Westfield, NJ political money — 2012 cycle

2012 receipts from Westfield, NJ donors

The join keeps donor city Westfield in New Jersey and election cycle 2012. The match is $342,070 across 96 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $23,030,910. 2012 therefore accounts for 1.5% of Westfield, NJ itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $22,688,840 (98.5%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Westfield, NJ. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under WESTFIELD. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Westfield, NJ with every other donor city in the United States. The 96 rows and $342,070 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. Westfield, NJ here is the string that survived aggregation as WESTFIELD in NJ. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $342,070 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 Westfield, NJ is $23,030,910 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 $342,070 from 2012 and the $22,688,840 from every other cycle in the same city file. New Jersey campaign-finance pages still mix Westfield with every other city in New Jersey.

The stored city sits in Union County, New Jersey. Newark, Scotch Plains, and Westfield, Massachusetts are not rolled into WESTFIELD. State NJ stays on the citation so Westfield, New Jersey is not merged with Westfield, Massachusetts. A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Westfield, NJ, the city stack is $23,030,910 while this cycle is $342,070 (1.5%). Use the city hub to see Westfield, NJ without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Westfield 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, Westfield, NJ donors itemized $342,070 on 96 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $3,563 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 New Jersey still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Westfield × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 96 itemized rows is a modest file for a named city. A handful of large receipts can still move $342,070 without proving a wide unique-donor pool. Adjacent pages for Westfield, NJ, 2012 election cycle, and New Jersey campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

A modest cut of the Westfield stack

1.5% of $23,030,910 is a modest slice. Most of the Westfield, NJ aggregate — $22,688,840 — sits in other cycles. Put another way, about 1.5% of Westfield, NJ's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 98.5% were not. Those percentages are $342,070 divided by $23,030,910 and $22,688,840 divided by $23,030,910. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (1.5%) and row volume (96 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A modest slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a modest 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 1.5% as Westfield'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

96 itemized contributions totaling $342,070 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 WESTFIELD. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Westfield versus other New Jersey cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $3,563 uses only the two numbers in the join: $342,070 and 96 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 $342,070 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. Unitemized gifts and New Jersey state-office filings sit outside $342,070.

City of the contributor, not the recipient

This page does not rank Westfield against other cities, does not call 2012 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in New Jersey. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. A NJ address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a New Jersey candidate. A candidate who lives in Westfield can raise money from other cities; those gifts are not this join.

City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed WESTFIELD is counted; a donor who typed a neighborhood or a nearby suburb such as Newark is not recoded into Westfield. Treat 96 as lines that stored this string in 2012. See Westfield, NJ, the 2012 election cycle, New Jersey 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 Westfield, NJ donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Westfield, NJ total $342,070 in the 2012 cycle, across 96 contribution records. The same city label totals $23,030,910 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 1.5% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Westfield, NJ city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $23,030,910 covers every cycle in the table for WESTFIELD. The 2012 filter is $342,070 from 96 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $22,688,840. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Westfield, NJ 2012 donations stay in New Jersey?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Westfield, NJ; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $342,070 by office, state of the committee, or party. A NJ city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of New Jersey races.

How many Westfield, NJ contributions were itemized in 2012?

96 itemized contribution records sum to $342,070. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $3,563 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.