The Whole Picture
Money Isn’t Everything
A campaign’s footprint isn’t just dollars. Mailers use paper and ink. Signs use polypropylene plastic. Cars burn fuel to place them.
AI has a footprint too. Data centers use electricity and water. That’s worth being honest about.
So this page tracks both — money and carbon, line by line, for both campaigns.
The Comparison
Six Buckets. Two Campaigns. Both Costs.
195 expense records from the incumbent’s 2021 public filings, organized into six buckets. Click any row to expand the top vendors.
Carbon values are in kg CO₂e — kilograms of carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions.
Top vendors in the incumbent’s 2021 filings:
- Minuteman Press — $18,576
- Rose Press — $9,015
- USPS postage — $3,260
- Bedford Dems printing transfers (multiple entries)
- Staples, GotPrint, Fridgedoor magnets
Inter-committee transfers and political donations:
- Bedford Dems 2023 — $10,000
- Bedford Dems 2025 — $5,000
- Bedford Democratic Committee — $4,213
- Other Bedford Dems committee variants (multiple entries)
- Chris Burdick for Assembly — $1,200
- Smaller transfers to Bowman, Delgado, Harckham, Buchwald campaigns
Itemized reimbursements to campaign staff and the candidate, per public filings.
Consultants, platforms, and professional vendors:
- Maria Colaco — $5,000
- Jovan Richards — $2,000
- Good Rebellion — $1,750
- Get Through (voter contact platform) — $1,673
- Amy Drucker Photography, Shiloni Pinto, design vendors (additional entries)
Paid advertising in local press and online:
- The Record Review (across name variants) — $5,725
- Halston Media — $3,850
- Kaye Media Partners — $2,280
Incumbent’s 2021 events, digital tools, and platform fees (website hosting moved to the row below):
- Katonah Museum of Art (venue) — $1,018
- Balducci’s, Whole Foods, Farmer & the Fish (event catering)
- NY League of Conservation Voters
- Act Blue platform fees
UNCAMPAIGN: domain registration ($13.12) — the campaign’s only expenditure to date.
$37,676
1,884
$0
0
Top vendors in the incumbent’s 2021 filings:
- Minuteman Press — $18,576
- Rose Press — $9,015
- USPS postage — $3,260
- Bedford Dems printing transfers (multiple entries)
- Staples, GotPrint, Fridgedoor magnets
$30,738
2,459
$0
0
Inter-committee transfers and political donations:
- Bedford Dems 2023 — $10,000
- Bedford Dems 2025 — $5,000
- Bedford Democratic Committee — $4,213
- Other Bedford Dems committee variants (multiple entries)
- Chris Burdick for Assembly — $1,200
- Smaller transfers to Bowman, Delgado, Harckham, Buchwald campaigns
$15,684
2,353
$0
0
Itemized reimbursements to campaign staff and the candidate, per public filings.
$13,724
1,372
$0
0
Consultants, platforms, and professional vendors:
- Maria Colaco — $5,000
- Jovan Richards — $2,000
- Good Rebellion — $1,750
- Get Through (voter contact platform) — $1,673
- Amy Drucker Photography, Shiloni Pinto, design vendors (additional entries)
$13,466
539
$0
0
Paid advertising in local press and online:
- The Record Review (across name variants) — $5,725
- Halston Media — $3,850
- Kaye Media Partners — $2,280
$5,214
1,043
$13.12
8
Incumbent’s events, digital tools, and platform fees (website hosting moved below). UNCAMPAIGN: domain registration ($13.12) — the only expenditure to date.
- Katonah Museum of Art (venue) — $1,018
- Balducci’s, Whole Foods, Farmer & the Fish (event catering)
- Act Blue platform fees
$0
0
$0
~35
$1,519
~12
$0
~10
$118,021
~9,662
$13.12
~53
The UNCAMPAIGN, by Comparison
That’s what running a campaign without mailers, signs, consultants, and direct mail looks like.
