Palo Alto, CA political money — 2008 cycle

Reading Palo Alto against cycle 2008

$267,788 is the overlap of two FEC dimensions: contributor city PALO ALTO with state CA, and election cycle 2008. The match is $267,788 across 149 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $246,134,317. 2008 therefore accounts for 0.11% of Palo Alto, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $245,866,529 (99.89%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Palo Alto, CA. That hub mixes 2008 with every other even-year window filed under PALO ALTO. It is also not a restatement of the 2008 election cycle hub, which mixes Palo Alto, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 149 rows and $267,788 exist only where both filters are true. Correlation is not causation: a city code plus a cycle year does not prove why someone gave.

FEC individual contribution files record the contributor's city as entered on the itemized receipt. Spellings and suburb-versus-city choices can split a metro across multiple city pages. Palo Alto, CA here is the string that survived aggregation as PALO ALTO in CA. 2008 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Palo Alto, CA donors itemized $267,788. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

Palo Alto's city aggregate, without a year filter

The city aggregate for Palo Alto, CA is $246,134,317 in itemized individual contributions. That figure is the running total for this city label across cycles, not a single-year census and not a count of unique residents. It includes the $267,788 from 2008 and the $245,866,529 from every other cycle in the same city file. State-level CA campaign-finance pages still mix Palo Alto with every other city in CA.

The stored city is the City of Palo Alto in Santa Clara County, California. Menlo Park, Mountain View, and Stanford are not rolled into PALO ALTO. State CA stays on the citation so Palo Alto, CA is not merged with a same-named place in another state. $246,134,317 is the CA key only. For Palo Alto, CA, the city stack is $246,134,317 while this cycle is $267,788 (0.11%). Use the city hub for Palo Alto, CA without a year filter; use this tie for Palo Alto in 2008. Donor city is not recipient city: committees that received these gifts can file anywhere in the FEC system. A Stanford mailing string the filer typed is not recoded into PALO ALTO.

Isolating Palo Alto inside the 2008 cycle hub

Federal election cycles are two-year windows on FEC.gov. The 2008 cycle is the Commission's cycle tag on itemized receipts, not a calendar year of January gifts only. Inside that window, Palo Alto, CA donors itemized $267,788 on 149 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $1,797 per itemized gift. That mean is an arithmetic average of rows, not a typical donor and not a median. This page does not publish a median or a unique-donor count.

The national 2008 hub still includes every other city. State pages for CA still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Palo Alto × 2008. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. A small share of a large city book can still be hundreds of thousands of itemized dollars. 149 rows and a mean near $1,797 describe this pair only. Do not treat a tiny percentage as a quiet city; later cycles in the same string can dwarf $267,788. This URL is the intersection only.

Where $267,788 sits inside $246.1 million

0.11% of $246,134,317 is a slice of the city book, not a ranking against other cities. Put another way, about 0.11% of Palo Alto, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2008, and about 99.89% were not. Those percentages are $267,788 divided by $246,134,317 and $245,866,529 divided by $246,134,317. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.11%) and row volume (149 itemized gifts) are separate facts. This packet does not include a citywide row count across all cycles, so a row-share percentage is not computed. Do not treat 0.11% as Palo Alto's share of the 2008 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts. Santa Clara County is a geography note for readers; it is not a Census population weight on $267,788.

Schedule A city strings and missing tables

149 itemized contributions totaling $267,788 is the operational definition of this page. The FEC file can list the same household on multiple dates, to multiple committees, and under spelling variants of PALO ALTO. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Palo Alto versus other CA cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $1,797 uses only the two numbers in the join: $267,788 and 149 rows. It is a trivial ratio, not a finding about wealth, turnout, or ideology. Employer and occupation strings on those receipts are other joins. This page does not break $267,788 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed PALO ALTO is counted; a nearby suburb they typed instead is not recoded into Palo Alto.

Citing this pair on FEC.gov terms

This page does not rank Palo Alto against other cities and does not treat itemized giving as public opinion in CA. Two columns matched. Contributor city is not campaign city. A CA address does not mean the money supported a CA candidate. Amended reports can move either number. If the live Palo Alto, CA hub or the live 2008 cycle hub disagrees with this prose, the newer FEC extract controls.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Palo Alto, CA, the 2008 election cycle, California campaign finance, and all FEC ties for the adjacent tables. Dollar figures are FEC itemized individual contribution aggregates. They are not federal spending awards and they do not fund USAspending totals. Source: FEC.gov.

Questions

How much did Palo Alto, CA donors give in the 2008 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Palo Alto, CA total $267,788 in the 2008 cycle, across 149 contribution records. The same city label totals $246,134,317 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2008 is 0.11% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Palo Alto, CA city total only for 2008?

No. The city aggregate of $246,134,317 covers every cycle in the table for PALO ALTO. The 2008 filter is $267,788 from 149 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $245,866,529. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2008 slice.

Did Palo Alto, CA 2008 donations stay in CA?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Palo Alto, CA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $267,788 by office, state of the committee, or party. A CA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of CA races.

How many Palo Alto, CA contributions were itemized in 2008?

149 itemized contribution records sum to $267,788. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $1,797 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.