Major firms halt political contributions to GOP after election results challenged

Tech giants Facebook, Google and Microsoft say they will stop all their donations until after review

Major American companies announced that they will stop donating money to politicians who voted against certifying President-elect Joe Biden's win or stop giving to federal campaigns all together after a violent mob of insurrectionists stormed the Capitol to interfere in the congressional certification of the electoral college vote.

Some companies are pulling their contributions from the 147 Republicans who voted against certification. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan said that they would stop all of their donations while they reviewed their plans, The Washington Post reported.

BlackRock, one of the dominating index funds in America, announced similar intentions.

The world's largest hotel chain Marriott, along with many other companies, said that they would halt donations to all of those who voted against certifying the election. Blue Shield, the health insurer for more than 100 million people said that they would stop giving “to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy". American Express sent out a similar memo.

The greeting card maker Hallmark Cards asked Senators Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall to give back the donations they had received, totalling 7,000 and 5,000 dollars respectively during the last two years, according to The Washington Post.

Hallmark Cards said the Senators did not reflect the "company's values".

Chemical company Dow said their halting of contributions would last for a whole election cycle, which is 2 years for House members and 6 years for Senators. Facebook will not donate for at least the remainder of the first quarter of this year, The New York Times reported.

Oil and gas giant BP will pause all their giving for six months, Axios reported.

A former White House official told The Washington Post that: “The vast majority of these guys will be back at the table. When they see policies that threaten their business, they’ll have to be."

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog, said that “It’s a fantastically, extraordinarily big deal". She said that some of those who voted against certifying the results did so as part of a ploy to get support from their base and more money from donors and that companies ceasing their donations are "adding a counternarrative to that calculation".

Referring to their political action committee, Google said “We have frozen all NetPAC political contributions while we review and reassess its policies following last week's deeply troubling events,” The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Companies who donate to Republicans who objected to the results will be hit by an ad-campaign by the Lincoln Project, the Anti-Trump group led by former leading Republican communication strategists.

One of the Lincoln Project's co-founders Steve Schmidt said that they would target employees in an attempt to “destabilize the companies’ operations by fomenting employee rebellions," The Washington Post reported.

Schmidt said that corporate American has spent $80-90 million on "political committees... on extremist groups that have destabilized American democracy".