Is there a public database of US senators and foreign campaign contributions by country?
Executive summary
Public, downloadable federal campaign-contribution data covering U.S. senators exists at the Federal Election Commission and the Senate’s public disclosure pages; OpenSecrets synthesizes that official information and provides searchable profiles and geographic breakdowns (FEC and Senate data cited at [1], [2]; OpenSecrets aggregation and tools cited at [3], [4]). None of the supplied sources show a single, official dataset that translates contributions into a “by-foreign-country” ledger for senators; OpenSecrets and related guides provide geographic and foreign-interest context but rely on FEC/Senate filings rather than an explicit country-by-country foreign-contribution database (OpenSecrets: [3], [4]; FEC/Senate raw data: [1], [2]).
1. Where the public, primary records live — official downloads and search tools
Federal campaign finance filings for Senate candidates and committees are publicly available through the Federal Election Commission’s data portal, which lets users search and export contributions and committee reports [1]. The U.S. Senate also hosts “Downloadable Contributions Databases” of the disclosure documents it receives, provided in machine-readable formats such as compressed XML [2]. These are the canonical primary sources for contributions to senators.
2. Who repackages official data into usable profiles
OpenSecrets.org ingests FEC and other official government files, then adds analysis and user-facing tools — donor lookup, “where the money came from” breakdowns, committee and candidate profiles, and geographic visualizations [3], [4], [5]. FollowTheMoney.org covers state-level work and points users to OpenSecrets for federal-level data [6]. Academic guides (e.g., Northwestern) point readers to these official and nonprofit repositories for campaign finance research [7].
3. The foreign-contribution question: legal limits and what the data shows
Congressional and judicial attention to “foreign money” in U.S. elections is ongoing; policy papers and CRS reporting highlight foreign interference concerns and federal contribution limits, which are enforced and documented in FEC datasets [8]. However, the sources provided do not contain a ready-made, official field in the FEC or Senate downloads that lists “contributions by foreign country” to senators. The records focus on contributor name, address, employer, occupation, and amounts — and OpenSecrets repackages geographic data to show where domestic dollars come from [4], [1].
4. Why a country-level foreign contributions table is hard to produce from public filings
Official filings do not generally label donors by nationality; they list contributor names and addresses, and the FEC only includes contributions from U.S. persons and bans foreign nationals from direct contributions. OpenSecrets and researchers can flag potential foreign ties through employer, organization, or LDA/lobbying records and by aggregating reporting entities, but the sources here do not show an authoritative mapping of donor->country for senator receipts [3], [4], [2]. Northwestern’s research guide and OpenSecrets note that “foreign” influence is tracked in other ways, such as lobbying registrations and foreign-agent disclosures, rather than as a neat per-country contributions spreadsheet [7], [3].
5. Practical next steps for journalists or researchers wanting country-level insights
Start with FEC raw contribution exports and the Senate’s downloadable XMLs to get the canonical receipts [1], [2]. Then use OpenSecrets’ donor-lookup and candidate/committee profiles to get cleaned, aggregated views and geographic breakdowns [4], [3]. For potential foreign influence, cross-reference lobbying disclosure and foreign-agent filings (noted as separate datasets in OpenSecrets’ descriptions) and CRS context on foreign-money policy [3], [8], [7].
6. Competing perspectives and limitations in the available sources
OpenSecrets positions itself as a value-added aggregator that can show industry, geographic, and sometimes foreign-interest links using FEC and SOPR inputs [3], [4]. The FEC and Senate sources are neutral repositories of filings but do not offer interpretive country-level foreign-sender tagging [1], [2]. The limitation is structural: the raw disclosure regime does not produce a clean “by-foreign-country” contribution table; OpenSecrets and researchers fill interpretive gaps but must infer connections from employer, organization, and lobbying data [3], [7].
7. Bottom line for your original query
There is no single official public database, surfaced in the supplied sources, that lists U.S. senators’ campaign contributions broken down by donor country; primary data exist at the FEC and Senate public-disclosure download pages [1], [2], and OpenSecrets offers the most user-friendly, aggregated analyses and tools based on that official data [3], [4]. For country-level inferences, combine the FEC/Senate filings with OpenSecrets’ analyses and lobbying/foreign-agent registries, while noting that such mappings are interpretive rather than direct outputs of the filing system [3], [7].