Money raised by committee and donor location

What this dataset measures

Built to check who pays for each side of I-638, including the No pamphlet's statement that the measure is "bankrolled by an ultra-conservative mega-donor." Both main committees work on more than one measure, so the dataset separates money a committee raised (shared across its measures) from spending its own reports assign to I-638. All contributions and expenditures of the two committees are taken whole from PDC open data; nothing is sampled. The 2025 election year is included because the I-638 signature drive ran in 2025 and the signatures were filed in January 2026.

Geography

Washington State

Unit of observation

Donor per committee (contributions); committee and election year (spending allocated to I-638); committee (registered I-638 committees).

Update cadence

One-time snapshot of PDC data downloaded 2026-10-23 (latest receipts October 23, 2026). Committees keep filing until after the November 3, 2026 election; rerun the build script for later totals.

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Money raised by committee and donor location

Totals and shares from Washington addresses, out-of-state addresses, and unitemized gifts.

Unit of observation: Committee and donor location

i638_raised_by_location.csv text/csv · 542 bytes

All 6 rows 6 columns Download the file

All 6 rows

filer_id	committee	side	donor_location	total US dollars	share_of_committee fraction (0-1)
FREEW--138	No Hate in WA State	No	Washington	3851335.8	0.868
FREEW--138	No Hate in WA State	No	Outside Washington	452942.47	0.1021
FREEW--138	No Hate in WA State	No	Not reported	132634.79	0.0299
HEYWL--535	Let's Go Washington (Sponsored by Brian Heywood)	Yes	Washington	7124765.27	0.9108
HEYWL--535	Let's Go Washington (Sponsored by Brian Heywood)	Yes	Outside Washington	468490	0.0599
HEYWL--535	Let's Go Washington (Sponsored by Brian Heywood)	Yes	Not reported	228960.5	0.0293

6 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
filer_id	string	PDC filer ID.	—	observed
committee	string	Committee name.	—	observed
side	string	Yes or No.	—	derived
donor_location	string	Washington, Outside Washington, or Not reported.	—	derived
total	number	Total from this location.	US dollars	derived
share_of_committee	number	Share of committee receipts.	fraction (0-1)	derived

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• i638_campaign_finance.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 12.8 KB (13,087 bytes)

  Node.js script that downloads the PDC data from data.wa.gov and writes every table.

• i638_campaign_finance_dataset_parts.json Documentation · application/json · 36.9 KB (37,796 bytes)

  The dataset's tables, field definitions, saved analyses, sources, events and limitations as JSON, as stored in version 1 (figures through October 21, 2026). Later versions' figures are in the CSV tables and saved analyses of the version you are viewing.

• indorg.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 1.8 KB (1,815 bytes)

  Node.js script that computes the individuals-vs-organizations analysis from the same raw PDC contribution downloads.

Sources

1. Washington Public Disclosure Commission: Contributions to Candidates and Political Committees (data.wa.gov kv7h-kjye) Every itemized contribution to Let's Go Washington (HEYWL--535) and No Hate in WA State (FREEW--138), 2025 and 2026 election years

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (RCW 29B); Washington open data. Public disclosure data; redistributed in aggregate with attribution

   Reliability: Government. Filed by the committees themselves under Washington's campaign disclosure law and published by the PDC. Committees can amend reports, and in-kind values are the committees' own estimates.

2. Washington Public Disclosure Commission: Expenditures by Candidates and Political Committees (data.wa.gov tijg-9zyp) Each committee's itemized expenditures and their stated purposes, used to assign spending to I-638

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (RCW 29B); Washington open data. Public disclosure data; redistributed in aggregate with attribution

   Reliability: Government. Purpose descriptions are written by the filing committee. The PDC does not verify how a committee splits shared costs between measures.

3. Washington Public Disclosure Commission: Campaign Finance Summary (data.wa.gov 3h9x-7bvm) The list of committees registered for or against I-638, the measures each covers, and their 2026 totals

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (RCW 29B); Washington open data. Public disclosure data; redistributed with attribution

   Reliability: Government. Totals are computed by the PDC from committee filings and updated as reports arrive.

