Republican donations surge despite corporate boycott after Capitol riots
Right after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, dozens of U.S. companies announced they would halt political donations to the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn Donald Trump’s presidential election loss. Two months later, there is little sign that the corporate revolt has done any real damage to Republican fundraising.
If anything, the biggest backers of Trump’s false election-fraud narrative – such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – have been rewarded with a flood of grassroots donations, more than offsetting the loss of corporate money. And contributions from both small donors and rich individuals looking to fight the Democratic agenda have poured into the party’s fundraising apparatus.
The boycott’s limited impact underscores the diminishing role of corporate money in U.S. politics. Individual donations of $200 or less have made up a growing share of campaign money in recent years, while the share given by corporate America shrinks. That trend has accelerated with the rise of anti-establishment figures on both the right and left, such as Trump and progressive firebrand Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator. [Continue reading…]