After Jan. 6, numerous corporations said their PACs would stop or pause contributions to those who objected to the election results. It didn’t last long.
Political action committees affiliated with more than 70 major corporations said they would pause or reconsider donations to those who objected to certifying the results of the 2020 election after the attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago.
Then they gave more than $10 million to members of Congress who did just that, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal campaign finance filings.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 riots — fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — dozens of companies including Walmart, Comcast and Lockheed Martin said they would either suspend political donations entirely or specifically cut off Republicans who echoed Trump’s stolen election claims or voted against certifying the election results.
But over the next two years, amid a contentious midterm battle, less than half of those companies kept those promises for a full election cycle, the analysis of campaign donations found.
The contributions made by corporate political action committees to the 147 members of Congress who sought to challenge the election results represent only a small fraction of the more than $350 million that those members raised over the past two years.
But the totals still add up to significant support. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who raised more than $27 million during the 2022 election cycle and objected to the election results along with the majority of his party in the House, brought in $285,000 from the PACs of companies that had once pushed back against election denialism. He remains locked in a leadership battle, with the House yet to elect a speaker.
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Accountable.US conducted a similar analysis of Fortune 100 companies, which constitute the upper echelon of American businesses. The organization found that out of the 50 companies that pledged to pause or reconsider political donations after the Jan. 6 attack — either specifically to those who voted against certification, or political contributions entirely — 34 went on to give at least $5.6 million to members who voted against certification over the last two years.
Cigna, the health insurance company, told employees days after the Jan. 6 attack that it would “discontinue support of any elected official who encouraged or supported violence, or otherwise hindered the peaceful transition of power,” according to an internal email obtained at the time by CNBC. It was among the first of the companies making such a promise to resume contributions, POLITICO’s analysis found, giving $11,500 in March 2021 to five Republican members who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election. Through November 2022, the company gave more than $200,000 to election certification objectors.
In total, fifteen of those Fortune 100 companies identified by Accountable.US gave at least $100,000 to those objectors through their corporate PACs: AT&T, Boeing, Cigna, Comcast, General Motors, Home Depot, Lockheed Martin, Marathon Petroleum, Pfizer, Raytheon, UPS, UnitedHealth, Valaro, Verizon and Walmart.
AT&T, Cigna, Comcast, Marathon Petroleum, Raytheon, UPS, UnitedHealth, Valero and Verizon did not respond to a request for comment. Boeing declined to comment. Those who did comment largely declined to mention Jan. 6 or their previous statements on the issue.
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After Jan. 6, numerous corporations said their PACs would stop or pause contributions to those who objected to the election results. It didn't last long.https://t.co/qDAHRkqldc
— POLITICO (@politico) January 6, 2023
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