San Francisco, CA political money — 2012 cycle

Joining donor city San Francisco with cycle 2012

The join keeps donor city San Francisco in California and election cycle 2012. The match is $2,447,553 across 934 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $1,418,166,223. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.17% of San Francisco, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $1,415,718,670 (99.8%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of San Francisco, CA. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under SAN FRANCISCO. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes San Francisco, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 934 rows and $2,447,553 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. San Francisco, CA here is the string that survived aggregation as SAN FRANCISCO in CA. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $2,447,553 by office, party, or candidate. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

San Francisco, CA across every cycle in the aggregate

The city aggregate for San Francisco, CA is $1,418,166,223 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 $2,447,553 from 2012 and the $1,415,718,670 from every other cycle in the same city file. California campaign-finance pages still mix San Francisco 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 San Francisco, CA, the city stack is $1,418,166,223 while this cycle is $2,447,553 (0.17%). Use the city hub to see San Francisco, CA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically San Francisco in 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

2012 as a two-year FEC window

The 2012 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, San Francisco, CA donors itemized $2,447,553 on 934 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $2,621 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 San Francisco × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 934 itemized rows is a busy but not enormous file. It is large enough that a handful of gifts cannot explain the entire $2,447,553. Adjacent pages for San Francisco, CA, 2012 election cycle, and California campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

Share of $1,418,166,223 sitting in 2012

0.17% of $1,418,166,223 is a thin slice. San Francisco, CA remains a large multi-cycle file; 2012 is one filter on that stack. Put another way, about 0.17% of San Francisco, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.8% were not. Those percentages are $2,447,553 divided by $1,418,166,223 and $1,415,718,670 divided by $1,418,166,223. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.17%) and row volume (934 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A thin slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a busy 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 0.17% as San Francisco's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

934 contribution records from one city-cycle pair

934 itemized contributions totaling $2,447,553 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 SAN FRANCISCO. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of San Francisco versus other California cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $2,621 uses only the two numbers in the join: $2,447,553 and 934 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 $2,447,553 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

Limits of a city-by-cycle table

This page does not rank San Francisco 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 San Francisco, 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 San Francisco, CA donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing San Francisco, CA total $2,447,553 in the 2012 cycle, across 934 contribution records. The same city label totals $1,418,166,223 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.17% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the San Francisco, CA city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $1,418,166,223 covers every cycle in the table for SAN FRANCISCO. The 2012 filter is $2,447,553 from 934 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $1,415,718,670. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did San Francisco, CA 2012 donations stay in California?

Not necessarily. Donor city is San Francisco, CA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $2,447,553 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 San Francisco, CA contributions were itemized in 2012?

934 itemized contribution records sum to $2,447,553. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $2,621 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.