PORTOLA VALLEY, CA: $51.6M on 57,222 FEC receipts

$51,596,273 is a Schedule A city total

FEC.gov indexed 57,222 itemized rows to contributor city PORTOLA VALLEY, CA. Their sum is $51,596,273. The mean near $902 describes the average row, not a household and not a census tract.

San Mateo County’s Portola Valley is a small Peninsula municipality on the tape. Size of the town is not in this packet. The 57,222-line count is a contribution-line total. It is not a headcount of Portola Valley residents. The city total can include a PAC or joint-fundraising committee address when that is the city filers typed. LobbyVault does not recode those rows out of the city string.

Portola Valley versus Woodside is a different-key problem, not a hillside ranking. Palo Alto and Los Altos Hills follow the same rule. Quote $51,596,273 and 57,222 for PORTOLA VALLEY, CA only. The mean near $902 does not travel with a neighbor’s name.

How to read the CA city key for Portola Valley

City-name spelling is part of the key. PORTOLA VALLEY with state CA is the unit. A close spelling, a hyphenated variant, or a merged metro label is a different aggregate if FEC stored it differently.

Independent expenditures that mention a Portola Valley race can be paid by a committee with a different city on its own reports. Those disbursements do not move $51,596,273. Keep independent-expenditure tables separate from this city total.

Using ZIP pages without breaking $51,596,273

If a ZIP page and the Portola Valley city page disagree in implied geography, that is expected. They answer different questions: five-digit code versus city string.

Filers can type PORTOLA VALLEY with a ZIP the postal service maps to Woodside or Palo Alto, and the reverse. Summing Portola Valley-area ZIPs can diverge from $51,596,273. The 57,222 lines follow the city field.

What the Portola Valley aggregate leaves out

California state campaigns file under state law. Those receipts are outside $51,596,273 and outside 57,222. Unitemized federal gifts are omitted. LobbyVault does not impute missing city strings.

Nothing here estimates how Portola Valley voted. Occupation and recipient live on other FEC fields. Use the city table, then ZIP pages, then the cities index.

Citing PORTOLA VALLEY, CA

Name FEC.gov, name contributor city, and print $51,596,273 with 57,222 together. Dropping the line count hides Portola Valley’s thinner file relative to a high-volume city on similar dollars.

Searchers will keep treating Portola Valley as a proxy for Peninsula residents. FEC.gov stores a contributor-city field. $51,596,273 across 57,222 lines is what that field sums to in this aggregate. A mean near $902 follows from division. Unique donors are not in the packet. Party is not in the packet. If the live hub reprints a different pair, the newer FEC extract wins. Open original reports on FEC.gov when a named Portola Valley receipt matters.

How researchers should use the Portola Valley hub

Start on the live Portola Valley city page, then open ZIP pages if a postal cut is the real question. $51,596,273 is the city-string dollar total in this snapshot. 57,222 is the matching line count. Those two numbers move together when FEC.gov amends a receipt. They do not move because a researcher prefers Woodside or Los Altos Hills as the “real” hillside. Filers typed PORTOLA VALLEY. LobbyVault indexed PORTOLA VALLEY. San Mateo County, Skyline Boulevard, and “the Peninsula” are useful for maps and news copy. They are not FEC dimensions on this hub.

A mean near $902 is only $51,596,273 divided by 57,222. It is not a typical Portola Valley household gift, not a typical venture gift, and not a typical ranch-road gift. Occupation is a different FEC field. Recipient is a different FEC field. Party is a different FEC field. None of those fields are in this packet. Do not infer them from the mean. Do not infer turnout. Do not infer that Portola Valley is more or less “politically active” than Atherton because the line counts differ. Atherton is a different city string with its own hub.

Cite the pair in one sentence: contributor city PORTOLA VALLEY, CA, $51,596,273, 57,222 itemized federal contributions, source FEC.gov via LobbyVault. If a later extract on the live hub prints a different pair, discard this snapshot. Original PDFs and electronic filings remain on FEC.gov for any named Portola Valley receipt that needs a line-by-line check. California non-federal filings never enter either fact. Unitemized federal gifts never enter either fact. Independent expenditures that are not contribution itemizations never enter either fact. That is the full scope of this city page.

Questions

What is Portola Valley’s federal contribution total on LobbyVault?

Itemized FEC.gov receipts listing contributor city PORTOLA VALLEY, CA total $51,596,273 across 57,222 contributions. That pair is a city-string roll-up of federal Schedule A rows, not a unique-donor count and not a census of Portola Valley residents. Unitemized gifts sit outside both figures.

How should I read Portola Valley’s 57,222 contributions?

LobbyVault counts 57,222 itemized lines for PORTOLA VALLEY, CA. That is a line count, not a headcount of unique people. Repeat gifts and memo entries can add rows without adding donors. This packet publishes no unique-donor figure. The matching dollar total is $51,596,273.

Does Portola Valley’s total include Woodside or Palo Alto?

Only if the filer typed PORTOLA VALLEY. Woodside, Palo Alto, and Los Altos Hills are separate city strings when they appear that way on the receipt. $51,596,273 is the PORTOLA VALLEY, CA match. The 57,222 lines follow the same rule. Metro labels are not an FEC dimension on this hub.

Where do the Portola Valley facts come from?

Both facts come from FEC.gov itemized contribution aggregates indexed on LobbyVault: $51,596,273 and 57,222 lines. Original reports remain on FEC.gov. California non-federal filings are outside the pair. If a later extract disagrees, the Commission’s filing controls. The mean of about $902 is arithmetic from those two packet numbers.