Arlington, VA political money — 2012 cycle

Why Arlington and 2012 need a third URL

A city hub that mixes every cycle cannot tell a reader what 2012 alone produced. A cycle hub that mixes every city cannot tell a reader what Arlington, VA alone produced. $148,110 is the number that appears only after both filters. 96 is the matching row count — a modest itemized file.

2012 accounts for under 0.1% of $801,865,991. Other cycles hold $801,717,881 (100.0%). 2012 is a presidential election cycle. Mean itemized size is about $1,543. Those are packet facts, not a ranking of Arlington against other places.

Source: FEC.gov individual contribution aggregates by donor city and election cycle. The figures are not PAC transfers and not unitemized gifts. They do not assign motive to any contributor.

The Virginia city field

Arlington is an independent county in Virginia, across the Potomac from the District. Arlington, Texas is a different state key; Alexandria and McLean are other Virginia strings. $801,865,991 is that string across cycles, state VA only. Same-named cities in other states are out of this book. Virginia campaign finance still includes every other city in the state; do not add $148,110 on top of that roll-up.

Contributor city is not recipient city. Committees can file anywhere. This page does not allocate $148,110 by office or party and does not invent donor names.

Inside the 2012 window

The Commission tags itemized receipts with a two-year cycle. 2012 is that tag, not a single calendar year. National activity for the window lives on the 2012 election cycle hub. Arlington, VA's piece of it, in this extract, is $148,110.

Unitemized gifts sit outside the join. Independent expenditures sit outside the join. Federal award obligations sit outside the join. All FEC ties lists other filters; none of them funds USAspending from FEC receipts.

Filer spelling and metro splits

A donor who typed ARLINGTON is in $148,110. A donor who typed a neighborhood, employer city, or adjacent suburb is not silently recoded here. Metro areas routinely split across several city pages. 96 counts lines that stored this string in 2012, not a labor-force census.

2012 is a presidential election cycle: a two-year FEC window, not a January-to-December cash diary and not a verdict on Arlington politics. Presidential windows include a presidential general; midterm windows do not. That classification does not explain $148,110. The Commission’s cycle tag on the receipt is the only cycle fact in the packet. Party splits for these 96 lines are not stored here.

Caveats

Amended reports can move $148,110 or $801,865,991. Live hubs win if they disagree with this prose. Correlation is not causation. See Arlington, VA, the 2012 election cycle, Virginia campaign finance, and All FEC ties. Source: FEC.gov.

96 is a receipt count for Arlington, VA in 2012, a modest itemized file. A household that gave on two dates is two lines. An office or joint-fundraising address stored as ARLINGTON sits in the same city field as a residential street. LobbyVault does not convert that field into a Census residency test. Unique-person counts are not in the facts and are not estimated from 96. Mean size of about $1,543 is $148,110 divided by 96, an arithmetic ratio, not a median donor.

Share of the city book is under 0.1% because $148,110 divided by $801,865,991 equals that percentage. The complement is 100.0% sitting in $801,717,881. Those shares use only this city aggregate as the denominator. They are not Arlington's share of Virginia and not Arlington's share of the national 2012 cycle. Those other denominators are absent from the packet.

Keep VA on the citation. Arlington is an independent county in Virginia, across the Potomac from the District. Arlington, Texas is a different state key; Alexandria and McLean are other Virginia strings. A repeated city name under another postal abbreviation is a different FEC key. $801,865,991 is the VA key only. Donor city is not recipient city: committees that received these gifts can file from anywhere in the FEC system. This join does not allocate $148,110 by office, party, or committee state.

Questions

What is the Arlington and 2012 join on LobbyVault?

It is the overlap of contributor city ARLINGTON with state VA and election cycle 2012: $148,110 on 96 itemized receipts. The Arlington, VA hub still mixes other cycles ($801,865,991 citywide). The 2012 cycle hub still mixes other cities. This URL is only the intersection.

Does $148,110 include unitemized Arlington gifts?

No. $148,110 is itemized Schedule A activity stored with city ARLINGTON in cycle 2012. Gifts below the FEC itemization threshold are omitted. Independent expenditures and committee-to-committee transfers are other tables. The citywide book of $801,865,991 is also an itemized aggregate.

Is $1,543 a typical Arlington donor in 2012?

No. $1,543 is $148,110 divided by 96 rows. Repeat gifts, large one-time itemizations, and small itemized gifts all sit in that mean. The packet has no median and no unique-person count, so the ratio is arithmetic only, not a household portrait of Arlington, VA.

Where should I read Arlington without a 2012 filter?

Open the Arlington, VA city hub for the $801,865,991 all-cycle book. Open the 2012 election cycle hub for the national two-year window. Open Virginia campaign finance for the state roll-up. All FEC ties lists other city-cycle pages built the same way.