Campaign Funds for Security
What is CFS?
Campaign Funds for Security (CFS) is an initiative that allows federal, state, and local candidates to use campaign funds to pay for legitimate security expenses incurred directly from campaign activity and/or holding public office. These expenses include:
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Non-structural and structural security devices
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Professional security personnel and services
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Cybersecurity software, devices, and services
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From 2014 to 2024, 864 federal candidates used campaign funds to cover over $41 million on security expenses. This spending reflects broad, bipartisan support for CFS. The increased usage by men, women, Democrats, and Republicans underscores the urgent need for candidates at every level of office to be able to use campaign funds on security expenses.
Utilization
The data covers campaign finance records from January 2014 to December 2024. We used the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) campaign disbursement database—searching the following keywords: “security,” “bodyguard,” “protection,” “personal security,” “alarm system,” “cyber security,” and “cybersecurity.” Any transactions with descriptions outside of these search terms are not captured in this dataset. Office sought and political party data was downloaded from the FEC’s bulk data download section. Race and gender data was retrieved from news articles, candidate websites, the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, and the Center for American Women in Politics (CAWP), and Wikipedia.
Given the data limitations, we do not claim this data to be an exhaustive record of the use of Campaign Funds for Security (CFS) at the federal level, and we suspect that usage is higher than reported.