Small utility script to convert lists of presidential candidates – found on the fec.gov website – from CSV to JSON.

parse-fec-presidential-candidates.js

// NOTE(cvogt): parses documents from the FEC registered candidates table
// located at https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/?election_year=2020&office=P
const csvToJson = require('csvtojson/v2');

const candidatesFile = './candidates-running-2016-2019-12-09T23_23_05.csv';

const bracketsStringToArray = str => {
    // HACK(cvogt): this can be optimized, and is fragile – throws upon {00,00} 
    const itemJsonString = str.replace('{', '[').replace('}', ']');
    const items = JSON.parse(itemJsonString);
    return items;
}

(async () => {
    try {
        const parsed = await csvToJson({
            colParser: {
                cycles: item => bracketsStringToArray(item),
                election_years: item => bracketsStringToArray(item)
            }
        }).fromFile(candidatesFile);
        console.log(require('util').inspect(parsed));
    } catch (err) {
        console.error(err)
    }
})()