PSA Security Project

In the last decade, violent threats to public servants—bomb threats, doxxing, and voicemails threatening to kill their children, just to name a few—have compelled federal campaigns and committees to spend over $100 million on security, with security spending in the 2023-24 cycle at over five times what it was in the 2015-16 cycle.

To put it in perspective, $100 million is enough to feed more than 130,000 kids for a full school year or eliminate more than half of America’s public school meal debt. Dollars that could otherwise be invested in get-out-the-vote efforts or bipartisan convenings with a candidate’s potential constituents are instead going to pay for bodyguards, bulletproof vests, event security details, CCTV cameras, window hardening supplies, threat monitoring services, privacy and cybersecurity services, and more.

Violent threats against public servants, their families, and their coworkers are rising across America, at all levels of government and across the political and ideological spectrum, with women and people of color at disproportionate risk. These threats have been documented at public servants’ main places of work, their satellite offices, their campaign stops, their public forums, their homes, and even third locations where public servants socially gather or otherwise visit on their own personal time.

Drawing on a large volume of expenditure data reported by federal campaigns and committees over the last decade, made available by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), this latest report from The Security Project at the Public Service Alliance (PSA) examines how federal campaigns and committees are responding, with dollars, to rising violent threats. It examines the last decade’s worth of FEC data—spanning the past five reported federal campaign cycles (2015-16, 2017-18, 2019-20, 2021-22, and 2023-24) to yield a conservative, minimum spending estimate.

This report finds that federal campaign and committee spending on security during the 2023-24 cycle was at a decade high, after multiple spikes in the campaign cycles prior, and spanned home-, event-, and digital-related security across the United States:

• Federal campaigns and committees have spent at least $104 million in the last decade on security, ranging from personal protection to digital monitoring—a conservative, minimum estimate on the amount spent.
• Spending has rapidly increased. Federal campaign and committee spending on security in the 2023-24 cycle was more than five times what it was in the 2015-16 cycle.
• Security spending increased the most in absolute terms from the 2017-18 cycle ($5,751,121.60) to the 2019-20 cycle ($29,067,479.13) by more than 400% ($23,316,357.53).
• Security spending decreased the most in absolute terms from the 2019-20 cycle ($29,067,479.13) to the 2021-22 cycle ($20,154,555.35) by more than 30% ($8,912,923.78).
• Home-related security spending in the last decade (e.g., home alarms, fencing, and window upgrades) totaled almost $900,000 ($898,129.10), while event-related security spending (e.g., for rallies and get-out-the-vote events) totaled more than $5 million ($5,057,858.65) over the same period.
• Digital-related security spending in the last decade (e.g., cybersecurity, privacy services, and threat monitoring) totaled almost $1.4 million ($1,399,650.30).
• In the 2023-24 cycle, the top recipients of security spending in aggregate—such as home alarm companies, surveillance camera companies, or physical security providers—had listed addresses in California ($8,697,854.17), Florida ($6,991,730.95), and Virginia ($4,762,923.39).
• For federal campaigns’ security spending in particular (within the umbrella of federal political committees): over the last decade, House campaigns spent at least $6.7 million, Senate campaigns spent at least $11.7 million, and presidential campaigns spent at least $23.1 million.

Importantly, these numbers are a conservative, minimum estimate of the total spend on federal campaign and committee security expenses—meaning the actual numbers are likely even higher. They also do not account for all relevant government-incurred costs, such as U.S. Secret Service protection assigned to certain presidential candidates.

Given rising federal campaign and committee spending across several security-related categories, this report makes two primary recommendations:

1. Future research should (1) include a wider set of search terms; (2) delve deeper into the types of security services procured; (3) analyze disparate spending patterns; (4) include spending from more recent and upcoming campaign cycles; (5) include in-scope, relevant spending at the state, local, tribal, and territorial levels, as well as at the federal level; and (6) evaluate the extent to which this increased spending is helping Americans running for office feel safer themselves and with respect to their families and staff, and whether they would otherwise change their behavior without this spending—such as by running but engaging less with potential voters, running but not fully voicing their policy opinions and perspectives, or not pursuing a run for office at all.
2. Policymakers should assess how to reform existing or pass new campaign and committee laws—across the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels—to ensure that the people seeking elected office can dedicate resources toward legitimate security services for themselves, their families, and their staff—from candidacy to when they’re serving in elected office—because many cannot at present. Some state legislators are already calling to update campaign spending rules in response, with at least 24 states already having authorized the use of Campaign Funds for Security, according to the Vote Mama Foundation.