Research Guide Political History

Ballotpedia

Description:

Ballotpedia offers information on American politics, politicians and elections. Search here for information on a candidate, their opponent, or historical information about the district in which they are running.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Political History, Campaign Finance

https://ballotpedia.org/

Bing Visual Search

Description:

Use Bing Visual Search to search the internet using images instead of words. Using this tool, you can find similar images, products, and pages that include an image.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.bing.com/images/

Cook Political Report

Description:

Cook Political Report describes itself as an independent, non-partisan newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns for Congress, governor and president. It also analyzes American political trends. Use this page to understand more information about a political candidate, their opposition and the district they are running in.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Political History, Campaign Finance

https://www.cookpolitical.com/

County-Level Elections Authority

Description:

County elections offices typically maintain voter registration records and voting histories. Accessing this information usually requires a public records request, though sites such as https://voteref.com/ post some voter registration information. Identifying the relevant county authority and its public information request guidelines in advance will speed up the research process. Using these tools, you can verify an individual’s voter registration history and the elections in which they cast a vote.

Resource Type:

State and Local Records

Area of Investigation:

Political History

Link will vary depending on jurisdiction.

Federal Election Commission

Description:

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) collects campaign finance disclosure forms from candidates for federal office. In the “Campaign finance data” dropdown menu, choose “Look up contributions from specific individuals” to look for federal campaign contributions by a specific person, such as a candidate, dating back more than 20 years. In the same dropdown menu, select “Committees” to search for a candidate’s official campaign committee and browse both receipts and disbursements. The best way to analyze this data is to export it to Excel and then sort and filter it to search for patterns in the data. Who are the candidate’s largest supporters? Where are they from? What industries do they work in? How has the candidate spent campaign funds? Who are the campaign’s largest vendors? What is the campaign’s total amount of non-itemized disbursements? Also check whether the FEC has sent any Requests for Additional Information (RFAI) to a candidate’s campaign committee. These inquire about potential issues in a campaign committee’s FEC filings and potential violations of regulations, such as donors who may have exceeded contribution limits. In the statement of organization for a candidate’s official campaign committee, the campaign must disclose any joint fundraising committees in which it participates. Joint fundraising committees allow donors to make larger contributions to several candidates at the same time. For example, donors can give up to $6,600 to any one official campaign committee in the 2024 election cycle but can give $19,800 to a joint fundraising committee composed of three different campaigns. From the FEC home page, click on the campaign finance dropdown menu, choose “Spending,” and then click on the “Independent Expenditures” link to search campaign spending by nominally independent political action committees (PACs). The filters in the left hand panel allow you to view only independent expenditures supporting or opposing a specific candidate so that you can identify the key PACs supporting a candidate. “Super” PACs, or independent expenditure-only committees, can raise and spend unlimited funds on expenditures for or against political candidates and are most easily identified through the Independent Expenditures search. Identify the PACs supporting (or opposing) a candidate through Independent Expenditures and then research that committee’s largest contributors, its officers and its vendors. If you are researching a candidate for federal office who previously ran for state or local office, search for campaign finance reports in the relevant jurisdictions as well.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Political History, Associated People

https://www.fec.gov/

Ferretly

Description:

Ferretly is a paid research tool that aggregates social media activity from an individual’s accounts on different platforms.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.ferretly.com/

Findmypast

Description:

FindMyPast is a genealogy website that collects certain archival records. Using its advanced World search, researchers can collect information on an individual, their family or their connections by name, location and types of records. In addition to birth/death and family history records, FindMyPast has some historical professional and educational records archived.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://search.findmypast.com/search-world-records-in-education-and-work/and_schools-and-education

Follow the Money

Description:

Follow the Money, operated by OpenSecrets, aggregates campaign finance data from the federal, state and local level in a single online database. It is a secondary source, and you should verify findings from Follow the Money through the relevant elections authority.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Political History

https://www.followthemoney.org/

Getty Images reverse image lookup

Description:

