Boston, MA political money — 2012 cycle

Two FEC fields: Boston and 2012

The join keeps donor city Boston in Massachusetts and election cycle 2012. The match is $1,869,036 across 503 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $280,702,761. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.67% of Boston, MA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $278,833,725 (99.3%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Boston, MA. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under BOSTON. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Boston, MA with every other donor city in the United States. The 503 rows and $1,869,036 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. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $1,869,036 by office, party, or candidate. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

$280,702,761 filed from Boston, MA

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 $1,869,036 from 2012 and the $278,833,725 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 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Boston, MA, the city stack is $280,702,761 while this cycle is $1,869,036 (0.67%). Use the city hub to see Boston, MA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Boston in 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

$1,869,036 inside the 2012 window

The 2012 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Boston, MA donors itemized $1,869,036 on 503 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $3,716 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 Massachusetts still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Boston × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 503 itemized rows is a busy but not enormous file. It is large enough that a handful of gifts cannot explain the entire $1,869,036. Adjacent pages for Boston, MA, 2012 election cycle, and Massachusetts campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

Where 2012 sits in the city timeline

0.67% of $280,702,761 is a small slice. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $278,833,725. Put another way, about 0.67% of Boston, MA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.3% were not. Those percentages are $1,869,036 divided by $280,702,761 and $278,833,725 divided by $280,702,761. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.67%) and row volume (503 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 0.67% as Boston's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

A busy itemized file for this pair

503 itemized contributions totaling $1,869,036 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 $3,716 uses only the two numbers in the join: $1,869,036 and 503 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 $1,869,036 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

Public records without motive

This page does not rank Boston against other cities, does not call 2012 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 2012 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 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Boston, MA total $1,869,036 in the 2012 cycle, across 503 contribution records. The same city label totals $280,702,761 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.67% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Boston, MA city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $280,702,761 covers every cycle in the table for BOSTON. The 2012 filter is $1,869,036 from 503 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $278,833,725. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Boston, MA 2012 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 $1,869,036 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 2012?

503 itemized contribution records sum to $1,869,036. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $3,716 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.