How we research

Coverage

New York City, in depth:Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, every U.S. House district that touches the city, every NYC State Senate and Assembly district, and the city’s ballot proposals. Everywhere else:every U.S. House and U.S. Senate race in the country, plus New Jersey’s federal races in depth.

Sources, in order of preference

1. Official records — roll-call votes from the House Clerk, the U.S. Senate, the NY Senate and Assembly; bill texts and histories; FEC filings; court and government records. Shown with a green citation.
2. The candidate’s own words — campaign sites, press releases, questionnaires, and verbatim interviews or debates.
3. Independent news reporting from established outlets.
4. Reference works like Ballotpedia — used for basic facts such as ballot status and party lines, not for positions.

We don’t use anonymous claims, opinion columns, or partisan attack material.

Every claim is cited

Each sentence about a candidate carries numbered citations that open the source. If a claim can’t be sourced, it isn’t published. Each race page lists every source it uses and notes what we couldn’t find.

Issue positions

We compare candidates on 15 fixed issue statements (for example “Stricter gun laws”). A position is recorded only when a source shows it directly: the candidate’s own statement, a vote, a bill they sponsored, or a questionnaire answer. We never infer a position from party. Votes outrank words.For sitting members of Congress, where recorded floor votes bear directly on an issue — the Laken Riley Act (immigration enforcement), tariff disapproval resolutions (tariffs), the ACA subsidy extension (public coverage), and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (its Medicaid reductions, immigration-enforcement funding, clean-energy credit repeal, and permanent 2017 tax rates) — the votes set the position, each linked to the official roll call. What the member says on the same issue is shown beneath it, flagged when it differs from how they voted. For New York Assembly members, recorded votes on landmark laws set positions the same way — the 2019 rent law (HSTPA), the climate law (CLCPA), the red-flag and concealed-carry gun laws, the Reproductive Health Act, the Protect Our Courts Act, and the 2021 tax increase on high earners — read from the Assembly’s official floor-vote records. Challengers who held other office are shown with their votes from those offices where official records were reachable. A dash means no clear public position was found — not that the candidate has none.

“What matters to me” compares your answers only with those documented positions, counting vote-based positions 1.5× as much as campaign statements. It is not a recommendation, and a candidate’s silence on an issue counts neither for nor against them.

Congressional votes & money

Key votes are read by script straight from the official House Clerk and U.S. Senate roll-call XML, and matched to members through the public congress-legislators crosswalk. Campaign-finance totals come from the Federal Election Commission’s bulk candidate summary for the 2026 cycle.

Who does the research

Profiles are researched and written by AI research agents working to a written standard (neutral language, primary sources first, verbatim quotes only, never fabricate) and checked by automated validation of every citation. AI makes mistakes. Always follow the citation, and check with your state or county board of elections for the final word on what’s on your ballot.