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Editor's note: This article is the first in a series, so stay tuned for the next installment. Or, join Recall Florida's Facebook group to make sure you don't miss it.

While 2026 is not a presidential election year, many other offices will be on the ballot when Floridians head to the polls on Aug. 18 and Nov. 3.

At the state level, this includes the governor and governor's cabinet positions as well as congressional districts. Locally, it includes seats on county commissions, school boards and special district boards. (Here's a complete list from the Florida Division of Elections.)

This means plenty of cash will flow through campaigns in 2026 — with the flow bound to increase as the primary and general elections near.

And the unfortunate reality is that if you want to know who is backing a candidate, you can't just look at endorsements. You also need to consider campaign donations.

The same goes for sitting elected officials: If you want to know who might be trying to sway them, you must follow the money.

State law requires every political candidate's campaign to "file regular reports of all contributions received, and all expenditures made, by or on behalf of such candidate."

Political donations and spending are public record, but they can be hard to find because there is no central repository for this information.

This article will break down how to find campaign finance data for state and local candidates in Florida.

Where are campaign finance reports filed?

If you want to look up the donations to a particular candidate, you must first determine the entity with which the candidate files campaign finance reports.

This varies depending on the political office:

• For candidates for statewide and multi-county offices, it's the Florida Division of Elections.
• For candidates for county offices, it's the applicable county's supervisor of elections.
• For candidates for municipal (city, town or village) offices, it's typically the applicable municipality's clerk.
• For candidates for other local offices, it's typically the applicable county's supervisor of elections.

Tip: The Florida Division of Elections maintains a candidate tracking system, which is essentially a database of all candidates who report to the division.

So if a non-federal candidate is listed in that database, it means they file their campaign finance reports with the state. If a candidate is not in that database, they file with a county or municipality.

Statewide and multi-county offices

The Florida Division of Elections requires all candidates for statewide and multi-county offices to file their campaign finance reports electronically. It also posts that data electronically. So finding it is technically as simple as searching the division's campaign finance database.

If you're interested in donations, start by clicking on "Contribution Records." (You can ignore the intimidatingly long instructions.)

On the next page, do the following:

1. Select an election (or select "All") from the "Election Year" drop-down menu.
2. Enter at least the candidate's last name in the "Candidate Search" section.
3. Click the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page.

You do not have to select or enter anything else — even though the database says you do. In fact, sometimes providing fewer criteria is better, particularly when you are getting used to navigating this database.

That said, I find the "Sort Contributions By" drop-down menu handy. It determines how results are sorted after you hit the "Submit" button — useful if you want to see donations listed by date or amount, for example.

There's also an option under "Retrieval Format" to download your search results as a tab-delimited text file, which you can then convert to a spreadsheet or import to a database.

Local offices

For all other political offices in Florida, the collection of campaign finance data can vary from one locality to the next.

You can likely find data by poking around the website of the applicable county supervisor of elections or municipal clerk, or by doing a web search for a county or municipality and the term "campaign finance."

It might be faster, though, to simply call and ask your county supervisor of elections' office how to find campaign finance data on whatever type of candidate you're interested in. Here's a list of every supervisor of elections in Florida, along with their website and contact information.

A local example

For a real-life example, let's look at how campaign finance reporting works in my neck of the woods, Palm Beach County.

Candidates for countywide offices must report to the county supervisor of elections' office. In 2026, this includes folks who run for:

• The Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners (specifically, the seats for Districts 2, 4 and 6)
• The School District of Palm Beach County's School Board (Districts 3, 4, 6 and 7)
• County court judge (Groups 3, 10, 12 and 14)
• One county constitutional officer (the circuit court clerk), due to a special election

The same goes for folks who run for any special district or community development district located in my county.

(I know all this because the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections, Wendy Sartory Link, maintains a list of all offices for which she receives campaign finance reports and when each is up for election. She also maintains a list of all announced candidates for the current election cycle. These lists are so handy that you might want to ask your own supervisor of elections for equivalent resources.)

Because all candidates for countywide and local district offices must report to my county supervisor of elections, I can use her campaign finance database to search for donations to any such candidate. I can even download search results as a CSV spreadsheet.

When it comes to candidates for municipal offices, though, campaign finance reports are filed with the applicable municipal clerk. This goes for everywhere from the biggest city, West Palm Beach, to a small rural town like Loxahatchee Groves.

Also unfortunate: None of the municipal clerks in my area maintains a database as far as I know. They simply post campaign finance reports to their website as PDFs, and typically only reports from the latest campaign cycle are readily available online. If I wanted reports from a few years back, I'd likely have to ask if not file a public records request for them (whereas the state's database has records going back to 1996).

In short, following the money is arguably tougher at local levels. So again, when you're in doubt, my advice is to ask your county supervisor of elections' office how to find whatever data you're after. Even for political offices for which they don't receive campaign finance reports, they will likely know who does.

Karla Bowsher is an editorial advisor to the Recall Florida board.

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