4. Washington Public Disclosure Commission: Loans to Candidates and Political Committees (data.wa.gov d2ig-r3q4) Brian Heywood's loans to Let's Go Washington

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (RCW 29B); Washington open data. Public disclosure data; redistributed with attribution

   Reliability: Government. Loans are reported by the borrowing committee, with the lender's name.

5. Washington Public Disclosure Commission: Independent Campaign Expenditures and Electioneering Communications (data.wa.gov 67cp-h962) Independent expenditures naming I-638 (for the size check in the limitations)

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (RCW 29B); Washington open data. Public disclosure data; redistributed with attribution

   Reliability: Government. Reported by the sponsors of the advertising; the portion attributed to each measure is the sponsor's own estimate.

6. Washington Public Disclosure Commission: Enforcement case 192919, Let's Go Washington (Sponsored by Brian Heywood) Outcome of the 2026 complaint about unreported in-kind contributions from a commentator (also in data.wa.gov a4ma-dq6s)

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record. Public government record; short quotation

   Reliability: Government. The PDC's own case record, written by its staff. The complaint was filed on behalf of Washingtonians for Ethical Government.

Limitations and reproducibility

Fully reproducible from public data: The included script i638_campaign_finance.js queries data.wa.gov (PDC datasets kv7h-kjye contributions, tijg-9zyp expenditures, 3h9x-7bvm summary and d2ig-r3q4 loans) and writes every table. Donor-type labels for organizations are a fixed list in the script. Totals will differ if run later because committees keep filing and amending reports.

• Snapshot: the latest receipts in the data are dated October 23, 2026. No Hate in WA State reported $1.4 million from two donors between September 22 and October 21 alone, and $95,000 more on October 22-23. Itemized expenditures in the data run through October 12; by then it had spent $2.51 million of the $4.44 million it has raised, so its I-638 spending will grow before November 3.
• Both main committees work on more than one measure. Contributions are not earmarked by measure, so a donor's money cannot be traced to I-638. Let's Go Washington backs IL26-001 (parental rights), IL26-638 and IP26-645 (income-tax repeal); No Hate in WA State opposes IL26-001 and IL26-638.
• Spending is assigned to I-638 only from the measure numbers in each expenditure's own purpose description, split equally across the measures it names. Some descriptions give their own estimates; for Let's Go Washington they differ from an equal split by $32,522 in total. Several No Hate descriptions list a dollar figure per measure equal to the whole item; the equal split is used. Spending that names no measure (staff, legal, overhead) is shown separately and, in one column, prorated.
• Donor type is FactHub's classification of each organization by name. Inatai Foundation describes itself as a 501(c)(4) philanthropy; it is grouped with foundations. Gender Justice League, the ACLU of Washington, the Human Rights Campaign, Lavender Rights Project, Pro-Choice Washington, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates and Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky are grouped as civil-liberties, LGBTQ and reproductive-rights groups. SEIU Washington State Council is grouped with labor unions.
• Donor location is the state in the contributor's reported address. National organizations can report a Washington address (SEIU Initiative Fund), and the location of the money behind an organization (for example Washington Rising Inc of Franklin, Tennessee) is not disclosed in these records.
• Individuals who gave less than $25,000 to a committee, and organizations under $5,000, are aggregated by type and location rather than named. No addresses are published.
• Brian Heywood's loans to Let's Go Washington ($4.66 million, made in 2023-24 and carried forward) are not contributions and are excluded; LGW reported no new loans in 2025 or 2026.
• Other committees on I-638 (county parties, Defend Washington, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Greater Washington, Seattle Indivisible and others) are listed with their 2026 totals but not itemized. All of them cover several measures, and some gave to No Hate in WA State, so their totals overlap.
• Independent expenditures and electioneering communications on I-638 reported to the PDC totaled about $16,400 (portion attributed to I-638) and are not included in the committee totals.