Tech cash flows to Dems despite scrutiny
The technology industry is spending big to elect Democrats in 2020, even as the party’s presidential candidates vow to get tough on regulating Silicon Valley.
The tech industry, from its leading companies to its liberal-leaning workforce, has long been a major source for Democratic contributions. Numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics show that trend continuing even amid new scrutiny on big tech from Democratic lawmakers and candidates and as progressive groups push to bar donations from other powerful industries.
The numbers: The big four technology companies — Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple — and their employees have given over $5.3 million collectively in campaign contributions in the 2020 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The totals, based on Federal Election Commission data through the third quarter of 2019, include money from the companies, their owners and employees and immediate families, as well as their PACs.
Facebook and its employees have donated $824,600 so far in the 2020 cycle, and 70 percent of that has gone to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics numbers. In 2016 and 2018, 67 percent went to Democrats.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and its employees have donated more than $2.1 million so far this cycle, and 81 percent of that — more than $1.7 million — has gone to Democrats. They gave more than $8.2 million in 2018 and 73 percent of that went to Democrats, while in 2016, 62 percent of Alphabet’s more than $9.1 million in donations went to Democrats.
Amazon and its employees have given more than $1.7 million in the 2020 cycle, and 74 percent of that to Democrats. In both 2016 and 2018, more than two-thirds went to Democrats.
Apple and its employees have contributed only $605,308 so far in the 2020 cycle, with 96 percent for Democrats. They have given more than 70 percent of each cycle’s campaign contributions to Democrats consistently since the 2004 cycle. In 2018, 90 percent of their more than $1.8 million in donations went to the party.
Those figures come even as the once cozy relationship between Silicon Valley and Democrats has entered a rough patch.
The tension: Democrats have pressed the tech industry on a number of fronts, including the biggest companies’ market power and competitive practices, the gender and racial makeup of the industry’s workforce, efforts to crack down on violent and extremist content and over how social media players handle political speech.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), two presidential candidates, have both called for breaking up tech giants. And Warren has said she would not take money from prominent tech executives, just as other candidates, under pressure from progressives, have similarly sworn off cash from special interest groups, Wall Street and the oil and gas industry.
