Political Campaign Finance Tracker

A comprehensive web application for exploring political campaign finance data, featuring interactive visualizations, AI-powered politician descriptions, and detailed funding network analysis.

🎯 Features

Core Functionality

• Politician Database: Browse and search through thousands of political candidates
• Campaign Finance Data: View detailed financial information including receipts, contributions, and funding sources
• Interactive Filtering: Live-updating filters for chamber, state, party, and search terms
• Pagination: Efficient handling of large datasets with paginated results

Advanced Features

• AI-Generated Descriptions: Dynamic politician descriptions powered by Google's Gemini AI
• Funding Network Visualization: Interactive D3.js graphs showing funding connections and sources
• Real-time Filter Counts: Live updates showing remaining options as you apply filters
• Responsive Design: Mobile-friendly interface built with Bootstrap 5

Data Visualization

• Force-Directed Graphs: Network visualization of funding relationships
• Funding Source Analysis: Color-coded nodes showing individual, PAC, and party funding
• Interactive Exploration: Click and drag nodes to explore funding networks

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• pip (Python package manager)
• Git

Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/mumtahinamomo/HackHarvard.git
   cd HackHarvard

2. Create and activate virtual environment

   python -m venv venv
   
   # On Windows
   venv\Scripts\activate
   
   # On macOS/Linux
   source venv/bin/activate

3. Install dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set up environment variables Create a .env file in the project root:

   SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key_here
   DATABASE_URI=sqlite:///database.db
   GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key_here

5. Initialize the database

   flask db init
   flask db migrate -m "Initial migration"
   flask db upgrade

6. Run the application

   python run.py

7. Access the application Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:5000

📊 Database Setup

The application uses SQLite for development and can be configured for other databases in production.

🛠️ Development

Project Structure

HackHarvard/
├── flask_app/                 # Main Flask application
│   ├── templates/            # HTML templates
│   ├── static/              # CSS, JS, and assets
│   ├── graph/               # Graph visualization components
│   ├── models.py            # Database models
│   ├── routes.py            # Main routes
│   ├── politician_routes.py # Politician-specific routes
│   └── graph_api.py         # Graph API endpoints
├── migrations/              # Database migrations
├── instance/               # Database files
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
└── run.py                 # Application entry point

Key Components

Flask Routes

• / - Homepage
• /list_politicians - Politician listing with filters
• /politician/<id> - Individual politician details
• /api/politicians - JSON API for politician data
• /generate_description/<id> - AI description generation
• /graph/<id> - Network visualization for specific politician
• /network - Standalone network viewer

Database Models

• Politician: Main model storing candidate information, financial data, and AI-generated descriptions

External Integrations

• Google Gemini AI: For generating politician descriptions
• D3.js: For interactive network visualizations
• Bootstrap 5: For responsive UI components