Everyone wants to tell you what you should think about candidates for public office. But most of those people also have an agenda. Even “bipartisan” and “nonpartisan” groups have agendas. And if someone seems to be telling you what you want to hear, beware!
General information
For federal candidates (US House, US Senate, and President) you can start with Ballotpedia. They provide general information about candidates and elections, including links to candidate websites.
For state candidates, Citizens Count provides:
- Aggregated links to news articles about candidates
- Candidate surveys (starting in September or October)
Campaign fundraising and spending
- OpenSecrets.org aggregates information from FEC filings and makes them easier to understand, but first-time candidates are often not covered
- FEC has some useful dashboards: https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/?cycle=2026&state=NH
Financial disclosures (Federal candidates)
US House of Representatives: https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/FinancialDisclosure
US Senate: https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/home/
Politics is war by other means
Carl von Clausewitz said “War is the continuation of policy with other means.” The converse is also true: politics is war by other means. We should all prefer politics to war, but both are about painful tradeoffs and only imperfect choices.
We’re not electing heroes, just people!
Voting and supporting candidates is just one way that we work to build the communities and country that we want to see. Contact us to learn how you can help in a million different ways!