Denver, CO political money — 2012 cycle

2012 receipts from Denver, CO donors

The join keeps donor city Denver in Colorado and election cycle 2012. The match is $1,277,761 across 853 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $238,927,176. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.53% of Denver, CO itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $237,649,415 (99.5%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Denver, CO. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under DENVER. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Denver, CO with every other donor city in the United States. The 853 rows and $1,277,761 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. Denver, CO here is the string that survived aggregation as DENVER in CO. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $1,277,761 by office, party, or candidate. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

The city hub still mixes other cycles

The city aggregate for Denver, CO is $238,927,176 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 $1,277,761 from 2012 and the $237,649,415 from every other cycle in the same city file. Colorado campaign-finance pages still mix Denver with every other city in Colorado.

A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Denver, CO, the city stack is $238,927,176 while this cycle is $1,277,761 (0.53%). Use the city hub to see Denver, CO without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Denver in 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

How a presidential cycle is coded at the FEC

The 2012 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Denver, CO donors itemized $1,277,761 on 853 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $1,498 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 Colorado still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Denver × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 853 itemized rows is a busy but not enormous file. It is large enough that a handful of gifts cannot explain the entire $1,277,761. Adjacent pages for Denver, CO, 2012 election cycle, and Colorado campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

A small cut of the Denver stack

0.53% of $238,927,176 is a small slice. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $237,649,415. Put another way, about 0.53% of Denver, CO's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.5% were not. Those percentages are $1,277,761 divided by $238,927,176 and $237,649,415 divided by $238,927,176. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.53%) and row volume (853 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A small 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 0.53% as Denver's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Mean gift size is not a typical donor

853 itemized contributions totaling $1,277,761 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 DENVER. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Denver versus other Colorado cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $1,498 uses only the two numbers in the join: $1,277,761 and 853 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 $1,277,761 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

City of the contributor, not the recipient

This page does not rank Denver against other cities, does not call 2012 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in Colorado. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. A CO address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a Colorado candidate.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Denver, CO, the 2012 election cycle, Colorado 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 Denver, CO donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Denver, CO total $1,277,761 in the 2012 cycle, across 853 contribution records. The same city label totals $238,927,176 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.53% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Denver, CO city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $238,927,176 covers every cycle in the table for DENVER. The 2012 filter is $1,277,761 from 853 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $237,649,415. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Denver, CO 2012 donations stay in Colorado?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Denver, CO; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $1,277,761 by office, state of the committee, or party. A CO city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of Colorado races.

How many Denver, CO contributions were itemized in 2012?

853 itemized contribution records sum to $1,277,761. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $1,498 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.