Visualizing US Election Contributions By Corporate Employees

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a tightly matched race, with political donations now leaning in the Democratic party’s favor.

Since President Joe Biden withdrew his nomination in July, a flood of donations have poured in to support Harris’s bid for the White House. The vice president erased Trump’s fundraising advantage in under a month, with 66% of contributions coming from first-time donors.

But what can we learn about political donations when looking at it from a corporate angle?

This graphic shows the top companies by employee election contributions in 2024, based on data from Quiver Quantitative.

The 10 Highest Corporate Employee Contributions

Here are the companies with the most political donations among employees so far this year:

As of August 8, 2024.

Employees at News Corp, the parent company to Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, have contributed overwhelmingly to the Democratic party, despite it being a conservative-leaning conglomerate.

Altogether, political donations stand at over $8.3 million, the highest in corporate America. The corporate entity itself has split donations evenly between both parties in recent years, allowing employees to contribute to political associations as they choose.

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of private equity giant, Blackstone, is one of Donald Trump’s largest corporate backers. Like their CEO, Blackstone employees are throwing their weight behind the former president, likely due to Trump’s pro-business policies and proposed tax cuts.

Meanwhile, employees at big tech companies and other large financial firms are donating substantially to 2024 election campaigns. Netflix, Alphabet, and Microsoft employees heavily lean Democratic, while employees at Charles Schwab and First Bank favor Trump. Over the summer, former chief executive of Alphabet, Eric Schmidt, made a six-figure contribution to the Democrat campaign.

As we can see, software giant Palantir is the most evenly divided, with employees slightly favoring the Republican party. Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale is a major supporter of Donald Trump, contributing to Elon Musk’s America PAC, alongside the Winklevoss twins and other tech titans.

To learn more about this topic from a corporate perspective, check out this graphic on the companies with the most PAC donations in 2024.