Boston, MA political money — 2010 cycle

2010 receipts from Boston, MA donors

The join keeps donor city Boston in Massachusetts and election cycle 2010. The match is $520,783 across 317 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $280,702,761. 2010 therefore accounts for 0.19% of Boston, MA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $280,181,978 (99.8%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Boston, MA. That hub mixes 2010 with every other even-year window filed under BOSTON. It is also not a restatement of the 2010 election cycle hub, which mixes Boston, MA with every other donor city in the United States. The 317 rows and $520,783 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. Boston, MA here is the string that survived aggregation as BOSTON in MA. 2010 is a midterm FEC cycle: a two-year window without a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Boston, MA donors itemized $520,783. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

The city hub still mixes other cycles

The city aggregate for Boston, MA is $280,702,761 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 $520,783 from 2010 and the $280,181,978 from every other cycle in the same city file. Massachusetts campaign-finance pages still mix Boston with every other city in Massachusetts.

A large city total does not mean 2010 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2010 was small. For Boston, MA, the city stack is $280,702,761 while this cycle is $520,783 (0.19%). Use the city hub to see Boston, MA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Boston in 2010. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

How a midterm cycle is coded at the FEC

The 2010 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Boston, MA donors itemized $520,783 on 317 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $1,643 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 2010 hub still includes every other city. State pages for Massachusetts still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Boston × 2010. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 317 itemized contribution rows is a moderate file. The dollar total can still be skewed by a few large gifts without this page naming them. Adjacent pages for Boston, MA, 2010 election cycle, and Massachusetts campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

A thin cut of the Boston stack

0.19% of $280,702,761 is a thin slice. Most of the Boston, MA aggregate — $280,181,978 — sits in other cycles. Put another way, about 0.19% of Boston, MA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2010, and about 99.8% were not. Those percentages are $520,783 divided by $280,702,761 and $280,181,978 divided by $280,702,761. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.19%) and row volume (317 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A thin slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a moderate 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 0.19% as Boston's share of the 2010 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

317 contribution records from one city-cycle pair

317 itemized contributions totaling $520,783 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 BOSTON. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Boston versus other Massachusetts cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $1,643 uses only the two numbers in the join: $520,783 and 317 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 $520,783 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

Limits of a city-by-cycle table

This page does not rank Boston against other cities, does not call 2010 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in Massachusetts. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. A MA address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a Massachusetts candidate.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Boston, MA, the 2010 election cycle, Massachusetts 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 Boston, MA donors give in the 2010 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Boston, MA total $520,783 in the 2010 cycle, across 317 contribution records. The same city label totals $280,702,761 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2010 is 0.19% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Boston, MA city total only for 2010?

No. The city aggregate of $280,702,761 covers every cycle in the table for BOSTON. The 2010 filter is $520,783 from 317 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $280,181,978. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2010 slice.

Did Boston, MA 2010 donations stay in Massachusetts?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Boston, MA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $520,783 by office, state of the committee, or party. A MA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of Massachusetts races.

How many Boston, MA contributions were itemized in 2010?

317 itemized contribution records sum to $520,783. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $1,643 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.