Extract and cross‑reference the OpenSecrets recipient lists in these sources against a list of U.S. presidents and return a precise tally with citations to each matching record.
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Executive summary
OpenSecrets provides searchable donor and recipient databases that let users pull contributor records and recipient lists, including “Top Recipients” and candidate-specific contributor pages, but the supplied search results do not include actual exported recipient lists for every U.S. president — only site pages and tools (OpenSecrets donor lookup, top recipients, and candidate contributor pages) are shown [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not supply a pre-made cross‑referenced tally of OpenSecrets recipients matched to a list of U.S. presidents; they describe search tools and topical recipient pages but contain no compiled presidential match list [4] [1] [2].
1. What the sources actually contain: OpenSecrets is a data platform, not a finished presidential tally
The results supplied point to OpenSecrets’ home page and several tools — Donor Lookup, Top Recipients of PAC money, Top Contributors for individual candidates, and industry recipient pages — and describe functionality (searching politicians, downloading datasets), but they do not include a ready-made list that maps OpenSecrets recipients to U.S. presidents for direct counting [4] [1] [2] [3]. OpenSecrets advertises that users can “search our donor database for the politician’s name to see a full list of contributors” [1].
2. What you can extract from these sources, and the limits
From the linked pages a researcher can generate recipient lists for individual campaigns or offices (for example candidate contributor pages and the Top Recipients page) and export featured datasets where available; OpenSecrets documents that data span decades and that specific pages show recipients and contributors for cycles through Feb. 6, 2025 in some queries [4] [2] [5]. However, the provided search snippets do not include exported CSVs or records for each U.S. president, so a precise tally matching OpenSecrets recipient-list entries to a canonical list of presidents cannot be produced from the material you supplied alone [4] [1] [2].
3. Method you should use to create the requested cross‑reference
Based on the site functionality described, a defensible approach would be: (a) assemble a canonical list of U.S. presidents from an authoritative roster (not included among your supplied sources; available sources do not mention such a roster), (b) for each president run an OpenSecrets politician/candidate search or pull their candidate/contributor page (for modern presidents who filed FEC reports) to retrieve recipient/contributor records, and (c) normalize names and deduplicate matches to produce a tally. The sources show OpenSecrets supports politician search and donor lookup features to enable that workflow [1] [6].
4. Practical obstacles and data gaps in the supplied reporting
OpenSecrets’ coverage and downloadable datasets vary by time period and office; the snippets note datasets spanning “more than 30 years” and specific cycle cutoffs (e.g., data through Feb. 6, 2025 on some pages) which means historical presidents or pre‑FEC reporting eras may be incomplete or require alternate sources [4] [2]. The supplied materials do not include a universal export of recipient lists per president nor document how OpenSecrets assigns names across legacy records, so name‑matching and historical gaps will be nontrivial [4] [5].
5. What I can do next (and what I cannot do with current material)
I can: outline and, if you authorize, run a step‑by‑step extraction plan that uses OpenSecrets’ Donor Lookup and candidate contributor pages to fetch records and produce a cross‑referenced tally for a specified subset of presidents or modern campaign cycles (the site supports per‑candidate contributor lists and top recipient pages) [1] [3] [2]. I cannot: produce the requested precise tally just from the supplied search-result text because those snippets lack the underlying exported recipient records and a canonical presidential list to match against — those datasets are not present in the material you provided [4] [1].
6. Sources, competing viewpoints and hidden agendas to consider
OpenSecrets is a nonpartisan research organization that offers searchable public records and claims data going back decades — but it standardizes employer/donor names and aggregates in ways that can create quirks (a StatNews piece cited a “quirk in OpenSecrets site” that affected interpretation of pharma PAC totals) — researchers must understand those processing steps when counting recipients [4] [7]. The platform’s journalism and tools may frame data with topical lists (“top donors,” “top recipients”) which highlight particular narratives; choosing which OpenSecrets lists to count (PAC recipients, lobbyist contributions, industry recipients, candidate contributors) will materially affect any presidential tally [8] [2] [9].
7. Recommended next steps to get the precise tally you asked for
Provide one of these instructions and I will proceed using the OpenSecrets pages referenced: (A) specify which presidents (all U.S. presidents, modern presidents since FEC reporting, or a selected subset) and which recipient definition (campaign contributors, PAC recipients, lobbyist contributions, etc.) you want tallied; or (B) grant permission to fetch contributor lists from OpenSecrets candidate/recipient pages for named presidents and return a sourced, line‑by‑line tally. The OpenSecrets tools referenced (Donor Lookup, candidate contributor pages, Top Recipients) are the mechanisms to extract the records needed [1] [3] [2].