Palo Alto, CA political money — 2012 cycle

Palo Alto, CA political money in 2012

The join keeps donor city Palo Alto in California and election cycle 2012. The match is $925,389 across 140 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $246,134,317. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.38% of Palo Alto, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $245,208,928 (99.6%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Palo Alto, CA. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under PALO ALTO. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Palo Alto, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 140 rows and $925,389 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, abbreviations, 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. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $925,389 by office, party, or candidate. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

Reading the Palo Alto city aggregate

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 $925,389 from 2012 and the $245,208,928 from every other cycle in the same city file. California campaign-finance pages still mix Palo Alto with every other city in California.

A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Palo Alto, CA, the city stack is $246,134,317 while this cycle is $925,389 (0.38%). 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 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

Reading the 2012 election-cycle filter

The 2012 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Palo Alto, CA donors itemized $925,389 on 140 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $6,610 per itemized gift. That mean is an arithmetic average of rows, not a typical donor and not a median. A few large receipts can lift the mean while most rows sit far below it. This page does not publish a median or a unique-donor count.

The national 2012 hub still includes every other city. State pages for California still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Palo Alto × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 140 itemized rows is a relatively sparse file. A small number of large gifts can move $925,389 without representing a broad local donor pool. Adjacent pages for Palo Alto, CA, 2012 election cycle, and California campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

2012 versus the rest of Palo Alto

0.38% of $246,134,317 is a thin slice. Palo Alto, CA remains a large multi-cycle file; 2012 is one filter on that stack. Put another way, about 0.38% of Palo Alto, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.6% were not. Those percentages are $925,389 divided by $246,134,317 and $245,208,928 divided by $246,134,317. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.38%) and row volume (140 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A thin slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a sparse contribution 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 0.38% as Palo Alto's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Counts, dollars, and what they omit

140 itemized contributions totaling $925,389 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 $6,610 uses only the two numbers in the join: $925,389 and 140 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 $925,389 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

Caveats on a geographic-cycle join

This page does not rank Palo Alto against other cities, does not call 2012 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.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Palo Alto, CA, the 2012 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 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Palo Alto, CA total $925,389 in the 2012 cycle, across 140 contribution records. The same city label totals $246,134,317 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.38% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Palo Alto, CA city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $246,134,317 covers every cycle in the table for PALO ALTO. The 2012 filter is $925,389 from 140 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $245,208,928. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Palo Alto, CA 2012 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 $925,389 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 2012?

140 itemized contribution records sum to $925,389. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $6,610 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.