Industry Contributions to Political Parties

Political donations by industry separated to reflect the major US political parties from 1990-2010. Based on information from OpenSecrets.org.

I have highlighted the outliers to show which political party receives most from which industry. Industries are sorted by total contributions with major investors first.

• Laywers/Law Firms: Dem 73% Rep 26% ($1,078.4 M)
• Health Professionals: Dem 43% Rep 56% ($488.1 M)
• Insurance: Dem 37% Rep 63% ($327.4 M)
• TV/Movies/Music: Dem 70% Rep 29% ($266.7 M)
• Oil & Gas: Dem 24% Rep 75% ($248.8 M)
• Banks: Dem 41% Rep 59% ($222.7 M)
• Computers/Internet: Dem 55% Rep 45% ($194.7 M)
• Pharmaceuticals: Dem 37% Rep 64% ($181.7 M)
• Education: Dem 73% Rep 25% ($180.1 M)
• Lobbyists: Dem 54% Rep 46% ($173.9 M)
• Telephone Utilities: Dem 44% Rep 55% ($119.9 M)
• Accountants: Dem 41% Rep 58% ($119 M)
• Casinos: Dem 56% Rep 44% ($92.3 M)
• Tobacco: Dem 26% Rep 74% ($63.4 M)
• Hedge Funds: Dem 65% Rep 34% ($41.2 M)
• Gun Rights: Dem 14% Rep 85% ($21.8 M)
• Pro-Choice: Dem 81% Rep 18% ($19 M)
• Pro-Life: Dem 4% Rep 95% ($7 M)
• Gun Control: Dem 94% Rep 6% ($1.8 M)

The big surprises for me were law firms and hedge funds donating to Democrats. I don't know what that entails exactly.

Interestingly, big pharma overwhelmingly supported Republicans until 2006 when their contributions leveled and actually began to favor Democrats. I wonder why...