Bethesda, MD political money — 2008 cycle

2008 receipts from Bethesda, MD donors

The join keeps donor city Bethesda in Maryland and election cycle 2008. The match is $325,774 across 305 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $157,728,166. 2008 therefore accounts for 0.2% of Bethesda, MD itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $157,402,392 (99.8%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Bethesda, MD. That hub mixes 2008 with every other even-year window filed under BETHESDA. It is also not a restatement of the 2008 election cycle hub, which mixes Bethesda, MD with every other donor city in the United States. The 305 rows and $325,774 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. Bethesda, MD here is the string that survived aggregation as BETHESDA in MD. 2008 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $325,774 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 Bethesda, MD is $157,728,166 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 $325,774 from 2008 and the $157,402,392 from every other cycle in the same city file. Maryland campaign-finance pages still mix Bethesda with every other city in Maryland.

The stored city sits in an unincorporated census place in Montgomery County stored as contributor city BETHESDA. Washington, D.C., Chevy Chase, and Silver Spring are not rolled into BETHESDA. State MD stays on the citation so Bethesda is not recoded into Washington, D.C. or Chevy Chase. A large city total does not mean 2008 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2008 was small. For Bethesda, MD, the city stack is $157,728,166 while this cycle is $325,774 (0.2%). Use the city hub to see Bethesda, MD without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Bethesda in 2008. 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 2008 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Bethesda, MD donors itemized $325,774 on 305 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $1,068 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 2008 hub still includes every other city. State pages for Maryland still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Bethesda × 2008. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 305 itemized rows is a thicker file than many suburb joins, still a receipt count rather than a unique-person census. Repeat givers and office addresses sit in the same 305-line stack. Adjacent pages for Bethesda, MD, 2008 election cycle, and Maryland campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

A modest cut of the Bethesda stack

0.2% of $157,728,166 is a modest slice. Most of the Bethesda, MD aggregate — $157,402,392 — sits in other cycles. Put another way, about 0.2% of Bethesda, MD's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2008, and about 99.8% were not. Those percentages are $325,774 divided by $157,728,166 and $157,402,392 divided by $157,728,166. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.2%) and row volume (305 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A modest slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a thicker contribution file than many suburb joins; 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 0.2% as Bethesda's share of the 2008 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Mean gift size is not a typical donor

305 itemized contributions totaling $325,774 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 BETHESDA. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Bethesda versus other Maryland cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $1,068 uses only the two numbers in the join: $325,774 and 305 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 $325,774 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. Unitemized gifts and Maryland state-office filings sit outside $325,774.

City of the contributor, not the recipient

This page does not rank Bethesda against other cities, does not call 2008 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in Maryland. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. A MD address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a Maryland candidate. A candidate who lives in Bethesda can raise money from other cities; those gifts are not this join.

City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed BETHESDA is counted; a donor who typed a neighborhood or a nearby suburb such as Washington, D.C. is not recoded into Bethesda. Treat 305 as lines that stored this string in 2008. See Bethesda, MD, the 2008 election cycle, Maryland campaign finance, and All FEC ties for the adjacent tables. Figures are FEC itemized individual contribution aggregates. They are not federal spending awards and they do not fund USAspending totals. If the live hub disagrees, the newer FEC extract controls.

Questions

How much did Bethesda, MD donors give in the 2008 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Bethesda, MD total $325,774 in the 2008 cycle, across 305 contribution records. The same city label totals $157,728,166 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2008 is 0.2% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Bethesda, MD city total only for 2008?

No. The city aggregate of $157,728,166 covers every cycle in the table for BETHESDA. The 2008 filter is $325,774 from 305 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $157,402,392. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2008 slice.

Did Bethesda, MD 2008 donations stay in Maryland?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Bethesda, MD; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $325,774 by office, state of the committee, or party. A MD city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of Maryland races.

How many Bethesda, MD contributions were itemized in 2008?

305 itemized contribution records sum to $325,774. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $1,068 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.