Brooklyn, NY political money — 2012 cycle

What the Brooklyn × 2012 join measures

The overlap of contributor city BROOKLYN with state NY and election cycle 2012 is $212,957 across 221 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $223,850,174. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.10% of Brooklyn, NY itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $223,637,217 (99.9%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Brooklyn, NY. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under BROOKLYN. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Brooklyn, NY with every other donor city in the United States. The 221 rows and $212,957 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 to New York.

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. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. That calendar fact does not explain why Brooklyn, NY donors itemized $212,957. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

Brooklyn, NY across every cycle

The city aggregate for Brooklyn, NY is $223,850,174 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 $212,957 from 2012 and the $223,637,217 from every other cycle in the same city file. New York campaign-finance pages still mix Brooklyn with every other city in New York.

The stored city is the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island are not rolled into BROOKLYN. Kings County receipts that used a neighborhood name instead of Brooklyn are not recoded here. $223,850,174 is the NY key only. A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Brooklyn, NY, the city stack is $223,850,174 while this cycle is $212,957 (0.10%). Use the city hub to see Brooklyn, NY without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Brooklyn in 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

The 2012 presidential window on FEC.gov

Federal election cycles are two-year windows on FEC.gov. The 2012 cycle is the Commission's cycle tag on itemized receipts, not a calendar year of January gifts only. Inside that window, Brooklyn, NY donors itemized $212,957 on 221 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $964 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 2012 hub still includes every other city. State pages for New York still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Brooklyn × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 221 itemized rows is a large absolute count of receipts for this join. Adjacent pages for Brooklyn, NY, the 2012 election cycle, and New York campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

Share of the Brooklyn city stack

0.10% of $223,850,174 is a thin slice of the city stack. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $223,637,217. Put another way, about 0.10% of Brooklyn, NY's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.9% were not. Those percentages are $212,957 divided by $223,850,174 and $223,637,217 divided by $223,850,174. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.10%) and row volume (221 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A thin dollar share can sit next to a large row count, or the reverse; both numbers describe this pair only. This packet does not include a citywide row count across all cycles, so a row-share percentage is not computed. Do not treat 0.10% as Brooklyn's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Rows, means, and missing fields

221 itemized contributions totaling $212,957 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 BROOKLYN. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Brooklyn versus other New York cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $964 uses only the two numbers in the join: $212,957 and 221 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 $212,957 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee. City labels are filer-entered. A donor who typed BROOKLYN is counted; a donor who typed a neighborhood, a firm city, or a nearby suburb is not recoded into Brooklyn.

What this tie page is not

This page does not rank Brooklyn against other cities, does not call 2012 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in New York. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. A NY address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported a New York candidate. Amended reports can move either number.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Brooklyn, NY, the 2012 election cycle, New York 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 Brooklyn, NY donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Brooklyn, NY total $212,957 in the 2012 cycle, across 221 contribution records. The same city label totals $223,850,174 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.10% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Brooklyn, NY city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $223,850,174 covers every cycle in the table for BROOKLYN. The 2012 filter is $212,957 from 221 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $223,637,217. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Brooklyn, NY 2012 donations stay in New York?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Brooklyn, NY; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $212,957 by office, state of the committee, or party. A NY city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of New York races.

How many Brooklyn, NY contributions were itemized in 2012?

221 itemized contribution records sum to $212,957. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $964 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.