Philadelphia, PA political money — 2012 cycle

Philadelphia, PA and the 2012 election cycle

The join keeps donor city Philadelphia in Pennsylvania and election cycle 2012. The match is $1,344,079 across 650 itemized contribution rows. The city side of the table, covering every cycle in the aggregate, is $322,266,398. 2012 therefore accounts for 0.42% of Philadelphia, PA itemized individual dollars in these facts. The remaining $320,922,319 (99.6%) was itemized in other cycles under the same city label.

This is not a restatement of Philadelphia, PA. That hub mixes 2012 with every other even-year window filed under PHILADELPHIA. It is also not a restatement of the 2012 election cycle hub, which mixes Philadelphia, PA with every other donor city in the United States. The 650 rows and $1,344,079 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. Philadelphia, PA here is the string that survived aggregation as PHILADELPHIA in PA. 2012 is a presidential FEC cycle: a two-year window that includes a presidential general election. This page does not split the $1,344,079 by office, party, or candidate. Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle.

What the Philadelphia, PA city total covers

The city aggregate for Philadelphia, PA is $322,266,398 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 $1,344,079 from 2012 and the $320,922,319 from every other cycle in the same city file. Pennsylvania campaign-finance pages still mix Philadelphia with every other city in Pennsylvania.

A large city total does not mean 2012 was large, and a small city total does not mean 2012 was small. For Philadelphia, PA, the city stack is $322,266,398 while this cycle is $1,344,079 (0.42%). Use the city hub to see Philadelphia, PA without a year filter, and use this tie page when the question is specifically Philadelphia 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 cycle slice: 650 itemized gifts

The 2012 election cycle is a two-year FEC reporting window labeled by its even year. Inside that window, Philadelphia, PA donors itemized $1,344,079 on 650 contribution records. Dividing dollars by rows gives a mean of about $2,068 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 2012 hub still includes every other city. State pages for Pennsylvania still include every other cycle. Only this join isolates Philadelphia × 2012. Unitemized contributions below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures, party coordinated spends, and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. 650 itemized rows is a busy but not enormous file. It is large enough that a handful of gifts cannot explain the entire $1,344,079. Adjacent pages for Philadelphia, PA, 2012 election cycle, and Pennsylvania campaign finance keep those broader cuts; this URL is the intersection only.

0.42% of citywide FEC dollars

0.42% of $322,266,398 is a small slice. The city hub is mostly other even-year windows, totaling $320,922,319. Put another way, about 0.42% of Philadelphia, PA's itemized individual dollars in this aggregate were filed in 2012, and about 99.6% were not. Those percentages are $1,344,079 divided by $322,266,398 and $320,922,319 divided by $322,266,398. They are not shares of state totals, national cycle totals, or eligible voters.

Dollar share (0.42%) and row volume (650 itemized gifts) are separate facts. A small slice of citywide dollars can sit next to a busy 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 0.42% as Philadelphia's share of the 2012 national cycle, which is a different denominator and is not in these facts.

Itemized rows, not a census of every donor

650 itemized contributions totaling $1,344,079 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 PHILADELPHIA. Unique-person counts are not in the packet and are not invented here. Neither is a ranking of Philadelphia versus other Pennsylvania cities: this join has one geography and one cycle.

Mean gift size of about $2,068 uses only the two numbers in the join: $1,344,079 and 650 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 $1,344,079 out by occupation, industry, or recipient committee.

What this join is not

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

Unitemized gifts, independent expenditures, and non-individual sources are omitted. See Philadelphia, PA, the 2012 election cycle, Pennsylvania 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 Philadelphia, PA donors give in the 2012 election cycle?

FEC itemized individual contributions from donors listing Philadelphia, PA total $1,344,079 in the 2012 cycle, across 650 contribution records. The same city label totals $322,266,398 across all cycles in this aggregate, so 2012 is 0.42% of that city stack. Figures are from FEC.gov city-by-cycle aggregates.

Is the Philadelphia, PA city total only for 2012?

No. The city aggregate of $322,266,398 covers every cycle in the table for PHILADELPHIA. The 2012 filter is $1,344,079 from 650 itemized gifts. Other cycles hold $320,922,319. Use the city hub for the all-cycle total and this tie page for the 2012 slice.

Did Philadelphia, PA 2012 donations stay in Pennsylvania?

Not necessarily. Donor city is Philadelphia, PA; recipients can be committees anywhere that file with the FEC. This join does not allocate the $1,344,079 by office, state of the committee, or party. A PA city code is an address field on the individual receipt, not a map of Pennsylvania races.

How many Philadelphia, PA contributions were itemized in 2012?

650 itemized contribution records sum to $1,344,079. That count is rows, not unique donors. The arithmetic mean is about $2,068 per row. Unitemized gifts below the FEC threshold and independent expenditures are not included. Citywide unique-donor counts are not in these facts.