Sacramento, CA political money — 2008 cycle

What the Sacramento × 2008 join measures

The overlap of contributor city SACRAMENTO with state CA and election cycle 2008 is $193,368 across 193 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $159,401,418. 2008 therefore accounts for 0.12% of Sacramento, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $159,208,050 (99.9%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Sacramento, CA. That hub mixes 2008 with every other even-year window filed under SACRAMENTO. It is also not a restatement of the 2008 election cycle hub, which mixes Sacramento, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 193 rows and $193,368 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 to California.

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. 2008 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Sacramento, CA donors itemized $193,368. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

Sacramento, CA across every cycle

The city aggregate for Sacramento, CA is $159,401,418 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 $193,368 from 2008 and the $159,208,050 from every other cycle in the same city file. California campaign-finance pages still mix Sacramento with every other city in California.

The stored city is Sacramento, the California capital. West Sacramento, Elk Grove, and Roseville are not rolled into SACRAMENTO. Sacramento County as a whole is not the city string. $159,401,418 is the CA key only. A large city total does not mean 2008 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2008 was small. For Sacramento, CA, the city stack is $159,401,418 while this cycle is $193,368 (0.12%). Use the city hub to see Sacramento, CA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Sacramento in 2008. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

The 2008 presidential window on FEC.gov

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, Sacramento, CA donors itemized $193,368 on 193 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $1,002 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 California still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Sacramento × 2008. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 193 itemized rows is a sizable absolute count of receipts for this join. Adjacent pages for Sacramento, CA, the 2008 election cycle, and California campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

Share of the Sacramento city stack

0.12% of $159,401,418 is a thin slice of the city stack. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $159,208,050. Put another way, about 0.12% of Sacramento, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2008, and about 99.9% were not. Those percentages are $193,368 divided by $159,401,418 and $159,208,050 divided by $159,401,418. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.12%) and row volume (193 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A thin dollar share can sit next to a large row count, or the reverse; both numbers describe this pair only. 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 Sacramento's share of the 2008 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Rows, means, and missing fields

193 itemized contributions totaling $193,368 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 SACRAMENTO. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Sacramento versus other California cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $1,002 uses only the two numbers in the join: $193,368 and 193 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 $193,368 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed SACRAMENTO is counted; a donor who typed a neighborhood, a firm city, or a nearby suburb is not recoded into Sacramento.

What this tie page is not

This page does not rank Sacramento against other cities, does not call 2008 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.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Sacramento, 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 Sacramento, CA donors give in the 2008 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Sacramento, CA total $193,368 in the 2008 cycle, across 193 contribution records. The same city label totals $159,401,418 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2008 is 0.12% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Sacramento, CA city total only for 2008?

No. The city aggregate of $159,401,418 covers every cycle in the table for SACRAMENTO. The 2008 filter is $193,368 from 193 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $159,208,050. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2008 slice.

Did Sacramento, CA 2008 donations stay in California?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Sacramento, CA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $193,368 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 Sacramento, CA contributions were itemized in 2008?

193 itemized contribution records sum to $193,368. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $1,002 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.