The Spark Newspaper articlesCorporations choose the Democrats this time
Corporations shifted a much larger share of their donations to Democrats this year than in recent elections.
The Republicans raised somewhat more money, getting 632 million dollars. But the Democrats, at 616 million, got almost as much. Compare this to the 2002 election when the Republicans beat out the Democrats 342 million dollars to 249 million.
Time Warner, the media conglomerate, gave 71 per cent of its 1.4 million dollars in donations to the Democrats this year.
Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, which had given 67 per cent of its donations to Republicans during the first nine months of the year, gave 59 per cent of contributions to Democrats during the last month of the campaign.
Even Wall Street got onto the Democratic bandwagon. Brokerage firms gave 51 per cent of their donations to the Democrats in this year, compared with 48 per cent in 2004.
It seems that a lot of companies, CEOs and media outlets decided this year that the Republicans had worn out their usefulness. They need someone else to carry the torch for them – and they knew they could depend on the Democrats.