Corporate America's leftward shift

The big picture: The shift reflects a broader change in classic political alliances.

• White college-educated adults are increasingly identifying as Democratic; while those without degrees are moving right.
• The realignment is reflected in Republicans' effort to woo the labor vote — and the movement of some rank-and-file union members to the GOP.

Zoom in: The nation's business leaders were once a key source of support for the Republican Party, but are now more "ideologically fractured," writes Reilly Steel, a lecturer at Columbia Law School, in a working paper published earlier this month.

How it works: Steel looked at data on campaign contributions from executives at the top 4,000 U.S. firms, by revenue, annually from 2001-2022. He scored donations to campaigns and causes as more or less left or right.

• It was a universe of more than 97,000 leaders — from CEOs, to board directors, C-suite executives and senior managers like vice-presidents.
• On average, they're spending about $535 million per electoral cycle across federal, state and local elections, he says.

Contributions were analyzed by party preference and by distinctions within parties.

• For example, money given to Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored more left than contributions to Sen. Joe Manchin — an Independent who was a very moderate Democrat at the time of the analysis.
• Money given to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) scored farther right than to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

What they found: "There's been a meaningful shift left in Corporate America, but it's still ideologically fractured," Steel said in an interview with Axios. "By no means has the left taken over big business."

• There's been an increase in the number of executives up and down the corporate ladder who donate largely to left-leaning politicians and political action committees. CEOs still lean a little bit right of center on average.
• Below them, senior managers now skew strongly liberal. They're more likely to give to more left-wing Dems. Twenty years ago this group was more evenly split between liberals and conservatives.

Part of what's going on is that senior leadership has grown more diverse — and women and Black and Hispanic executives tend to skew more liberal. (Senior managers are a more diverse cohort than CEOs.)

• Many of these companies are hiring talent from more liberal parts of the country.

Flashback: The schism between a CEO's politics and those in the ranks below arguably led to trouble for Disney a few years ago.

• The entertainment giant — reportedly at the urging of employees — spoke out against Florida's so-called Don't Say Gay legislation, and wound up embroiled in a political feud and a public relations muddle.

Zoom out: The "decoupling" of business from the GOP "represents one of the most significant changes in American politics in decades," a separate paper published last year by a political science professor at Tufts.

Reality check: The research doesn't look at the political affiliations of executives who don't make political donations — so it might be covering a more polarized group.

• The data also doesn't cover 2023 and 2024, a time of rapidly intensifying backlash against corporate stand-taking.
• And it's worth noting that one of the biggest partisan swings in the business world has been Elon Musk's rightward leap.

The bottom line: Since at least 2020, when so many companies spoke up in the wake of George Floyd's killing, companies have been labeled as overtly liberal by right-wing commentators.

• Those claims may not be as empty as critics claim, Steel writes.