Santa Monica, CA political money — 2012 cycle

How Santa Monica, CA meets the 2012 election cycle

$184,489 is the overlap of two FEC dimensions: contributor city SANTA MONICA with state CA, and election cycle 2012. The match is $184,489 across 164 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $140,052,116. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.13% of Santa Monica, CA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $139,867,627 (99.9%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Santa Monica, CA. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under SANTA MONICA. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Santa Monica, CA with every other donor city in the United States. The 164 rows and $184,489 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. Santa Monica is stored as SANTA MONICA in California; Los Angeles and other Westside city strings are other keys. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Santa Monica, CA donors itemized $184,489. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

The Santa Monica, CA side of the join

The city aggregate for Santa Monica, CA is $140,052,116 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 $184,489 from 2012 and the $139,867,627 from every other cycle in the same city file. California campaign-finance pages still mix Santa Monica with every other city in California.

Santa Monica is stored as SANTA MONICA in California; Los Angeles and other Westside city strings are other keys. State CA stays on the citation so Santa Monica, CA is not merged with a same-named place in another state. $140,052,116 is the CA key only. A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Santa Monica, CA, the city stack is $140,052,116 while this cycle is $184,489 (0.13%). Use the city hub to see Santa Monica, CA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Santa Monica in 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

The 2012 cycle side for California filers in Santa Monica

Federal election cycles are two-year windows on FEC.gov. The 2012 cycle is the Commission's cycle tag on itemized receipts, not a calendar year of January gifts only. Inside that window, Santa Monica, CA donors itemized $184,489 on 164 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $1,125 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 2012 hub still includes every other city. State pages for California still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Santa Monica × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 164 itemized rows is the file size for this city string in this cycle. Adjacent pages for Santa Monica, CA, 2012 election cycle, and California campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

2012 versus the rest of Santa Monica

0.13% of $140,052,116 is a defined slice. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $139,867,627. Put another way, about 0.13% of Santa Monica, CA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.9% were not. Those percentages are $184,489 divided by $140,052,116 and $139,867,627 divided by $140,052,116. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.13%) and row volume (164 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A small slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a relatively large or small file for this city string; 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 0.13% as Santa Monica's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Counts, dollars, and what they omit

164 itemized contributions totaling $184,489 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 SANTA MONICA. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Santa Monica versus other California cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $1,125 uses only the two numbers in the join: $184,489 and 164 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 $184,489 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. City labels are filer-entered. A donor

Caveats on a geographic-cycle join

This page does not rank Santa Monica 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. An CA address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a California candidate. Amended reports can move either number. If the live Santa Monica, CA hub or the live 2012 cycle hub disagrees with this prose, the newer FEC extract controls.

Questions

How much did Santa Monica, CA donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Santa Monica, CA total $184,489 in the 2012 cycle, across 164 contribution records. The same city label totals $140,052,116 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.13% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates of itemized individual gifts only.

Is the Santa Monica, CA city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $140,052,116 covers every cycle in the table for SANTA MONICA. The 2012 filter is $184,489 from 164 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $139,867,627. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice only. Unitemized gifts are omitted from both totals.

Did Santa Monica, CA 2012 donations stay in California?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Santa Monica, CA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $184,489 by office, state of the committee, or party. An CA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of California races or of where the money was spent.

How many Santa Monica, CA contributions were itemized in 2012?

164 itemized contribution records sum to $184,489. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $1,125 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts and are not invented here.