Tennessee Campaign Finance FAQ

Campaign finance refers to the money raised and spent by candidates running for political office. In Tennessee, candidates must publicly disclose who gives them money and how they spend it. This transparency lets voters see who is financially supporting the people who represent them.

Money influences politics. By understanding who funds candidates, you can better evaluate whether elected officials represent the interests of their constituents or their donors. It's one of the most concrete ways to hold politicians accountable.

No. OpenTN is a non-partisan civic technology project by Position5. We present the data as-is from official filings. We don't endorse candidates, rate them as "good" or "bad," or take political positions. Our job is to make public data accessible and understandable.

Great question! Here are some starting points depending on what you're curious about:

• Find My Representatives — Enter your ZIP code to see who represents you, then click through to see their funding.
• Search Candidates — Look up a specific candidate by name.
• Dashboard — See the big picture: top-funded candidates, overall stats.
• PAC Giving — Explore which Political Action Committees are spending the most.
• Corporate Giving — See which companies' employees are donating the most.

Most pages have year filter buttons at the top. These let you focus on a specific election cycle. Tennessee state elections happen in even years, so you'll see years like 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026. Selecting "All Years" shows the complete history we have.

Yes! Most tables are interactive. Click on an employer row to see which candidates their employees fund. Click on a PAC to see which candidates it supports. Candidate names are always linked to their full detail page.

Head to the Corporate Giving or PAC Giving pages. The tables list organizations ranked by total giving. You can also use the Search page to find candidates, then explore their individual funding sources.

A Political Action Committee (PAC) is an organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. PACs are registered with the state and must disclose their contributions.

Employer-linked contributions are donations made by individual people who list a company as their employer. The company itself didn't donate — its employees did. Direct business contributions come from the business entity itself (like an LLC or corporation) making a donation directly to a candidate.

These are campaign fund transfers between candidates. A sitting politician might transfer money from their campaign fund to another candidate's campaign. This is legal and disclosed in filings.

Out-of-state money refers to campaign contributions from donors located outside Tennessee. A high percentage of out-of-state funding might indicate that a candidate has national support or connections, while a low percentage suggests they're primarily funded by local constituents.

Small dollar contributions are generally individual donations of $200 or less. Campaigns funded largely by small-dollar donations are often considered more grassroots, relying on many regular people rather than a few large donors.

The CFI is a score we calculate for each candidate to measure how "community-funded" their campaign is. It combines four signals:

• Small Dollar Power (25%) — What percentage of contributions are $200 or less?
• Neighbor Funded (30%) — How much of their money comes from within Tennessee?
• Funding Spread (25%) — How many unique donors do they have relative to their total?
• People vs. PACs (20%) — What's the ratio of individual giving to PAC giving?

Higher scores mean a candidate's funding looks more grassroots and community-driven.

CFI scores are curved against all scored candidates:

• A — Top 10% most community-funded
• B — Above average (30th–70th percentile)
• C — Average
• D — Below average
• F — Bottom 10%

These grades are relative to other candidates, not an absolute standard. An "A" means better than most, not perfect.

All data comes from official campaign finance disclosure filings published by the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance. Candidates are required by law to file these reports. We parse the raw XLS files and present them in a searchable format.

We update our database as new filings are published by the state. There may be a short lag between when a candidate files and when it appears on OpenTN. Candidates file on different schedules, so some data may be more recent than others.

We do our best, but the raw data comes from hand-entered filings. Misspellings, inconsistent formatting, and duplicate entries exist in the source data. We normalize names and employers to reduce duplicates, but some may slip through. When in doubt, check the original filings on the Bureau's website.

Not yet through OpenTN, but we plan to offer data exports in the future. In the meantime, the original filings are publicly available on the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance website.