Election Day is behind us. Whatever the results meant for your campaign, every department still has work to do. Before you say goodbye to your fellow staffers and pack up HQ, make sure these tasks are done.
1. Review who has access to your campaign's accounts.
Staff and volunteers start moving on right after Election Day, and many of them can still log in to campaign accounts. Before anyone leaves:
- List every account the campaign uses: Crimson, your campaign website, donation platforms, social media, campaign email, and anything else staff log in to.
- Remove access for everyone who is leaving, and change the password on any login that was shared.
- Put each account in the name of someone who is staying with the committee, including the email address and phone number used to recover it.
2. Keep up with FEC deadlines.
The 2026 cycle has two more deadlines:
- The Post-General Report, covering October 15 through November 23, is due Thursday, December 3, 2026.
- The Year-End Report is due Sunday, January 31, 2027. The FEC doesn't extend deadlines that fall on a weekend, so electronic filers have until 11:59 p.m. Eastern that night. Paper reports not sent by registered, certified or overnight mail must arrive by close of business Friday, January 29.
- CMDI's 2026 FEC filing deadlines has the full calendar.
3. Update donation pages and disclaimers after Election Day.
Online donations received after the election:
- If you won: change the disclaimer on all your fundraising pages to say that any donations submitted after Election Day will go toward the next election.
- If you didn't win and have debt: change your disclaimer to say that donations received after Election Day will go toward debt retirement.
- If you didn't win and have no debt, the recommendation is to remove your donation page and deactivate recurring donations.
Checks received after the election:
- Keep the envelope. You need the postmark to prove the check was mailed on or before Election Day.
- If it came through a fundraiser, you need proof or an affidavit that an agent of the campaign had the donation in hand on or before Election Day.
4. Start sending thank yous.
Thank your volunteers:
- While this isn't the most important legal step, it is the most important step to ensure future success. Start with a thank you email to your volunteers. If you have the time or money, a small get together with pizza or coffee is a good way to thank them for their time.
Thank your donors:
- Your donors are your financial investors. Thank them for their contributions.
- If you won, you need them the next time you are up for re-election.
- If you didn't win, you might need them for a future run. It's hard to thank people too much.
Thank recurring donors appropriately:
Pull a list of your recurring donors and check the aggregate totals. Make sure these donors get the same recognition as the ones who wrote one-time checks. Take the time to send handwritten notes or call them.
Send a wrap-up note to your list:
- If you won, let your list know how you plan to transition into office. At the federal level, people will ask about jobs and internships, so share the transition website and contact details.
- If you didn't win, let people know your plans. If they donated, volunteered, or simply signed up for your email list, they are curious. Thank them for their support and end on a positive note.
5. Schedule a wrap-up meeting with staff.
Plan a review.
- Whether you won or lost, it's smart to schedule a postmortem with your staff. Go over what worked and what didn't, the mistakes and the successes. Where could you have improved?
Write a postmortem report.
- Write it down. The lessons from your campaign are invaluable for future candidates, and for your staffers if they continue in politics.
- Be honest, even where it's uncomfortable. A candid postmortem helps candidates and staffers alike in the future.
- Make these reports available to your local party and staff.
6. Keep up with admin tasks.
Time sheets and taxes:
- Tell staff the deadlines for submitting time sheets.
- Collect forwarding addresses. Full-time employees will need a W-2 for 2026, and independent contractors a 1099. Check with your state to see what other forms it requires.
Recurring charges:
- Review the recurring charges on campaign credit cards. Cancel the ones you no longer need. For the ones that continue, like your website and email, make sure they aren't on a card belonging to a staff member who is moving on.
- Then cancel the cards you no longer need, so you aren't left with charges from staffers after the campaign ends.
PO Box:
- If your PO Box is the committee's address of record with the FEC, keep it open, or amend your Statement of Organization to give the FEC a new address.
- If it's only used for direct mail, you can close it.
- To close a box, cancel its automatic renewal, which may be paid from a bank account rather than a credit card. You may also need to bring a letter on campaign stationery to your local post office.
Balance your books:
- Campaigns can't move forward after the election until the books are balanced.
7. Decide what happens to your campaign committee.
What to do with your campaign committee after Election Day depends on two things: what the candidate plans to do, and whether you have debts or leftover funds. The FEC's guide to Winding Down a Campaign has more.
If you have leftover funds:
a. Convert to a PAC.
The most common option for a candidate committee with money left over is to convert it to a PAC. The FEC does not allow an active principal campaign committee to convert to a multicandidate PAC, so this is only an alternative to terminating the campaign.
To convert to a multicandidate committee, you must file a new Statement of Organization with the FEC, change the name, and start following PAC reporting requirements. If you have an existing PAC, you will want to connect them and eventually merge them into one.
The new PAC is still responsible for paying any debts and answering any RFAIs from its time as an active campaign.
b. Remain an active campaign after the election.
The main downside of converting to a PAC: if the candidate decides to run again, the PAC can contribute only $5,000 to the new candidate committee. The FEC has specific rules about how these dormant campaigns can spend money.
If your candidate has remaining funds and decides to stay an active campaign in case of a future race, you must keep filing FEC reports and be very careful how funds are disbursed.
If you plan on continuing to raise money, the candidate will need to file an updated Form 2 Statement of Candidacy declaring the office they are running for.
c. Shut down the campaign committee.
If the candidate won, leftover funds can pay for:
- Moving expenses to Washington, D.C. and other transition costs
- Security at their home and cybersecurity for official and personal online accounts and devices
Whether the candidate won or lost, leftover funds can cover these categories:
- Paying staff
- Donations to charitable organizations
- Gifts of nominal value to people who are not members of the candidate's family
- Unlimited transfers to national, state, or local party committees
To shut down the committee entirely, follow the FEC's guide to Terminating a Committee. A special Termination Report has to be filed, with additional information.
If you have debt:
- A committee with outstanding debts has to try to settle them before it can terminate. If those efforts fail, it can ask the FEC for administrative termination.
- Check the FEC's guides on debt repayment for loans and outstanding bills. The FEC has rules for paying different types of debt and for negotiating settlements.
- There are special rules for fundraising to retire debt.
- While your campaign carries debt, it has to keep filing reports.
8. Decide how to handle campaign assets.
The FEC also has rules for the sale of campaign assets and for reporting the proceeds. There are two big types of assets:
1. Physical assets: What will you do with the leftover office equipment and supplies? If the candidate plans to run again, it might make sense to keep them, but where will you store them?
If the committee is closing, selling them may make more sense. Decide how you will run the sale and track the money.
2. Mailing lists: Mailing lists have a monetary value. Decide who owns this asset and how it will be used. Will it be sold or transferred? Will there be a list broker? Will it be given to the state or national party?
Questions about any of these steps in Crimson or CrimsonFiler? Crimson Support will get you to a real person: 1-800-662-7400 or crimsonsupport@cmdi.com, Monday to Friday during business hours ET. And if your staff has moved on and you'd rather hand the remaining reports to specialists, our compliance team can help.