Insurance Industry Donors Give More To Democrats

By Allison Bell

October 17, 2005 at 08:00 PM

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Campaign contributors in the insurance and securities industries seem to be warming up to Democrats, but bankers' interest in Democrats is holding steady.[@@]

The Center for Responsive Politics, Washington, has published campaign contribution data supporting that conclusion on its Web site at http://www.opensecrets.org

The Bush administration has been promoting policies, such as the elimination of the estate tax and the elimination of federal terrorism reinsurance, that could hurt insurers, and it has been promoting a lifetime savings account concept that could be more helpful to banks and mutual fund companies at the expense of insurers.

The 2006 election cycle is still young, but the Center for Responsive Politics site shows that insurers are giving 35% of their contributions to Democratic candidates.

The percentage of insurance industry contributions going to Democrats is down from a range of 45% to 51% that prevailed from 1988 to 1994, but it's up from a nadir of 30% hit in 1998.

At securities and investment firms, the share of contributions going to Democrats has increased to 50% for the 2006 election cycle, up from 45% during the 1998 cycle.

Over the same period, the share of commercial bankers' contributions going to Democrats increased only slightly, to 35%, from 34%.

Mortgage bankers are making only 40% of their contributions to Democrats this cycle, while venture capitalists are making 57% of their contributions to Democrats.

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