ZIP 77234: $43.3 million on 727 FEC lines

A $43 million ZIP on 727 itemizations

Divide $43,274,230 by 727 and the mean line is about $59,520. That average is a ratio, not a typical household gift. A handful of large committee transfers, joint-fundraising allocations, or PAC receipts posted to a Houston-area mail ZIP can move the mean without describing how people in the neighborhood give. FEC Schedule A stores whatever five-digit ZIP the filer put on the receipt. LobbyVault sums those rows. It does not recode them into a residential-only book.

Seven hundred twenty-seven itemized lines is a small count next to other high-dollar ZIPs that show six-figure contribution counts. The contrast is the story the table can support: 77234 is a concentration ZIP on the FEC tape, not a volume ZIP. Sorting the ZIP hub by dollars puts 77234 near $43 million peers. Sorting by contribution count does not. Both sorts are the same public file.

What the 77234 field is on an FEC receipt

Individual contribution files include a ZIP field taken from the contributor record. Committees, joint fundraising committees, and PACs often use a business or post-office ZIP. When those entities appear as contributors or as the address on a transferred receipt, their ZIP is 77234 if that is what was filed. Treating $43,274,230 as what residents of 77234 donated overstates a neighborhood and understates how FEC addressing works.

Unitemized gifts below the federal itemization threshold never enter this total. State and local filings never enter it. Independent expenditures that mention a candidate but were paid by a committee with a different ZIP never enter it. The $43,274,230 figure is a ZIP roll-up of itemized federal receipts, sourced from FEC.gov.

How to read 727 lines without over-reading them

Each of the 727 rows is a disclosed itemization, not a unique person. Repeat contributors, redesignations, and memo entries can add lines. LobbyVault’s packet for this ZIP does not publish a unique-donor count, so this guide does not invent one. If you need names, open the ZIP 77234 FEC page and follow receipts to committees.

Large mean lines also mean amendments matter. One restated joint-fundraising schedule can move tens of millions inside $43,274,230. The live hub is the place to check after an FEC amendment. This prose is a snapshot of the aggregate, not a live ticker.

Researchers sometimes treat a short list as a cleaner sample. On 77234 the opposite is true. 727 lines carrying $43,274,230 means each restatement can swing the ZIP more than a 200,000-line code would. Pull the original schedule when a line looks outsized. LobbyVault’s hub is a sum, not a substitute for the filing on FEC.gov.

77234 beside other ZIP totals

The all-ZIP directory ranks contributor ZIPs by the same FEC series. 77234’s combination of $43,274,230 and 727 lines is unusual: high dollars, low line count. Neighboring 770xx codes in that directory often show more receipts and a lower mean. Use the directory to compare, and keep the comparison inside itemized federal receipts. Do not mix in state campaign money or modeled influence scores. FEC.gov does not publish those on this field.

If you rank ZIPs by mean instead of by $43,274,230, 77234 jumps because 727 is small. Ranking by mean is a derived view. FEC.gov did not publish a mean table. State it as arithmetic from $43,274,230 and 727 so a reader can redo the division.

What a $59,520 mean does and does not prove

A mean of about $59,520 on ZIP 77234 is a warning label, not a lifestyle statistic. It says the $43,274,230 total is not built like a stack of $200 checks. It does not say every filer in a 77234 mail ZIP wrote a five-figure check. FEC.gov itemizations can mix a few enormous committee rows with ordinary individual rows on the same five digits.

Because unique donors are not in this packet, you cannot convert 727 into a person count and you cannot convert $59,520 into a typical gift. The only two FEC facts on this page remain $43,274,230 and 727. Everything else is method: ZIP field, itemized-only scope, and the joint-fundraising caveat already stated.

Questions

How much federal campaign money is tied to ZIP 77234?

FEC.gov itemized receipts listing contributor ZIP 77234 total $43,274,230 across 727 contributions in the LobbyVault aggregate. That figure is a ZIP roll-up of federal Schedule A rows, not a unique-donor count and not a census of people who live at that mail ZIP. Joint fundraising committees and PAC addresses can appear in $43,274,230 when that five-digit code was filed. Unitemized gifts sit outside it.

Does $43.3 million mean people who live in 77234 gave that much?

The ZIP is the five-digit code on the FEC itemization. Joint fundraising and PAC addresses can appear in the same $43,274,230 total. 727 is a contribution-line count, not a unique-person count. Treating $43,274,230 as resident-only giving in a small mail ZIP overstates a neighborhood and understates how FEC addressing works. Open the ZIP 77234 hub for named receipts.

Why are there only 727 contributions for such a large total?

727 itemized lines against $43,274,230 produces a concentration pattern with a mean near $59,520. That arithmetic is a scale check, not a typical household gift. Large committee and joint-fundraising receipts posted to a 77234 mail ZIP can dominate the mean. The packet has no median and no unique-donor count. Cite both $43,274,230 and 727.

Where does LobbyVault get ZIP 77234 totals?

Figures come from FEC.gov itemized contribution aggregates indexed on LobbyVault: $43,274,230 and 727 contributions for ZIP 77234. Original reports remain on FEC.gov. Unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are outside both numbers. If a later extract disagrees with this snapshot, the Commission’s filing controls. The live ZIP 77234 FEC page is the current table.