Getty Images search allows you to reverse image search through Getty’s news, celebrity, and sports coverage, along with stock images in their archive.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Associated People

https://www.gettyimages.com/

Google Advanced Search

Description:

Google Advanced Search uses Boolean operators, which allow you to search by including, excluding or combining exact words or phrases. Google Advanced Search also allows you to narrow results by language, file type, domain and other variables. Check out Sunlight’s Advanced Internet Search Tip Sheet to learn how to find exactly what you’re looking for on the internet. It includes a comprehensive list of basic and advanced search operators, search tips and strategies, and more.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Google Dataset Search

Description:

Google Dataset Search is a search engine for datasets. You can use a simple keyword search to discover datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the internet. For instance, a search for ‘politicians’ will return databases including Work With Data’s Politicians from the United States list and GESIS’ extracted Politician data from Wikipedia and DBPedia.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/

https://blog.google/products/search/discovering-millions-datasets-web/

Google Fact Checking

Description:

Google Fact Check Explorer combines the work of fact checkers, journalists and researchers by aggregating fact checking and misinformation reporting from outlets and agencies around the world. You can search by topic or by people connected to a fact- checked issue. You can also upload photos in the “search fact checks” bar to see fact checks related to an image and when it first appeared online.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://toolbox.google.com/factcheck/explorer/search/list:recent;hl=en

Google Image Search

Description:

Google Image Search allows users to search for images by keyword or any of Google’s advanced search parameters. It also allows for reverse image searches using images and links.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://images.google.com/

Google Scholar

Description:

Google Scholar is an academic journal and patent search engine. It provides a comprehensive search of scholarly journals, databases, preprint servers and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) archives.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://scholar.google.com/

Legislator Misconduct Database

Description:

This database describes itself as having compiled public information on congressional investigations, criminal convictions, censures by and expulsions from Congress, and more. It includes alleged and actual misconduct by legislators in Congress from 1789 until now. Use this to see any misconduct in an elected official’s past .

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Political History, Campaign Finance

https://www.govtrack.us/misconduct

LexisNexis

Description:

LexisNexis provides access to information available through public records and a broad collection of media, much of which would otherwise be behind a paywall. It also has an advantage over Google in that its search function returns any documents that match search terms, whereas Google’s algorithm may suppress unpopular results that are nevertheless valuable for research. If an individual has had a long career in politics or other closely watched industries, there may be a volume of coverage that makes it impossible to review every “hit” naming the candidate in LexisNexis. In these cases, you will need to design search threads to return more limited sets of documents. For example, a search for key controversial search terms might look something like: FIRST NAME /2 LAST NAME AND (CORRUPTION OR FRAUD OR CONTROVERSY OR MISCONDUCT). Like TLO, LexisNexis is a secondary source, and anything significant in a report must be verified independently. LexisNexis data should only be used to identify leads for further investigation but never as an authoritative source itself.

Resource Type:

Proprietary Databases

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Professional History, Political History, Associated People, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases

http://lexisnexis.com

Library of Congress

Description:

This website maintains an official record of federal legislation and Congressional resolutions and can be researched for information on bills and resolutions sponsored by a Congressional member as well as roll call voting records for specific bills and resolutions.

Resource Type:

Federal Records

Area of Investigation:

Political History

https://www.congress.gov/

Local Newspapers

Description:

Newspaper archives preserve digital records of newspapers published going back decades or even centuries and may include information about an individual, their family and their professional connections that search engines might not index.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Professional History, Political History, Educational History, Associated People

https://www.newspapers.com/

OpenSecrets

Description:

OpenSecrets is a government transparency group working to track money in politics and how it impacts elections and policy. You can also see connections between candidates on this database. The second link above will take you to a page on OpenSecrets’ site that describes the primary types of information that candidates and members must include on personal financial disclosures.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Political History, Campaign Finance, Associated People, Personal Finances

https://www.opensecrets.org/

https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/disclosure

Pinterest Visual Search Tool

Description:

The Pinterest Visual Search tool allows you to take a picture of an item and use it to search for products on Pinterest.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/230809549630877500/