What publisher donors give in federal races

$8.6 million on 27,621 publisher lines

$8,639,602, 27,621 itemizations, and 1,327 donor records are the occupation-level facts. Mean contribution size is about $313. Mean dollars per donor record are about $6,511. Repeat giving is about 21 itemizations per donor record.

27,621 lines from 1,327 records is a mid-repeat publishing-title stack: more schedules than a one-and-done owner key, fewer than the highest-volume workplace titles. The $313 per-line mean is arithmetic on that volume, not a typical advance redirected to politics.

The packet has no book-versus-magazine split, no employer field, and no median gift. A few large itemizations can lift the average while most lines remain smaller.

PUBLISHER is a job string, not an imprint

The FEC record does not verify that the donor owns a press, edits a list, or works at a named house. Magazine publishers, academic-press staff, self-described independent publishers, and people using the word loosely can all appear. Best-efforts rules do not force a controlled vocabulary.

This page cites only $8,639,602, 27,621 contributions, and 1,327 donors. EDITOR, WRITER, and PRODUCER — if those strings exist as separate keys — are not rolled into this total unless the bulk extract normalized them to PUBLISHER.

How donor records split from neighboring media titles

1,327 donor records used PUBLISHER on at least one matching itemization. Address variants split records. A person who listed PUBLISHER on some gifts and EDITOR or WRITER on others will appear in both occupation totals for those lines.

Occupation is stored per transaction. LobbyVault does not infer party from the publishing title.

Occupation dollars versus industry pages

Industry pages group employers. A publisher at a newspaper group and a publisher at a textbook house share this occupation string if they typed PUBLISHER. Adding $8,639,602 to an industry total double-counts.

Open the PUBLISHER occupation page for rows. Use the occupations index to place the string next to other media titles without merging them.

A citation that stays inside the packet

A usable sentence is: occupation equals PUBLISHER, dollars equal $8,639,602, contributions equal 27,621, donors equal 1,327, sourced from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault.

Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code. Quote the three facts together so the $313 mean and the 21-line repeat ratio are visible next to the headline dollars.

What the PUBLISHER extract does and does not show

PUBLISHER in this extract is $8,639,602 on 27,621 itemizations from 1,327 donor records, or $8.6 million in compact millions. Those dollars are itemized activity on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules indexed on LobbyVault from FEC.gov bulk data. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so they never enter the total. Refunds and memo entries follow FEC presentation in the underlying schedules. People who type editor, writer, or producer may sit on other occupation pages. Only the exact PUBLISHER key is in $8,639,602.

Arithmetic means on this key are about $313 per contribution and about $6,511 per donor record, with roughly 21 itemizations per donor record. Means are not medians. The packet has no gift-size distribution and no party split. Combining PUBLISHER with neighboring media strings without naming each source total changes the unit from one FEC string to a homemade cluster. 1,327 donor records on 27,621 lines is a mid-repeat title pool, not a publishing-house census.

Industry pages group employer-side categories and should not be added to $8,639,602. A person who listed PUBLISHER on some gifts and a neighboring title on others will appear in both occupation totals for the respective lines. A public-record citation that stays inside the packet is: occupation equals PUBLISHER, dollars equal $8,639,602, contributions equal 27,621, donors equal 1,327. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. Harvested facts have no cycle year; live hub filters may change displayed sums.

About 21 itemizations per donor record is a mid-repeat ratio, not a subscription-list cadence. Do not treat $6,511 per donor record as a typical publisher’s political budget; it is $8,639,602 divided by 1,327 records. Self-publishers, house executives, and people who used the word as a status label share the same key when the typed string is PUBLISHER. The occupations index is the place to keep EDITOR and WRITER on separate lines.

1,327 is a contributor-record count, not a unique-person estimate after name matching. Compact millions ($8.6 million) are the same headline amount as $8,639,602, rounded to one decimal place. Quote the exact string, then the three facts, and stop. LobbyVault does not infer motive from the occupation column.

Questions

How much have publisher-occupation donors given in FEC data?

The PUBLISHER occupation string is attached to $8,639,602 across 27,621 contributions and 1,327 donor records in LobbyVault’s FEC bulk index. The figure is itemized occupation money, not a census of publishing houses. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Does PUBLISHER include magazine and book publishers?

The string matches whatever donors typed. The FEC does not split book, magazine, academic, or digital publishing. This page covers PUBLISHER: $8,639,602, 27,621 contributions, and 1,327 donors. Check the occupations index for neighboring media strings. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules.

What is the average publisher contribution?

Dividing $8,639,602 by 27,621 itemizations yields about $313 per contribution. Dividing by 1,327 donors yields about $6,511 per donor record. Both are means, not medians. Repeat giving is about 21 itemizations per donor record. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Does listing publisher prove the donor owns a press?

No. Occupation is self-reported free text. The FEC record does not verify ownership, imprint, or employer. Quote 27,621 contributions and 1,327 donor records with the $8,639,602 total. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.