Support for presidential candidates at elite law firms in 2012 and 2016
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I did a survey of contributions to presidential candidates in 2012 and 2016 from people working at elite law firms. (Data here). The immediate inspiration for this was a question from a 2017 law grad about whether support for Trump was going to hurt him in his career at one of these firms, because if it was he was planning to stay in the closet. I was curious enough about the question to track down all the contributions made to the major presidential candidates in the 2012 and 2016 elections from people at the following firms:
Wachtell Lipton
Cravath Swaine & Moore
Skadden Arps
Sullivan & Cromwell
Davis Polk
Latham & Watkins
Gibson Dunn
Kirkland & Ellis
Simpson Thacher
Paul Weiss
I also looked at a Denver firm (Holland & Hart).
The results were . . . striking.
(Note that I tracked individual contributions, not individual contributors. Many people gave more than once to a candidate, and occasionally to more than one candidate).
Contributions to 2012 presidential candidates
Obama 1911 contributions
Romney 1476 contributions
Other GOP candidates 49 contributions
Percentages:
Obama 55.6%
Romney 43.0%
Other GOP 1.4%
Contributions to 2016 presidential candidates
Clinton 4330 contributions
Sanders 401 contributions
Rubio 136 contributions
Bush 90 contributions
Cruz 54 contributions
Trump 41 contributions
The other 12 GOP candidates, plus Gary Johnson and Jill Stein: 103 contributions
Percentages:
Clinton 84.2%
Sanders 7.8%
Rubio 2.6%
Bush 1.7%
Cruz 1.0%
Trump 0.8%
Everyone else: 1.9%
Support for the GOP nominee at these firms declined by 98% between 2012 and 2016.
Here for example are the numbers at Kirkland & Ellis, a Chicago-based firm that by reputation at least is more GOP-friendly than many of its peers:
2012:
Obama: 272 contributions
Romney: 524 contributions
Other GOP: 9 contributions
2016
Clinton: 479 contributions
Sanders: 70 contributions
Rubio: 38 contributions
Bush: 17 contributions
Trump: 14 contributions
Walker: 10 contributions
Fiorina: 8 contributions
Kasich: 4 contributions
Cruz: 4 contributions
I’ve done some breakdowns of the contribution patterns at some other elite institutions, which I’ll save for another post.