Portland, OR political money — 2012 cycle

Joining donor city Portland with cycle 2012

The join keeps donor city Portland in Oregon and election cycle 2012. The match is $460,190 across 463 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $153,516,263. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.30% of Portland, OR itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $153,056,073 (99.7%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Portland, OR. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under PORTLAND. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Portland, OR with every other donor city in the United States. The 463 rows and $460,190 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. Portland, OR here is the string that survived aggregation as PORTLAND in OR. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $460,190 by office, party, or candidate. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

Portland, OR across every cycle in the aggregate

The city aggregate for Portland, OR is $153,516,263 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 $460,190 from 2012 and the $153,056,073 from every other cycle in the same city file. Oregon campaign-finance pages still mix Portland with every other city in Oregon.

A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Portland, OR, the city stack is $153,516,263 while this cycle is $460,190 (0.30%). Use the city hub to see Portland, OR without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Portland in 2012. Donor city is not the same as recipient city: committees that received these gifts can be anywhere in the FEC system.

2012 as a two-year FEC window

The 2012 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Portland, OR donors itemized $460,190 on 463 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $994 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 Oregon still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Portland × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 463 itemized contribution rows is a moderate file. The dollar total can still be skewed by a few large gifts without this page naming them. Adjacent pages for Portland, OR, 2012 election cycle, and Oregon campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

Share of $153,516,263 sitting in 2012

0.30% of $153,516,263 is a thin slice. Portland, OR remains a multi-cycle file; 2012 is one filter on that stack. Put another way, about 0.30% of Portland, OR's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.7% were not. Those percentages are $460,190 divided by $153,516,263 and $153,056,073 divided by $153,516,263. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.30%) and row volume (463 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A thin slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a moderate 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 0.30% as Portland's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

463 contribution records from one city-cycle pair

463 itemized contributions totaling $460,190 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 PORTLAND. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Portland versus other Oregon cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $994 uses only the two numbers in the join: $460,190 and 463 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 $460,190 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

Limits of a city-by-cycle table

This page does not rank Portland against other cities, does not call 2012 a wave, and does not treat itemized giving as a proxy for public opinion in Oregon. Two columns matched. The city of the contributor is not the city of the campaign. An OR address on an individual receipt does not mean the money supported an Oregon candidate.

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Portland, OR, the 2012 election cycle, Oregon 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 Portland, OR donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Portland, OR total $460,190 in the 2012 cycle, across 463 contribution records. The same city label totals $153,516,263 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.30% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Portland, OR city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $153,516,263 covers every cycle in the table for PORTLAND. The 2012 filter is $460,190 from 463 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $153,056,073. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Portland, OR 2012 donations stay in Oregon?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Portland, OR; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $460,190 by office, state of the committee, or party. An OR city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of Oregon races.

How many Portland, OR contributions were itemized in 2012?

463 itemized contribution records sum to $460,190. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $994 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.