Communications and Electronics Industry:Corporate Donations to Political Candidates

The total amount of money from the whole Communications and Electronics industry is around 1 billion dollars between the Democrats and Republicans. Much to my surprise, this industry in 2004 gave 19 million more to the Democrats than they did the Republicans. This startled me because often times we are told that the media doesn't have a liberal bias, but if you look at this section and look at the numbers, you begin to think that the media does have a small liberal bias.

In the Books, Magazines, and Newspapers industry the money again was given in favor of the Democrats. The Democrats in 2004 received $11,656,356, which was 75% of the funds, whereas the Republicans received $3,843,502, which accounted for the other 25% of the money. In 2004, the number of individual donations from this industry went from 5 million dollars to 15 million dollars, which in the industry is quite a substantial increase. In every year except 1996, this industry has always given more money to the Democrats.

The biggest source of campaign cash is within the print industry. Paper costs and mailing rate are major concerns of the industry as well as the Web. In 2004, the print industry gave $6,251 to the Democrats, $4,594 to the Republicans, and $3,750 to the one and only Independent in Congress. Their total donations to date are $1,713,606. In terms of the Senate, the total donations overall to date is $3,784,310. Again the Democrats dominate the most money donations from this industry.

When looking at the top contributors of 2004, one cant help but notice that the number one contributor NewsCorp gives 38% of the $430,875 to Democrats. With Rupert Murdoch being one of the most conservative Media Owners in the industry, I found this to be very interesting, however I thought it was at least a nice gesture to give some money to both sides of the political spectrum. The number 2 contributor for 2004 for was Paisano Publications, giving all $210,017 to the Republicans. The third highest contributor was Phillips International, again giving 100% of its contributions to the Republican Party.

The top recipients for 2004 for donations from the print industry were of some shock to me as I thought for sure that George W. Bush would have been the highest, however John Kerry took that spot. John Kerry received $2,661,271 and George W. Bush came in 2nd place with $681,195. There is a huge difference in terms of money there, and I found that to be rather interesting considering who won the actual presidential election. In a close 3rd was Dean Howard who didn't receive much less than our current President with an amount of $609,944.