Archive for March, 2008

Campaign Contributions from Tech Companies in 2008

Saturday, March 1st, 2008

Open Secrets has a list of Top Contributors to Federal Campaigns in the 2008 Election Cycle. If you drill down in the the Computers/Internet category, you will notice that the contributions seem to be favoring the Democrats, who have received 60% of the sectors contributions in this cycle. Looking back at 2006, it was 51% Democrats and 49% Republicans

Other stats of note:

  • Total Contributions in 2006 Elections: $18.4M
  • Total Contributions so far in 2008 Elections: $13M
  • Top Contributor in 2008: Microsoft $900K
  • Top Contributor in 2006: Microsoft $2.03 Million
  • Microsoft’s Total Federal Contributions in 2006 ($2M) are about the same as the combined contributions of Dell, Intel, HP, IBM, Google, Yahoo, and Oracle. ($2,4M)
  • Google has contributed more so far in 2008 ($389,712) than it did in the entire 2006 cycle ($288,987)
  • Of the Top 20 Tech companies contributing to Federal Campaigns in 2008. Only 5 of them have favored the Republican Party in their contributions EMC (77%), Dell (61%), Compuware (72%), Perot Systems (90%), Intel (57%).

With the election cycle just getting started, I’m curious if these numbers mean we will see a much larger contributions from the technology sector in the 2008 election year.

I’m including some of the 2008/2006 data from Open Secrets bellow. Expect to see some more posts from me over the next few weeks, as John Mark and I do research for bytesfree.org as well as our upcoming presentation  at LUG Radio Live USA 2008.

2008 Contributions to Date:

Rank

Organization

Amount

Dems

Repubs

Source
Indivs
PACs
Soft $

1

$975,882

68%

32%

2

Cisco Systems

$609,649

65%

35%

3

Google Inc

$389,712

79%

21%

4

Hewlett-Packard

$257,957

54%

46%

5

eBay Inc

$257,500

56%

44%

6

IBM Corp

$245,396

62%

37%

7

Intel Corp

$218,416

43%

57%

8

Oracle Corp

$209,613

72%

28%

9

EDS Corp

$202,235

52%

46%

10

Yahoo! Inc

$197,079

85%

15%

11

EMC Corp

$185,580

23%

77%

12

eScription Inc

$178,350

100%

0%

13

Dell Inc

$172,270

39%

61%

14

Intuit Inc

$171,812

69%

30%

15

Technet

$161,645

69%

31%

16

Compuware Corp

$152,215

28%

72%

17

Symantec Corp

$127,697

83%

17%

18

Perot Systems

$116,425

10%

90%

19

ProLogic Inc

$112,650

93%

7%

20

Progeny Systems

$110,750

68%

32%

2006 Contributions to Date:

Rank

Organization

Amount

Dems

Repubs

Source
Indivs
PACs
Soft $

1

$2,030,142

56%

43%

2

Cisco Systems

$680,717

62%

36%

3

Siebel Systems

$663,750

10%

89%

4

Intel Corp

$514,664

37%

61%

5

Dell Inc

$392,352

19%

81%

6

Hewlett-Packard

$336,142

43%

53%

7

IBM Corp

$320,945

61%

35%

8

Google Inc

$288,987

91%

9%

9

Yahoo! Inc

$283,388

62%

37%

10

Oracle Corp

$279,645

35%

64%

11

Prologic Inc

$258,150

84%

16%

12

eBay Inc

$244,969

46%

54%

13

EDS Corp

$238,165

39%

60%

14

Unisys Corp

$224,485

32%

64%

15

Achievement Technologies

$214,300

99%

1%

16

SAP America

$205,194

36%

63%

17

Computer Sciences Corp

$205,004

36%

64%

18

EMC Corp

$203,983

26%

72%

19

Progeny Systems

$203,875

71%

29%

20

SI International

$198,575

9%

91%

links for 2008-03-01

Saturday, March 1st, 2008