Atlanta, GA political money — 2012 cycle

2012 receipts from Atlanta, GA donors

The join keeps donor city Atlanta in Georgia and election cycle 2012. The match is $3,112,544 across 646 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $381,643,337. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.82% of Atlanta, GA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $378,530,793 (99.2%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Atlanta, GA. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under ATLANTA. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Atlanta, GA with every other donor city in the United States. The 646 rows and $3,112,544 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. Atlanta, GA here is the string that survived aggregation as ATLANTA in GA. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $3,112,544 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 Atlanta, GA is $381,643,337 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 $3,112,544 from 2012 and the $378,530,793 from every other cycle in the same city file. Georgia campaign-finance pages still mix Atlanta with every other city in Georgia.

A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Atlanta, GA, the city stack is $381,643,337 while this cycle is $3,112,544 (0.82%). Use the city hub to see Atlanta, GA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Atlanta 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, Atlanta, GA donors itemized $3,112,544 on 646 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $4,818 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 Georgia still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Atlanta × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 646 itemized rows is a busy but not enormous file. It is large enough that a handful of gifts cannot explain the entire $3,112,544. Adjacent pages for Atlanta, GA, 2012 election cycle, and Georgia campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

A small cut of the Atlanta stack

0.82% of $381,643,337 is a small slice. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $378,530,793. Put another way, about 0.82% of Atlanta, GA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.2% were not. Those percentages are $3,112,544 divided by $381,643,337 and $378,530,793 divided by $381,643,337. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.82%) and row volume (646 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 0.82% as Atlanta'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

646 itemized contributions totaling $3,112,544 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 ATLANTA. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Atlanta versus other Georgia cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $4,818 uses only the two numbers in the join: $3,112,544 and 646 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 $3,112,544 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

City of the contributor, not the recipient

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

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Atlanta, GA, the 2012 election cycle, Georgia 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 Atlanta, GA donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Atlanta, GA total $3,112,544 in the 2012 cycle, across 646 contribution records. The same city label totals $381,643,337 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.82% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Atlanta, GA city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $381,643,337 covers every cycle in the table for ATLANTA. The 2012 filter is $3,112,544 from 646 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $378,530,793. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Atlanta, GA 2012 donations stay in Georgia?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Atlanta, GA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $3,112,544 by office, state of the committee, or party. A GA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of Georgia races.

How many Atlanta, GA contributions were itemized in 2012?

646 itemized contribution records sum to $3,112,544. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $4,818 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.