Firm Partisanship: How Stakeholders Influence Party Proximity among Companies

• In Event: Electoral Spending Strategies and Political Influence

Abstract

Traditionally, the business community has worked in coalition with the Republican party. Recently, scholars have explored the extent to which businesses have moved away from this strategy (Hersh & Shah, 2023; Hopkins, 2022). But to date, there has been no large-scale examination of the business community and its disposition towards the political parties. This project examines the party proximity of 1,472 firms that make political contributions in Federal elections (Meli, 2023). I find that a company’s influence company party proximity. Since the owners of privately-held companies have more control over a company’s political decision-making, companies that are privately owned are more likely to affiliate with a political party than those that are shareholder owned. I also find that employees drive the relationship between the company and the political parties. This work contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, it explores the significant variation in partisanship among companies that has been suggested by other scholars (Bonica, 2014; Crosson et al., 2020). Second, it helps us understand the way the business community’s posture towards the political parties has changed over the years. Finally, this work provides a basis for comparison for the scholars that are exploring potential party realignment in U.S. politics.

Author

• Amy D. Meli, University of Virginia