Less money. Less waste. Less noise.
Carbon in Context
What These Numbers Look Like
The Incumbent (2021)
~9,662 kg CO2e
- About 27,000 miles driven in a typical 25-mpg car
- The annual electricity use of about 2 US homes
- About 1,100 gallons of gasoline burned
- About 75 round trips by car, Bedford to Boston
The UNCAMPAIGN (2026)
~53 kg CO2e
- About 150 miles driven in a typical 25-mpg car
- About 4 days of electricity for a typical US home
- About 6 gallons of gasoline burned
- Under half of one round trip by car, Bedford to Boston
Equivalents use US EPA factors: 8.887 kg CO2 per gallon of gasoline, 4.6 metric tons per average passenger car per year, and ~4.8 metric tons per US home’s annual electricity. Driving figures assume a 25-mpg car. Bedford, NY to Boston, MA is about 182 miles one way (~364-mile round trip); mileage varies by route.
Show Your Work
How We Got Here.
Every dollar figure on this page comes from the incumbent’s public campaign finance filings with the New York State Board of Elections. Every carbon figure comes from published emission factors applied to those dollar figures and cross-checked against physical-unit estimates.
Dollars
The Money
195 expense records from the incumbent’s 2021 campaign filings, categorized into the six buckets above. No “other” category — every dollar assigned to a substantive line.
Carbon
The Math
Each incumbent spending bucket carries an emission factor (kg CO2e per dollar) drawn from published lifecycle studies and US EPA input-output models. For the UNCAMPAIGN, AI usage is calculated directly: ~50 substantive Claude queries per day across ~180 active campaign days (9,000 total queries), at ~1 Wh per query (mid-range across published estimates) and US grid carbon intensity of 0.39 kg CO2e per kWh. A 10× safety multiplier accounts for agentic use, long context, and image generation. Result: ~35 kg CO2e. Conservative midpoints throughout — we’d rather overclaim our footprint than underclaim it.
Sun et al. 2018 · US EPA EEIO · OpenAI / Husom et al. 2025 · EPA eGRID
Caveats
The Honesty
Footprint numbers are estimates, not direct measurements. AI energy use varies across an order of magnitude in published research; we used a generous mid-range and added a safety multiplier.
Our judgment, transparently applied
Sources & Methodology Campaign-finance filings, EPA emission factors, and AI-energy research — every figure on this page is linked to its primary source. Tap to expand.
Campaign finance records
- NY State Board of Elections — Candidate/Committee Disclosure Search — 2021-cycle filings for Bedford Dems 2021 (ID# 186180) and Friends of Ellen Calves (ID# 18354). Search by committee name or ID.
Carbon & emissions methodology
- Paper & printing: Sun et al. (2018), Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 92:823–833 — meta-analysis of pulp-and-paper emissions (~950 kg CO2e per tonne).
- Polypropylene / signs: Plastics-industry life-cycle data (~3.4 kg CO2e per kg polypropylene).
- Services intensity: US EPA Environmentally-Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) Models.
- Grid carbon intensity: US EPA eGRID (~0.39 kg CO2e/kWh, US average).
- Vehicle, fuel & home equivalents: US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, EPA — Typical Passenger Vehicle, and EPA Calculations & References (8.887 kg CO2/gal; 4.6 t per car-year; ~4.8 t per home-year).
AI & digital infrastructure methodology
- OpenAI / Sam Altman public disclosure (June 2025) — ~0.34 Wh per query.
- Husom et al. (2025), arXiv:2505.09598 — measured 0.42–2.5 Wh per query.
Distance & comparison assumptions
- Bedford to Boston: Google Maps driving route — about 182 miles one way (~364-mile round trip); mileage varies by route.
- Driving figures assume a typical 25-mpg car. Carbon estimates use conservative midpoints throughout — we’d rather overstate our own footprint than understate it.
Anyone is welcome to check our math. The filings are public, the factors are cited, the estimates are conservative on purpose.