Tech Places Presidential Bets
The U.S. presidential election is roaring up. Industry contributions have become a standard feature of the ritual, so I thought it might be interesting to see how high tech invests … oh, sorry — donates. You might think that companies would be pretty cold-blooded about such things, wanting to keep on the good side of whoever takes residence on Pennsylvania Avenue. But some time at Maplight.org (a great site for seeing the connection between politics and money) showed that donations have largely been fairly one-sided, with some surprising strength by people who cannot win their parties’ nominations.
Here’s a breakout of donations by various industry sectors that together more or less make up the technology industry. All totals are as of July 31, 2008.
| Industry Sector | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton | Ron Paul | John McCain | Industry Totals |
| Computer Software | $1,257,496 | $838,301 | $492,121 | $228,937 | $2,816,855 |
| Data Processing and Computer Services | $522,179 | $513,819 | $203,602 | $154,025 | $1,393,625 |
| Computers, components, and accessories | $448,173 | $434,341 | $146,204 | $138,058 | $1,166,776 |
| Online computer services | $1,147,198 | $508,651 | $202,421 | $170,735 | $2,029,005 |
| Computer manufacture & services | $414,964 | $327,788 | $116,942 | $73,216 | $932,910 |
| Electronics manufacturing & services | $195,339 | $220,750 | $62,370 | $139,000 | $617,459 |
| Misc. Communications & Electronics | $49,529 | $63,660 | $500 | $9,500 | $123,189 |
| Cellular systems and equipment | $138,758 | $247,635 | $18,743 | $104,800 | $509,936 |
| Other Communications Services | $52,108 | $30,945 | $2,100 | $13,650 | $98,803 |
| Satellite communications | $17,250 | $74,675 | $2,685 | $11,100 | $105,710 |
| Telecommunications | $125,301 | $343,405 | $16,650 | $78,325 | $563,681 |
| Telephone & communications equipment | $114,871 | $87,860 | $33,182 | $31,151 | $267,064 |
| Long-distance telephone & telegraph service | $46,200 | $38,850 | $1,500 | $100,850 | $187,400 |
| Telephone utilities | $298,065 | $337,277 | $73,171 | $409,585 | $1,118,098 |
| Totals | $4,827,431 | $4,067,957 | $1,372,191 | $1,662,932 | $11,930,511 |
Notice that even though Hillary Clinton conceded the primary on June 7 and McCain had the Republican nomination wrapped up months ago, both Clinton and Ron Paul received amounts very close to the two nominees, suggesting strongly divided leanings in the industry.
In almost every category, both Obama and Hillary Clinton far out-raised McCain. The only exception is telephone utilities, where McCain raised almost $410,000 to Obama’s $298,065 and Clinton’s $337,277. It will be interesting to see where things stand when the August numbers get added in, probably a few days from now.
However, if dollars beget consideration, the technology industry will be standing in a queue behind other parts of the business economy that give more. The next two tables (data from OpenSecrets.org, another great money and politics site) show industry donations for McCain and Obama as of July 31. The closest match to the collection of sectors above is the Computers/Internet category — not a perfect match, but the numbers are reasonably close. For McCain, that group is 17th out of 20 business sectors and special interest groups.
| Rank | Industry | Total |
| 1 | Retired | $23,536,345 |
| 2 | Lawyers/Law Firms | $7,959,446 |
| 3 | Securities & Investment | $6,893,293 |
| 4 | Real Estate | $6,796,844 |
| 5 | Misc Finance | $3,907,413 |
| 6 | Health Professionals | $3,563,798 |
| 7 | Misc Business | $3,122,709 |
| 8 | Business Services | $2,550,153 |
| 9 | Commercial Banks | $1,868,224 |
| 10 | Insurance | $1,655,352 |
| 11 | Oil & Gas | $1,619,390 |
| 12 | General Contractors | $1,401,581 |
| 13 | Misc Manufacturing & Distributing | $1,325,847 |
| 14 | Civil Servants/Public Officials | $1,281,202 |
| 15 | Education | $1,187,867 |
| 16 | Republican/Conservative | $1,182,474 |
| 17 | Computers/Internet | $1,051,038 |
| 18 | TV/Movies/Music | $885,659 |
| 19 | Lobbyists | $841,716 |
| 20 | Automotive | $835,980 |
As we’ve seen, Obama seems to have greater affinity for high tech, but even here it only rises to tenth place.
| Rank | Industry | Total |
| 1 | Lawyers/Law Firms | $24,060,136 |
| 2 | Retired | $23,180,767 |
| 3 | Education | $10,375,038 |
| 4 | Securities & Investment | $9,873,356 |
| 5 | Business Services | $6,746,937 |
| 6 | Real Estate | $6,421,385 |
| 7 | Health Professionals | $5,852,212 |
| 8 | Misc Business | $5,411,083 |
| 9 | TV/Movies/Music | $5,161,298 |
| 10 | Computers/Internet | $4,258,226 |
| 11 | Misc Finance | $3,970,218 |
| 12 | Civil Servants/Public Officials | $3,850,719 |
| 13 | Printing & Publishing | $3,478,240 |
| 14 | Democratic/Liberal | $2,899,338 |
| 15 | Other | $2,097,412 |
| 16 | Commercial Banks | $2,081,809 |
| 17 | Hospitals/Nursing Homes | $1,681,256 |
| 18 | Non-Profit Institutions | $1,563,082 |
| 19 | Construction Services | $1,407,576 |
| 20 | Insurance | $1,290,434 |
It’s clear that high tech is hardly the biggest spending industry, which seems a puzzle, given the issues — ranging from consumer privacy and availability of guest worker visas to telecom immunity for cooperating with homeland security — facing it. You’d think that lubricating the relationship with government might be worth more than a sum that would barely be a rounding error in Microsoft’s or Google’s annual profit. The two top donors for both McCain and Obama? Retired persons and lawyers.
Voting booth instruction image via Flickr user spcoon, CC 2.0.
Erik Sherman is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, Technology Review, the Financial Times, Chief Executive, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter.
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