Chestnut Hill, MA political money — 2008 cycle

How Chestnut Hill, MA meets the 2008 election cycle

$245,525 is the overlap of two FEC dimensions: contributor city Chestnut Hill with state MA, and election cycle 2008. The match is $245,525 across 108 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $52,400,939. 2008 therefore accounts for 0.47% of Chestnut Hill, MA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $52,155,414 (99.53%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Chestnut Hill, MA. That hub mixes 2008 with every other even-year window filed under Chestnut Hill. It is also not a restatement of the 2008 election cycle hub, which mixes Chestnut Hill, MA with every other donor city in the United States. The 108 rows and $245,525 exist only where both filters are true. Correlation is not causation: a city code plus a cycle year does not prove why someone gave.

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. Chestnut Hill, MA here is the string that survived aggregation as Chestnut Hill in MA. 2008 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Chestnut Hill, MA donors itemized $245,525. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

The Chestnut Hill, MA side of the join

The city aggregate for Chestnut Hill, MA is $52,400,939 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 $245,525 from 2008 and the $52,155,414 from every other cycle in the same city file. State-level MA campaign-finance pages still mix Chestnut Hill with every other city in MA.

The stored city is Chestnut Hill as stored on FEC receipts in Massachusetts (a village spanning Boston and Newton). Boston, Brookline, and Newton as separately typed cities are not rolled into Chestnut Hill. State MA stays on the citation so Chestnut Hill, MA is not merged with a same-named place in another state. $52,400,939 is the MA key only. For Chestnut Hill, MA, the city stack is $52,400,939 while this cycle is $245,525 (0.47%). Use the city hub for Chestnut Hill, MA without a year filter; use this tie for Chestnut Hill in 2008. Donor city is not recipient city: committees that received these gifts can file anywhere in the FEC system. CHESTNUT HILL is the filer-entered city string. LobbyVault does not recode it into BOSTON.

The 2008 cycle side for MA filers in Chestnut Hill

Federal election cycles are two-year windows on FEC.gov. The 2008 cycle is the Commission's cycle tag on itemized receipts, not a calendar year of January gifts only. Inside that window, Chestnut Hill, MA donors itemized $245,525 on 108 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $2,273 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 2008 hub still includes every other city. State pages for MA still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Chestnut Hill × 2008. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. A suburb-scale row file (108 receipts) with mean near $2,273 is still itemized Schedule A, not a property-tax roll. $245,525 is the overlap only. Nearby city strings are other pages. This URL is the intersection only.

2008 versus the rest of Chestnut Hill

0.47% of $52,400,939 is a slice of the city book, not a ranking against other cities. Put another way, about 0.47% of Chestnut Hill, MA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2008, and about 99.53% were not. Those percentages are $245,525 divided by $52,400,939 and $52,155,414 divided by $52,400,939. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.47%) and row volume (108 itemized gifts) are separate facts. This packet does not include a citywide row count across all cycles, so a row-share percentage is not computed. Do not treat 0.47% as Chestnut Hill's share of the 2008 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts. Suffolk and Middlesex counties is a geography note for readers; it is not a Census population weight on $245,525.

Counts, dollars, and what they omit

108 itemized contributions totaling $245,525 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 Chestnut Hill. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Chestnut Hill versus other MA cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $2,273 uses only the two numbers in the join: $245,525 and 108 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 page does not break $245,525 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed Chestnut Hill is counted; a nearby suburb they typed instead is not recoded into Chestnut Hill.

Caveats on a geographic-cycle join

This page does not rank Chestnut Hill against other cities and does not treat itemized giving as public opinion in MA. Two columns matched. Contributor city is not campaign city. A MA address does not mean the money supported a MA candidate. Amended reports can move either number. If the live Chestnut Hill, MA hub or the live 2008 cycle hub disagrees with this prose, the newer FEC extract controls.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Chestnut Hill, MA, the 2008 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 Chestnut Hill, MA donors give in the 2008 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Chestnut Hill, MA total $245,525 in the 2008 cycle, across 108 contribution records. The same city label totals $52,400,939 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2008 is 0.47% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Chestnut Hill, MA city total only for 2008?

No. The city aggregate of $52,400,939 covers every cycle in the table for Chestnut Hill. The 2008 filter is $245,525 from 108 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $52,155,414. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2008 slice.

Did Chestnut Hill, MA 2008 donations stay in MA?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Chestnut Hill, MA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $245,525 by office, state of the committee, or party. A MA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of MA races.

How many Chestnut Hill, MA contributions were itemized in 2008?

108 itemized contribution records sum to $245,525. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $2,273 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.