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IT industry rallies behind Obama

by on27 August 2008

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Google, Microsoft employees among top contributors


With the
U.S. election campaign heating up, we thought it would be a good idea to check the IT industry's take on things. The lists of top contributors for Barack Obama and John McCain, as well as contributions to their parties as a whole, reveal a few interesting trends.

IT loves Democrats. In the 2008 election cycle the communications/electronics industry contributed a total of $32,097,925. The Democrats got $23,694,719, while the GOP was stuck with just $8,353,709. The GOP doesn't seem to be doing well in other industries either, with Democrats getting more contributions across the board.

However, the Democrats' lead in the communications/electronics sector is still impressive, as the gap is much smaller when it comes to other industries.

Looking at the individual candidates and their top donors, coming from corporate political action committees, employees or owners, Obama seems to be winning over the tech industry. Google is his sixth largest contributor, with $404,191, while Microsoft coughed up $326,847 in support of his campaign. Hillary Clinton got $190,119 from Microsoft. Surprisingly, Clinton got  $167,750 from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Republican John McCain doesn't seem to be too popular among techies, although AT&T donated $174,497 to his campaign.

When it comes to the biggest donors, the same names appear across the board, proving once again that big business knows no partisan lines. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are just some of the names appearing in both Obama's and McCain's top ten contributors.

You can find out more about Obama's donors here, and McCain's list of donors can be found here. Although Clinton is out of the running, you can check out her sheet here.

 

Last modified on 28 August 2008
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