About the data

Source. Campaign statements e-filed with the City of Santa Monica through NetFile, in the standard California FPPC format: Form 460 (full campaign statements), Form 496 (24-hour independent expenditure reports) and Form 497 (24-hour late contribution reports). Form 496s filed on paper are included from scans (see below). Data generated .

What is counted.

• Candidate and measure committee spending is Form 460 Summary line 11, "total expenditures made", over the committee's 2026-cycle reports. It includes unpaid bills and in-kind (non-cash) contributions received.
• Independent expenditures (IEs) — money spent for or against a candidate by a committee not coordinating with them — come from Schedule D of each committee's Form 460, plus 24-hour Form 496 reports filed after its last 460.
• Donations are Schedule A (cash) and Schedule C (in-kind) contributions, plus 24-hour Form 497 late contributions received after the last 460. Donations under $100 are not itemized by law; they appear as "Small donors".
• Amendments replace the original report; each dollar is counted once.
• A contribution from one committee to another is drawn once, as a link between the two committees.
• Cash on hand is the ending cash on the last Form 460. Where 24-hour reports show later donations or spending, the diagrams use an estimate: filed cash + late donations − later independent expenditures.

What is estimated. Only the donor-search page estimates anything. Money is fungible once it reaches a committee, so a donor's "share" of a committee's spending is calculated pro rata: their gift divided by all the money the committee had (starting cash, donations and loans). Those links are drawn lighter. California law does not trace dollars this way; it is an analytic estimate.

Known gaps.

• Spending after October 17, 2026 by candidate committees appears on post-election reports due January 31, 2027.
• Committees that file with Los Angeles County or the Secretary of State (for example UNITE HERE Local 11 PAC) only appear through the 24-hour reports they filed with Santa Monica; their donors are not shown.
• Paper filings: 24-hour independent-expenditure reports (Form 496) filed on paper are read from the scanned forms and included. A scanned report is dropped if the same spending is already on an e-filed 496 or on the committee's later Form 460, and only the latest amendment counts. Scans the reader flagged as unclear are checked by hand against the PDF before they count. On committee pages these amounts are marked "scanned filing". Paper Forms 460 and 497 are not included yet.
• Donor names were standardized (e.g. reversed first/last names merged); merges were reviewed by hand but may contain errors.

Flagged filings. When a filing looks wrong, it is still shown exactly as filed. This site does not change filed data. Instead, the amount is marked where it appears, with the reason and a copy of the original filing.

• UNITE HERE Local 11 PAC, report 101026W (filed October 10, 2026): $6,250 against Brett Morrow is believed to be filed in error. The PAC's October 17 report supporting Morrow gives a running total of $10,750, which only adds up ($1,500 + $6,250 + $3,000) if this $6,250 was spent in support of him, and its November 3 report supporting Morrow does the same ($11,655.36 = $1,500 + $6,250 + $3,000 + $905.36). A committee UNITE HERE sponsors for this race also registered as supporting Morrow.

Privacy. Only donor name, city and amount are shown — no street addresses, employers or occupations, even though they are public on the original filings.

Original filings: Santa Monica campaign disclosure portal (NetFile).