Iowa 4th District House Race 2026: All the Money

7.1 Race summary

Every cell to the dollar. Raised / Spent / Cash on hand are each campaign's cycle-to-date FEC totals (they include primary-period activity — note); the three outside-money columns count only independent expenditures disseminated after primary day. "Grand total benefiting" = a candidate's own campaign disbursements + total outside spending benefiting that candidate. Receipts and expenditures are never added into a single figure. Attribution rule.

7.2 Charts

Donuts are computed server-side from the same snapshot figures shown in each accompanying table; chart and table cannot disagree.

7.3 Outside spending by committee

Every filer found by the candidate-level Schedule E pull is listed, not only the verified super PACs. Committee names link to their FEC pages. Spending that opposes one candidate is counted as benefiting the other. Attribution rule. General-election rows only (disseminated after primary day); spending disseminated on or before primary day is listed in the appendix, §7.15.

7.4 Outside spending by purpose category

Purpose categories are assigned from each expenditure's FEC description using a fixed keyword map. Unclassified share: 0.3%.

7.5 Super PAC donors

One table per verified super PAC active in the general-election window (§7.3), largest spender first. Committees are added here once their spending appears in the two-way ledger.

7.6 Campaign fundraising composition

Individual contributions combine itemized and small-dollar (unitemized) receipts as reported in each committee's FEC totals. Figures are cycle-to-date for each principal campaign committee (the FEC summary file does not separate primary-period from general-election receipts). Transfers from authorized committees are shown as their own labeled row and are not buried in totals.

7.7 Campaign spending by category

Buckets are assigned from each disbursement's FEC purpose description using the same keyword map applied to outside spending. Cycle-to-date for each principal campaign committee.

7.8 PACs giving directly to each campaign

Cash and in-kind contributions from PACs and other political committees to each campaign, cycle-to-date (FEC transaction types 24K and 24Z in the committee-to-candidate bulk file, memo entries excluded). The candidate's own authorized committees are left out — their transfers are the "transfers from authorized committees" line in §7.6. Independent expenditures (types 24A/24E) are never counted here; they appear only in the §7.3 ledger.

Also in this FEC file, shown elsewhere on this page

• $172,668 of independent expenditures (types 24E for, 24A against) — outside spending: rows disseminated after primary day are in the §7.3 ledger and the totals above, primary-period rows are in the §7.15 appendix.

7.9 Earmarked contributions via conduits

Both campaigns are checked the same way against AIPAC PAC's own itemized receipts (each earmark names the recipient committee). AIPAC PAC reports disclosed through October 14, 2026. This is an overlay statistic showing the conduit path of money already counted in §7.6 receipts; it is not added to any other total. AIPAC PAC contributions earmarked to a candidate pass through the traditional PAC as a conduit. ActBlue is a payment processor, mechanically different from an ideological bundler; ActBlue conduit activity is present in the filings and is labeled as processor pass-through, not bundling.

7.9b AIPAC PAC-network donors among itemized contributors

Cross-match computed October 23, 2026, 9:23 AM ET.

What this measures: donor overlap, not direction. Each nominee's itemized individual receipts (Schedule A, individuals only, memo entries excluded, net of the negative adjustment lines campaigns file to reverse excessive contributions) are compared with the people named in AIPAC PAC's own regular reports from January 1, 2023 through October 14, 2026 (46 reports, 98,937 individual receipt lines, 18,794 distinct donors — direct PAC contributions and earmarks to any candidate alike). Donors are grouped, and chargebacks netted, at the level of surname + first given name + ZIP code on both sides; a donor matches when that ZIP-level identity appears in both ("name + ZIP"). Only when it does not is a weaker fallback tried: the same surname and first name anywhere in the same state, compared against the combined receipts of everyone with that name in the state ("name + state" — several people can share a name, so this tier is reported separately). Both nominees are run through the identical procedure, so the opponent's block shows what the same method yields on the other donor list; it is a comparison, not a measured error rate. A match shows that a person who gave to this campaign also gave to or through AIPAC PAC; it does not show that AIPAC PAC raised, hosted or directed the contribution, which FEC data cannot establish (see the §7.9 earmark blocks for money that verifiably passed through the PAC). Only contributions itemized by the campaign ($200+ aggregate) can be matched; unitemized receipts are invisible to this method, and so are donors whose money arrived as a joint-fundraising-committee transfer (each block states that amount). Every matched donor is in the matched-donor CSV. Method note.

7.10 Final-stretch tracker

(a) 24-hour independent-expenditure reports since October 15 (newest first)

(b) 48-hour contribution notices (Form 6), per campaign

Figures reported via 24/48-hour notices; not yet in a periodic report. The closing window opens October 15, the day after pre-general report coverage ends; this is the live feed through election day (November 3, 2026). Before then, every notice-sourced expenditure is already in the §7.3 tables and the §7.11 ledger.

7.11 Full expenditure ledger

Every deduped Schedule E transaction in the general-election window (4 rows). Full ledger with cents precision in the CSV download; primary-period rows are in the §7.15 appendix.

7.12 Electioneering communications & communication costs

Every cycle-to-date row naming either nominee, dated so primary-period and general-election items can be told apart; these are not independent expenditures and are not added into any total above.

7.13 Downloads

• CSVFull deduped expenditure ledger — general-election window (CSV, cents precision)/data/ia-04-house-general/expenditure-ledger.csv
• CSVPrimary-period ledger — §7.15 appendix rows (CSV, cents precision)/data/ia-04-house-general/pre-primary-ledger.csv
• CSVSuper PAC donor tables (CSV)/data/ia-04-house-general/superpac-donors.csv
• CSV§7.9b matched donors — both nominees, one row per matched donor (CSV, cents precision)/data/ia-04-house-general/aipac-network-donors.csv
• JSONSummary JSON (headline figures + outside spending by committee)/data/ia-04-house-general/summary.json
• JSONFull snapshot JSON (every section, incl. prePrimary rows and reconciliation)/data/ia-04-house-general/snapshot.json

CSV downloads keep full cents precision. Table totals on this page are exactly reproducible by summing the published CSV.

7.15 Appendix: primary-period spending on or before primary day

3 filers, $172,669 disseminated on or before primary day — listed in full, not additive with the general-election totals above.

Independent expenditures naming Chris McGowan or Dave Dawson and disseminated on or before the June 2, 2026 primaries, from filings processed through October 23, 2026 (5 filing rows; every row is in the primary-period ledger CSV and under prePrimary in the full snapshot JSON, §7.13). This is primary-period money: it is listed in full here but is not added to the general-election totals above and is not credited to either nominee, because "opposing one candidate benefits the other" only holds once both are on the same ballot — before primary day each nominee was running against different opponents. Scope note.