Palo Alto, CA political money — 2010 cycle

Palo Alto, CA political money in 2010

The join keeps donor city Palo Alto in California and election cycle 2010. The match is $283,300 across 107 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $246,134,317. 2010 therefore accounts for 0.12% of Palo Alto, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $245,851,017 (99.9%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Palo Alto, CA. That hub mixes 2010 with every other even-year window filed under PALO ALTO. It is also not a restatement of the 2010 election cycle hub, which mixes Palo Alto, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 107 rows and $283,300 exist only where both filters are true. Correlation is not causation: a city code plus a cycle year does not prove why someone gave, whom they supported, or whether the recipient was local.

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. 2010 is a midterm FEC cycle: a two-year window without a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Palo Alto, CA donors itemized $283,300. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

The Palo Alto, CA side of the join

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 $283,300 from 2010 and the $245,851,017 from every other cycle in the same city file. California campaign-finance pages still mix Palo Alto with every other city in California.

The stored city sits in Santa Clara County, California, on the Peninsula. Mountain View, Menlo Park, and Stanford as a separate mailing city are not recoded into PALO ALTO. State CA stays on the citation. $246,134,317 is the CA key only. A large city total does not mean 2010 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2010 was small. For Palo Alto, CA, the city stack is $246,134,317 while this cycle is $283,300 (0.12%). Use the city hub to see Palo Alto, CA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Palo Alto in 2010. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

The 2010 cycle side for California filers in Palo Alto

Federal election cycles are two-year windows on FEC.gov. The 2010 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 $283,300 on 107 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $2,648 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 2010 hub still includes every other city. State pages for California still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Palo Alto × 2010. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 107 itemized rows is a modest file. Adjacent pages for Palo Alto, CA, 2010 election cycle, and California campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

2010 versus the rest of Palo Alto

0.12% of $246,134,317 is a very small slice. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $245,851,017. Put another way, about 0.12% of Palo Alto, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2010, and about 99.9% were not. Those percentages are $283,300 divided by $246,134,317 and $245,851,017 divided by $246,134,317. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.12%) and row volume (107 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A very small slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a modest file; those labels describe this pair, not other cities. This packet does not include a citywide row count across all cycles, so a row-share percentage is not computed. Do not treat 0.12% as Palo Alto's share of the 2010 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Counts, dollars, and what they omit

107 itemized contributions totaling $283,300 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 California cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $2,648 uses only the two numbers in the join: $283,300 and 107 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 city-cycle page does not break the $283,300 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed PALO ALTO is counted; a donor who typed a neighborhood, a firm city, or a nearby suburb is not recoded into Palo Alto.

Caveats on a geographic-cycle join

This page does not rank Palo Alto against other cities, does not call 2010 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in California. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. A CA address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a California candidate. Amended reports can move either number. If the live Palo Alto, CA hub or the live 2010 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 2010 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 2010 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Palo Alto, CA total $283,300 in the 2010 cycle, across 107 contribution records. The same city label totals $246,134,317 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2010 is 0.12% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Palo Alto, CA city total only for 2010?

No. The city aggregate of $246,134,317 covers every cycle in the table for PALO ALTO. The 2010 filter is $283,300 from 107 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $245,851,017. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2010 slice.

Did Palo Alto, CA 2010 donations stay in California?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Palo Alto, CA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $283,300 by office, state of the committee, or party. A CA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of California races.

How many Palo Alto, CA contributions were itemized in 2010?

107 itemized contribution records sum to $283,300. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $2,648 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.