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Political data API

Programmatic access to cross-linked political data from eight federal sources. REST API and MCP server for AI agents.

Beta|Endpoints and response shapes may change before launch.
Interactive docsOpenAPI spec

Authentication

All requests require an API key passed via the x-api-key header.

1.

Sign in to your Poliscope account

2.

Go to Settings and create an API key

3.

Pass your key as x-api-key header

Quick start

100 requests per minute on the free tier.

curl
curl -H "x-api-key: ps_your_key_here" \
  "https://api.poliscope.org/v1/politicians?q=warren&limit=3"
JavaScript
const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.poliscope.org/v1/politicians?q=warren&limit=3",
  { headers: { "x-api-key": "ps_your_key_here" } }
);
const { data, meta } = await res.json();
Python
import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.poliscope.org/v1/politicians",
    params={"q": "warren", "limit": 3},
    headers={"x-api-key": "ps_your_key_here"}
)
data = r.json()["data"]
Response format
{
  "data": [ ... ],
  "meta": {
    "limit": 3,
    "offset": 0,
    "source": "poliscope"
  }
}

Endpoints

90 endpoints across 19 categories. All GET, all authenticated via API key.

Politicians

GET

FEC candidates with fundraising totals, top donors, and industry breakdown

/v1/politicians

Legislators

GET

Congressional members with bioguide IDs, committee assignments, and voting records

/v1/legislators

Donors

GET

Campaign donors ranked by total contributions with recipient details

/v1/donors

Committees

GET

FEC political committees — PACs, party committees, campaign committees

/v1/committees

Companies

GET

Unified company profiles linking SEC filings, contracts, and lobbying

/v1/companies

Lobbying

GET

LDA lobbying disclosures — clients, firms, spending, and issue areas

/v1/lobbying/clients

Bills

GET

Congressional legislation with sponsors, status tracking, and subject tags

/v1/bills

Contracts

GET

USAspending government contracts and grants by recipient and agency

/v1/contracts/recipients

Elections

GET

Election analytics — races, state totals, spending trends, outside spending

/v1/elections/overview

Search

GET

Cross-source search across politicians, companies, lobbying, and bills

/v1/search

Trades

GET

Congressional stock trades from STOCK Act periodic transaction reports

/v1/trades

Spending

GET

Political vendor disbursements — top payees, spending by cycle, and summaries

/v1/spending/vendors

SEC Filings

GET

SEC EDGAR filings, parsed text sections, and semantic search via BGE-M3 embeddings

/v1/sec/filings

Disclosures

GET

Executive branch OGE 278e financial disclosures — assets, positions, transactions, liabilities

/v1/disclosures/appointees

Gifts & Travel

GET

Congressional gift and travel disclosures from the House Clerk and Senate Gift Rule Database

/v1/gifts

Pensions

GET

Public pension plans — funded ratios, investment returns, asset allocations, and membership data

/v1/pensions

Nonprofits

GET

Politically relevant nonprofits (501c4/c5/c6/527) with IRS BMF data, 990 filings, and dark money grant flows

/v1/nonprofits

Dark Money

GET

501(c)(4) grant flows into political committees — traced source-to-destination with amounts and EINs

/v1/dark-money

FEC Filings

GET

Raw FEC filings — Schedule B disbursements, Schedule E independent expenditures, loans (Sched C), and debts (Sched D)

/v1/filings/disbursements

MCP Server

Connect AI tools directly to Poliscope data.

The Poliscope MCP server exposes 70+ API endpoints as tools for AI assistants. Connect via URL — no install needed.

Get an API key from Settings, then add one of these configs. Rate limits are shared across API and MCP usage (100 req/min free tier).

Claude Desktop / Cursor (recommended — no install)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "poliscope": {
      "url": "https://api.poliscope.org/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-key": "ps_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}
Claude Code (remote)
claude mcp add poliscope --url https://api.poliscope.org/mcp --header "x-api-key: ps_your_key_here"
Alternative: local server via npx
claude mcp add poliscope -e POLISCOPE_API_KEY=ps_your_key_here -- npx poliscope-mcp

Available tools

searchlist_politiciansget_politicianlist_legislatorsget_legislatorget_legislator_voteslist_committeesget_committeelist_donorssearch_donorsget_donorlist_companiesget_companyget_company_hierarchylist_billsget_billget_bill_votessearch_bills_semanticget_election_race
list_lobbying_clientsget_lobbying_clientlist_lobbying_firmsget_lobbying_firmget_lobbying_statslist_lobbying_issueslist_contract_recipientslist_contract_agenciessearch_contractsget_contract_agencyget_contractlist_tradesget_trades_by_politicianget_trades_by_tickerget_trades_summarylist_spending_vendorsget_spending_vendorget_spending_summaryget_elections_overview
list_election_raceslist_state_totalslist_zip_codeslist_employer_totalslist_spending_trendsget_outside_spendinglist_outside_spending_targetssearch_sec_semanticget_sec_filinglist_appointeesget_appointeeget_disclosure_filingsearch_disclosuresget_disclosure_summarylist_giftsget_giftlist_gift_memberslist_gift_sponsorsget_gift_summarylist_pensionsget_pensionget_pension_summaryget_pension_financialsget_pension_allocationlist_nonprofitsget_nonprofitget_nonprofit_summarysearch_nonprofitsget_nonprofit_grantsget_nonprofit_officers

Usage

Rate limits

100 requests per minute on the free tier. Get an API key from Settings.

Response format

All endpoints return { data, meta } envelope. Pagination via limit and offset.

Data freshness

FEC bulk data updated with each official release. Congressional data synced daily. Contracts and lobbying updated quarterly.

Entity resolution

29M cross-source match candidates link people and organizations across FEC, lobbying, contracts, SEC, and congressional records.