Many states limit how much a donor may contribute to a political campaign. About four-fifths of the states limit contributions from individuals to candidates. A smaller number do so for contributions from political parties or PACs to candidates.

States with limits typically set different ones for different categories of donors (such as individuals, political parties, or political committees) as they give to different types of recipients. However, the law would be meaningless if it limited how much a donor could give at any one time but then allowed an unlimited number of transactions. So when a state restricts contributions, it will specify the most that a donor may give over a designated period of time. Some states will set a maximum amount per year. Others will designate the maximum a donor may give per election, with the primary and general election each having its own limit. And still others will designate the maximum per election cycle, with the cycle covering the primary and general election combined.

Standardization: Because we wanted to make truly comparable numbers available to researchers and other users, we have created a standardizing field to show the combined contribution limit for each type of donor and recipient over the course of two years. This is what is being shown in the visualizations.

Downloading: If you want to see the details of the laws in each state, including the way the states defined the time periods in their contribution limits statutes, you can click at any time to be brought to the full data sets. As is true everywhere in this database, the visualizations present only a small portion of the full database.

It is also important to note that the database only presents statute law. It does not present administrative or judicial interpretations of the law – which can often be crucial for understanding what a law “really means” to the candidates and others who live under it. The one situation in which does go beyond the statute is if a final ruling of the highest state or federal court determines a provision to be unconstitutional. If that occurs, and the state has not formally repealed the provision in another statute, we then show the provision as being “inoperative” and provide a reference to the case in the full database.