Palo Alto, CA political money — 2014 cycle

Two FEC fields: Palo Alto and 2014

The join keeps donor city Palo Alto in California and election cycle 2014. The match is $3,093,200 across 79 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $246,134,317. 2014 therefore accounts for 1.3% of Palo Alto, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $243,041,117 (98.7%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Palo Alto, CA. That hub mixes 2014 with every other even-year window filed under PALO ALTO. It is also not a restatement of the 2014 election cycle hub, which mixes Palo Alto, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 79 rows and $3,093,200 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. 2014 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 $3,093,200. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

$246,134,317 filed from Palo Alto, CA

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 $3,093,200 from 2014 and the $243,041,117 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 2014 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2014 was small. For Palo Alto, CA, the city stack is $246,134,317 while this cycle is $3,093,200 (1.3%). 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 2014. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

$3,093,200 inside the 2014 window

The 2014 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Palo Alto, CA donors itemized $3,093,200 on 79 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $39,154 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 2014 hub still includes every other city. State pages for California still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Palo Alto × 2014. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 79 itemized rows is a relatively sparse file. A small number of large gifts can move $3,093,200 without representing a broad local donor pool. Adjacent pages for Palo Alto, CA, 2014 election cycle, and California campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

Where 2014 sits in the city timeline

1.3% of $246,134,317 is a modest slice. Most of the Palo Alto, CA aggregate — $243,041,117 — sits in other cycles. Put another way, about 1.3% of Palo Alto, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2014, and about 98.7% were not. Those percentages are $3,093,200 divided by $246,134,317 and $243,041,117 divided by $246,134,317. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (1.3%) and row volume (79 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A modest 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 1.3% as Palo Alto's share of the 2014 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

A sparse itemized file for this pair

79 itemized contributions totaling $3,093,200 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 $39,154 uses only the two numbers in the join: $3,093,200 and 79 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 $3,093,200 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

Public records without motive

This page does not rank Palo Alto against other cities, does not call 2014 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 2014 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 2014 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Palo Alto, CA total $3,093,200 in the 2014 cycle, across 79 contribution records. The same city label totals $246,134,317 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2014 is 1.3% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Palo Alto, CA city total only for 2014?

No. The city aggregate of $246,134,317 covers every cycle in the table for PALO ALTO. The 2014 filter is $3,093,200 from 79 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $243,041,117. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2014 slice.

Did Palo Alto, CA 2014 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 $3,093,200 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 2014?

79 itemized contribution records sum to $3,093,200. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $39,154 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.