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, all of which will be held on April 1.

Florida 1

Using Informed in its current (beta) state, what can we learn about this race and the candidates running? Florida’s 1st congressional district leans Republican with a Cook PVI of R+19, meaning the district is roughly 19 points more Republican than the nation as a whole, and a Baseline difference of -40.6 points, meaning the typical Republican will win the district, on average, by about 40 points. Informed also uses race ratings from Inside Elections, which categorizes this race as “solid Republican.” So since a Republican is expected to win, one of the things I’ll be looking at after this election is whether voter turnout was higher than usual and whether the Democratic candidate(s) exceeded expectations relative to the district’s partisan lean.

The app also shows that there are no independent expenditures for this race. Independent expenditures are those that expressly support or oppose a candidate and are not made in coordination with any candidate or their campaign.

We can also see the top two candidates, sorted by the amount of money they’ve raised:

• Jennifer Valimont, a Democrat, who has raised $6.48M

• Jimmy Patronis, a Republican, who has raised $2.12M

Tapping on each candidate’s card gives us more information. Valimont, who’s running as Gay Valimont, has spent $4.31M and her principal campaign committee is “Gay Valimont for Congress.” Most of Valimont’s donations have come from small amounts; about 80% of the total amount comes from contributions between $0-$200 and her largest contribution ($15K) came from Cox Media in December 2024.

This data comes from the FEC and should match what appears in that database: https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/H4FL01197/?cycle=2026&tab=summary

Valimont has spent $4.3M, but for some reason, it’s not showing up in the app (oops, I’ll take a look at that later). From the FEC, though, we can see her top disbursements, or expenses, most of which went to various consulting, media, and communications companies:

Patronis has spent $1.31M and his principal campaign committee is called “Friends of Jimmy Patronis, Inc.” Unlike Valimont, most of Patronis’s donations have come from larger amounts: 58% are from amounts higher than $2K and 27% are from $0-$200. His highest contributions are from WinRed, which, like ActBlue, is a platform where candidates can raise money from individuals. Patronis’s FEC profile can be found here.

Patronis’s disbursements detail a variety of typical campaign expenses, such as fundraising fees, postage, and media placements:

Florida 6

Like Florida 1, the race for Florida’s 6th congressional district is also rated as solid Republican, though the Cook PVI (R+14) and Baseline difference (-28.2) suggest a slightly smaller margin. The top two candidates are:

• Joshua Weil, a Democrat, who has raised $9.49M

• Randy Fine, a Republican, who has raised $987K

Weil has spent $8.2M and most (82%) of his contributions are in the $0-$200 amount while his two largest contributions are from Key Lime Strategies and Media for $280K and $66K. His largest disbursements are below, covering canvassing, TV ads, and a “voter engagement event”:

Fine has spent $895K with 59% of his contributions coming in amounts over $2K.

His largest contributions come from WinRed and two pro-Israel committees: $40.7K from the Republican Jewish Coalition PAC and $30K from AIPAC’s political action committee. His top expenses cover consulting and media placements:

This is the kind of preliminary campaign finance research Informed offers right now: users can look up candidates, see their contributions and disbursements, and generally identify who is donating to these candidates and what they’re spending their money on. In the future, I hope to add more detailed information, such as individual filings, to create a more comprehensive picture of the flow of money.

Wisconsin Supreme Court election

While Informed does not include any data for elections at the state level, I wanted to touch on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, since it is now the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history with candidates and groups spending nearly $59 million as of March 12. A tally by the Brennan Center for Justice puts the amount spent at $66.9M as of March 20.

The race is between Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel. Though the election is officially nonpartisan, Crawford is backed by the state’s Democratic party and Schimel has been endorsed by President Trump. A helpful summary of the race and its candidates can be found on Ballotpedia.

WisPolitics reports that Crawford’s campaign has spent roughly $17.6M while Schimel’s has spent $8.8M. The race has been making additional headlines since the involvement of Elon Musk and his affiliated committees. His America PAC, for instance, has spent at least $6.2M on canvassing and at least $6 million in spending by his political non-profit, Building America’s Future.