A campaign turns your private life public. Get your home address down before you announce.

Federal campaign-finance filings require an address for the candidate and for each donor giving above the itemization threshold ($200 for federal). The address is part of the public record. Many states have similar requirements at the state-office level. There's typically no opt-out from this disclosure — running for office means publishing certain address information in public records. The privacy work focuses on the rest of the public surface where you do have control.

Two reasons. (1) FEC filings publish your address in a structured database that requires intent to access. Broker sites publish it in casual-search-friendly format that any harasser can find in seconds. The friction matters. (2) FEC publishes only your current address. Broker sites publish your full address history plus your family members' addresses plus your previous workplaces. The exposure is much broader than what disclosure law actually requires.

Not as a privacy move. Residency requirements for political office are strict and tied to your actual life. State Address Confidentiality Programs (ACPs) for documented victims of stalking or domestic violence are the legitimate path for shielding home addresses on public records. For most candidates without that documented basis, the available privacy work is the broker-layer cleanup.

Yes, often more than you. Documented attacks on political figures since 2020 have frequently come through family members. The 2025 Hortman case involved the shooter using broker data to find the home. Family-plan coverage lets the spouse and adult children remove their broker-published data alongside yours.

Three to six months before the announcement is the comfortable window. Broker removal takes 1-2 weeks for the fastest brokers and up to 30 days for the wholesalers. Then add another 30 days of re-listing monitoring to confirm the removal sticks. By the time you announce, the broker-side cleanup is settled.