The Short Version
Every company on RedRightBuyer falls into one of two categories.
Certified members are businesses that have signed up, agreed to our terms, and chosen how they want to be listed. They write their own profile content and set their own lean.
Non-member rated profiles are companies we have researched and rated based on publicly documented sources. The company has not paid us, has not asked to be rated, and does not control the profile. The rating reflects our editorial judgment based on the evidence we cite.
If a company we have rated becomes a certified member, our editorial profile is retired and replaced by its Certified Member listing.
This page explains how non-member rated profiles get researched and published.
What We Use as Sources
We have three tiers of source quality.
Tier 1 (the strongest): OpenSecrets.org, FEC.gov, SEC filings, a company's own published political-activity disclosures, and major newspapers and wire services such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, and Bloomberg. PAC contributions, lobbying disclosures, and SEC filings are the strongest sources because they are public financial records and very hard to fake.
Tier 2: Industry publications, established think tanks and watchdog groups across the political spectrum, court filings, and Wikipedia for biographical facts, which we then confirm at the underlying source.
Tier 3: Company press releases, official corporate statements, and interviews with founders or CEOs published in recognized outlets. We treat these as evidence of what a company has said, not proof that what it said is true.
We do not use social media posts, anonymous accounts, personal blogs, forums, partisan or activist sites without verifiable underlying sources, or AI-generated content as sources for factual claims. The one exception is an official statement posted on a company's own verified account, which we treat the same as a press release.
RedRightBuyer is an independent, privately owned company. We are not a government entity and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any government agency. Government records we cite come from the official sources linked above. The complete list is in Government Sources below.
What the Lean Rating Means
We assign each company a lean rating drawn from five categories: Blue, Leans Blue, Neutral, Leans Red, and Red. The label is our editorial judgment of where the company sits on the political spectrum based on the documented evidence cited in the profile.
Each company also receives a precise position on a slider that runs from clearly Blue on the left, through Neutral in the middle, to clearly Red on the right. The slider allows finer distinctions between two companies that share the same label. Two companies both labeled Leans Red can sit at different points along the slider depending on the strength and direction of the evidence.
The rating is opinion. The facts in the profile are not. We separate the two on purpose. The opinion is in the rating; the cited facts are what the rating is based on.
What Counts Toward a Rating
Not every documented fact is a political signal. We apply the same rules to every company:
- Political giving and lobbying count, including PAC contributions, federal lobbying, and a company's public positions on policy.
- A controlling owner counts. When one person or family holds majority voting control of a company, that owner's documented political activity can be weighed in the rating.
- Environmental politics counts; operations alone do not. Climate lobbying, energy-related political giving, and regulatory positions are signals. What a company makes or how it runs its facilities is not.
- Workplace conduct and labor disputes are reported as context for readers but do not move the rating.
- Community and charitable giving, such as disaster relief or scholarships, is not a political signal.
- We do not use other organizations' political ratings of a company, and we do not rate a company by comparing it to its competitors.
How We Rate
Every non-member profile follows the same workflow:
- Research begins with Tier 1 sources. The profile is written in matter-of-fact language, and every cited claim carries a numbered footnote pointing to its source.
- Before any rating is set, the draft is fact-checked by two independent AI checks, each asked to find false statements and to confirm every cited source. An editor checks every flag at the original source before making any change. Records of both checks are kept in our internal audit trail.
- The strongest three pieces of evidence are summarized as the profile's three top reasons.
- A human editor reads the finished profile and its top reasons, then sets the lean rating and a confidence level (High, Medium, or Low). Low confidence means the evidence is limited or genuinely ambiguous, and we say so.
- The editor approves the profile for publication.
Confidence Levels
Each rated profile is assigned a confidence level.
High means we have multiple Tier 1 sources, documented institutional actions like donations or official statements, and an unambiguous pattern.
Medium means we have strong evidence but it is partial, or it is concentrated in a single dimension (for example, a clear founder political identity but unclear company behavior).
Low means limited public information, inference required, or the company is genuinely ambiguous.
When We Get It Wrong
Companies change. New information surfaces. Sometimes we get something wrong.
If you believe a profile contains a factual error, submit a discrepancy report. A human editor reviews every submission.
When a correction changes a fact in a profile, we fix it and add a dated correction note at the end of the article saying what changed. Minor fixes that do not change a fact, such as typos, broken links, or citation formatting, are made without a note. Every correction is also recorded in our internal audit trail.
What This Methodology Is Not
It is not a guarantee that every fact is current. Companies make decisions every day; we publish profiles based on the best documented evidence available at the time of research.
It is not a personal attack on any company or its leaders. We report what is documented and let the rating speak.
It is not permanent. Profiles can be revised when new evidence emerges or when a company's behavior changes.
Last updated: September 25, 2026
For our broader editorial standards, see Editorial Standards.
To file a correction: Submit a Discrepancy