What is opposition research?

Opposition research, usually shortened to oppo or oppo research, is the organized collection and analysis of publicly available information about a political candidate, officeholder, or organization. It covers what the subject has said, voted for, filed, owned, been paid by, and been sued over, assembled from the public record and organized around how it plays in a campaign.

The name makes it sound like a weapon, and it can be one: contrast messaging, rebuttals, and the occasional story a reporter runs usually start in a research file. But the larger share of professional research is defensive and analytical. Campaigns research their own candidate to find weaknesses before an opponent does, verify their own claims before they go into an ad, and understand a race well enough to spend money where it counts.

A complete research book is organized by source category. The categories are the same whether the subject is a county commissioner or a senator; what changes is the size of the paper trail.

FullPAC’s GOTV Intel organizes this same set into six report types: background and public records, OSINT, digital footprint, campaign finance, reverse username search, and rapid preliminary reports.

The line between research and something else is the line between public and private. Professional research is built entirely from public records and lawfully accessible open sources. Everything on the other side of that line is not aggressive research; it is a crime or a tort, and it ends campaigns rather than winning them.

• ✓No hacking, password guessing, or accessing accounts, email, or devices that are not yours
• ✓No pretexting: impersonating someone to obtain records, credit reports, phone records, or medical information
• ✓No purchase or use of records you are not entitled to, including consumer reports used outside their permitted purposes
• ✓No surveillance of private spaces, no tailing, no trash pulls on private property
• ✓No fabrication, no doctored documents, and no assertion the source does not support
• ✓No use of a finding in messaging before it has been verified against the primary record

The first research book a serious campaign commissions is on its own candidate. A self-research book, sometimes called a vulnerability study, answers one question: what will the other side find? Every vote that can be framed badly, every old post, every business dispute, every donation, found and documented before an opponent’s mail piece does it for you.

The payoff is preparation. A campaign that knows its own record can write the rebuttal in August instead of improvising it in October, decide which attacks to answer and which to ignore, and keep the candidate from being surprised at a debate. It is the cheapest insurance in politics, and at AI-assisted prices it costs less than a single mail drop.

1. 1

   Scope the subject and the question

   Who is being researched, what office they hold or seek, what jurisdiction, and what the campaign needs: the whole record, or a specific thread such as campaign finance or a business history. Scope determines price and turnaround everywhere in the market.

2. 2

   Pull the record

   Public records, filings, voting records, campaign finance, court and business records, media archives, and the public web, gathered from lawful sources with the source noted for each item. This is the step AI compressed the most.

3. 3

   Organize and analyze

   Findings grouped by theme and dated, cross-referenced so contradictions and patterns surface (a vote against a bill the candidate later took credit for; a donor who later got a contract), and prioritized by how they play in the race.

4. 4

   Verify

   Every finding that might be used publicly is checked against the primary record. This is the step that separates a research tier from the one above it, and it is where a traditional firm’s hours go.

5. 5

   Deliver and brief

   A sourced report with an executive summary, delivered to the campaign or, for consultants, under the firm’s own brand, with a briefing on what matters and what deserves deeper work.

• ✓Contrast messaging. The sourced record behind a mail piece, a digital ad, or a text that says what the opponent voted for or took money from. The research file is where the citation on the mailer comes from.
• ✓Rapid response and rebuttal. When an attack lands, the campaign that already has the record answers in an hour; the campaign that does not answers next week.
• ✓Debate and interview prep. The questions the candidate will face, and the record behind the answers.
• ✓Earned media. Reporters verify before they publish; a sourced research finding is a story lead, an unsourced one is ignored.
• ✓Targeting and strategy. Knowing which issues an opponent is exposed on tells a campaign which voters to talk to about what, through texting, mail, and digital.
• ✓Vetting. Candidate recruitment, endorsement decisions, and hiring all use the same process on the campaign’s own side.

There are four ways to get research done, and they differ in depth, speed, and price rather than in kind.

Four questions to ask any vendor

• ✓Where does the information come from? Public records and lawful open sources should be the whole answer.
• ✓Can our team verify findings? Sourcing should be noted so any claim can be checked against the record before it is used.
• ✓When will findings arrive? Get the timing confirmed before you commit, because research is only useful inside the news cycle it was ordered for.
• ✓Who can put their name on it? Consultants reselling research need white-label delivery and a written commitment that the vendor will not go around them to the client.

Almost nobody in this business publishes a price, which is why every campaign asks. The published 2026 numbers, with their sources, are worked in full in how much political opposition research costs. The short version:

For decades the expensive part of research was collection: a researcher, at an hourly rate, pulling filings and reading archives. AI agents now do that collection across public records and open sources and note the source for each finding, which dropped the price of a first report sharply and moved the human hours to where they matter, verification and judgment.

The strategy consequence is simple: whatever the race, run the AI-assisted report first. For a local or downballot race it is usually the whole research program. For a statewide or federal race it is the map the campaign hands the research firm on day one, so the firm’s hours land on threads instead of a blank page.

GOTV Intel is FullPAC’s AI-assisted research product. A strategist scopes each report with you and confirms the price and timing before any work begins, nothing is charged at the request step, findings cite their sources where available, and a consultant who resells it can deliver it under the firm’s own brand. It works with clients across the political spectrum and organizes only what is already on the public record.