Baldwin receives corporate PAC funds despite anti-corporate stance

Amazon, Google, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin have poured over $350,000 into Wisconsin Senate candidate’s coffers

Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is campaigning for reelection as an opponent of corporate greed and political donations, has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate political action committees since her last election.

Amazon, Google, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and other conglomerates have poured over $350,000 into Baldwin’s coffers since 2018, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The donations are at odds with Baldwin’s campaign message, in which she vows to combat special interest political spending and to take on “big corporations and powerful special interests.”

Baldwin’s record of corporate contributions also contrasts with her likely Republican opponent, multimillionaire businessman Eric Hovde, who vowed to forgo special interest donations during his campaign.

“I don’t need their special interest money and I won’t take it,” said Hovde in an ad on Friday.

A review of FEC records shows that Baldwin has accepted large donations from numerous corporate PACs since she was last reelected in 2018.

The donations include at least $25,000 from Amazon. Baldwin has recently been critical of Amazon, accusing the company of mistreating its delivery drivers.

Baldwin has also taken $29,000 from Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal’s PAC; $33,500 from General Dynamics Corporation’s PAC; $26,000 from Lockheed Martin’s PAC; $35,000 from Hewlett Packard’s PAC; $30,000 from Honeywell’s PAC; and over $15,000 from Northrop Grumman’s PAC.

Baldwin did not respond to a request for comment.

On the campaign trail and in social media posts, Baldwin has presented herself as an opponent of corporate and special interests.

In the past few weeks, Baldwin has blamed inflation on “big corporations and their price-gouging tactics.” The senator’s campaign website claims that “special interests, billionaire megadonors, and shady Super PACs have always made beating Tammy their top priority” and “have flooded Wisconsin with millions in outside spending against her.”

“No matter how much secret money these special interests spend, Tammy will continue doing right by Wisconsinites and work to reduce the influence of special interest money in our government and our elections,” said Baldwin’s campaign website.

The senator has also blamed rising grocery prices on corporate greed rather than government-induced inflation, echoing the position of the Biden administration.

“Big corporations are raising prices on middle class families & taking in record profits—all while hiding behind inflation,” wrote Baldwin on X, formerly Twitter, in February.

In March, she noted that “grocery products [are] getting smaller but the price [remains] the same,” a shift that she chalked up to “big corporations and their price-gouging tactics.”

The Wisconsin Senate race is expected to be one of the most competitive in the country and could decide party control of the upper chamber. An Emerson University poll shows Baldwin leading Hovde by just three points in the race.