BELMONT, MA: $25.0M on 70,330 FEC receipts

Reading $24,974,519 as a city-string roll-up

The headline pair is $24,974,519 and 70,330 lines. The implied average is about $355. Cite both numbers. Quoting only the dollars drops the line-count shape of the Belmont, MA book.

Middlesex County’s Belmont string is separate from Cambridge, Arlington, and Watertown on the FEC city key. Filers typed BELMONT in the city field. LobbyVault summed rows with that string and state MA. 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.

If a newsroom map paints Belmont together with Cambridge and Arlington, the FEC file still splits them. Watertown too. This extract’s only city total is $24,974,519 on 70,330 BELMONT, MA rows, mean near $355.

Why BELMONT, MA on the receipt is not a census of Belmont

Searchers often want “how much did people in Belmont give.” The honest citation is narrower: itemized federal receipts with contributor city BELMONT, MA total $24,974,519 across 70,330 contributions. Dropping “itemized” and “contributor city” inflates the claim.

Party is not in this packet. Do not attach a partisan reading to $24,974,519. Occupation and employer may appear on named receipts on the city hub; they are not rolled up here. State MA is what keeps this page off Belmont, CA.

Outside the Belmont itemized book

$24,974,519 is not spending by Belmont candidates. A candidate who lives in Belmont can raise money from other cities. A donor row tagged BELMONT, MA can go to a committee anywhere.

A mean near $355 does not describe a median resident of Belmont. Means move with a few large lines.

Postal confusion with Cambridge, Arlington, or Watertown is why the city field is a poor residency proxy. $24,974,519 counts rows that stored BELMONT, MA. 70,330 lines. About $355 each. Neighbor names need their own hubs.

Belmont, MA versus other Middlesex strings

Belmont is a mid-mean book on this extract: 70,330 lines produce $24,974,519, a mean near $355. Mid-mean is not the same as unique people.

Comparing Belmont’s mean to Cambridge is only valid on the same series: contributor city, itemized federal receipts. Mixing in Massachusetts state data breaks the comparison.

A Belmont total of $24,974,519 does not absorb Cambridge, Arlington, or Watertown. Those names are other city strings when filers typed them. State MA stays on the citation so BELMONT, MA is not merged with Belmont, CA.

City total versus postal codes in MA

70,330 city-field lines can spread across many ZIPs or cluster in a few. This packet does not list those ZIPs. Open the ZIP directory and the live Belmont hub rather than guessing the split.

After an amendment wave, recheck both the city hub and any ZIP you compared. Snapshots drift independently.

Because this packet carries only city, state, dollar total, and contribution count, every other story about Belmont politics sits outside the extract. That includes candidate quality, issue fights, and local election results. This guide stays on the two numbers FEC.gov supplied for the city field.

Source tables for $24,974,519

A mean of about $355 is division of $24,974,519 by 70,330. It is fair to report as arithmetic. It is not fair to report as a typical resident of Belmont.

Internal links on this page go only to the Belmont city hub, the all-cities directory, and the ZIP directory. Those are the three paths that match this packet.

Belmont’s $24,974,519 across 70,330 contributions is a Middlesex County city field, mean near $355. Cambridge, Arlington, and Watertown are neighboring strings, not subsets. Repeat gifts add rows. Massachusetts state-office receipts are omitted. Cite $24,974,519 with 70,330 from FEC.gov aggregates indexed on LobbyVault.

Researchers citing Belmont, Massachusetts, should keep Middlesex County and Cambridge off the sentence unless they add those hubs on purpose. The live Belmont table can show named committees that this snapshot does not list. A later FEC extract can move $24,974,519 or 70,330 without this guide rewriting itself. Treat the mean near $355 as division only. Massachusetts state-office receipts sit outside both packet facts. If a ZIP page for a Belmont code disagrees with the city hub, quote both keys rather than forcing a match. Belmont, California, is a different state field. Arlington and Watertown remain other strings. The 70,330-line count still is not a headcount of Belmont people.

Questions

How much is itemized from contributor city Belmont, MA?

FEC.gov itemized receipts listing contributor city BELMONT, MA total $24,974,519 across 70,330 contributions in the LobbyVault aggregate. That figure is a city-string roll-up of federal Schedule A rows, not a unique-donor count and not a census of people who live in Belmont. Unitemized gifts sit outside it.

Is this Belmont, Massachusetts or Belmont, California?

This extract is BELMONT with state MA: 70,330 lines and $24,974,519. Belmont, CA, would be a different city key. Repeat gifts, redesignations, and memo entries can add rows without adding new donors. This packet does not publish a unique-donor figure, so 70,330 should not be quoted as a population.

Does the Belmont total include only residents?

No. The city is the contributor-city value on the FEC itemization. Filers typed BELMONT with state MA. Office addresses and mail that list Belmont can be part of $24,974,519 when that is the city string on the receipt. LobbyVault does not recode the field into a residential-only book. The 70,330-line count follows the same rule.

Are Belmont numbers from FEC.gov?

The numbers come from FEC.gov itemized contribution aggregates indexed on LobbyVault: $24,974,519 and 70,330 lines for BELMONT, MA. Original reports remain on FEC.gov. Unitemized federal gifts and non-federal filings from MA are outside both figures. If a later extract disagrees with this snapshot, the Commission’s filing controls. The mean of about $355 is arithmetic from those two packet facts.