Federal Employees and Political Donations in 2024 Election Cycle

Executive Order 14019 and National Elections

In March 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14019. The title of the Executive Order is “Promoting Access to Voting.”

It directed federal agencies to use agency personnel and resources to help the public register to vote and cast ballots. The Executive Order inserts the federal government and its employees into the voting process in a variety of ways, including:

• Providing “access to voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot applications in the course of activities or services that directly engage with the public”;
• Providing identity documents, assisting “applicants in completing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms”;
• Ensuring federal employees vote early and serve as observers and poll workers;
• “Facilitate voter registration and voting…for all eligible individuals in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” (despite the fact their eligibility to vote is governed by state law rather than federal).

The Executive Order has raised questions about whether the federal government would use this as a way to influence the outcome of elections. Access to the strategies and plans for implementing the Order under the Freedom of Information Act has been denied as the Justice Department asserted executive privilege to protect the documents.

With a close election coming in November, and concerns about fair elections often expressed in the media and by those declared the loser in elections, the actual purpose of the Executive Order is under scrutiny by those concerned about the impact of the Executive Order and the use of the federal government’s power and money.

Critics see the order, which aims to promote access to voting by directing federal agencies to engage in voter registration efforts, as a potential tool for partisan influence.

Key objections to the Executive Order include concerns federal agencies are creating confusion and disruption by duplicating voter registration efforts already managed by states. State officials have argued the order imposes federal oversight in areas lacking constitutional authority, potentially complicating their existing voter registration systems.

The federal bureaucracy is perceived as consisting of employees in favor of liberal policies and administrations. As outlined below, political donations from federal employee unions and individual employees largely underscores this belief as most of the money goes to Democrats rather than Republicans.

The political preferences of the workforce were also on display through political donations in the 2016 election cycle, the 2020 election cycle, and so far in the 2024 election cycle.

Political Donations from The Federal Government’s Apolitical Workforce

According to the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government had 2,271,498 employees as of February 2024. The federal government is designed to have an apolitical workforce where employees work to serve the public interest, adhering to the objectives laid out by the executive branch, regardless of the administration’s political affiliation.

The data on political donations by employees from within agencies is from opensecrets.org. The site describes its organization and mission as “Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, OpenSecrets is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Our mission is to track money flow in American politics and provide the data and analysis to strengthen democracy.”

The data on donations from these agencies is for the 2024 cycle. It was compiled before the election. The totals are not contributions from agencies but from people within the agency. They include donations to candidates for each party and partisan political organizations.

Almost 70% of Political Donations for Democrats

Of the donations from all agencies, 30.5% went to Republicans, and 69.5% went to Democrats. Two agencies did not have any donations to Republicans: The Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

This data was collected and reported before the general election in November 2024. The totals will be considerably higher when all donations are reported after the election cycle is over. In the completed 2020 election cycle, FedSmith reported 72.63% of donations went to Democrats and 24.15% went to Republicans.

In this cycle, the Air Force is the only agency listed with more donations to Republicans than to Democrats.

Donations from Federal Employee Unions

In 2020, FedSmith reported donations from federal employee unions were overwhelmingly in support of Democrats. For example, for the largest union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), almost 96% of donations went to Democrats. It was similar for the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), with almost 98% going to Democrats.

Here are the donations from federal employee unions based on the latest data for the 2024 election cycle. The data show the same overwhelming support for Democrats over Republicans as in 2020.

For example, AFGE gave almost 1.6% of its donations to Republicans and the remainder to Democrats. NTEU donated about 97% of its funds to Democrats. Even the National Association of Retired and Federal Employees (NARFE), which is not a union under the Federal labor relations statute, provided overwhelming support for Democrats, with 14.1% going to Republicans.

A counterpoint to this data is a recent survey from FedSmith. In that survey of more than 2,500 responses, 52.8% of those responding preferred Donald Trump. 43.7% voted for Kamala Harris. 3.6% preferred “other” candidates.

One possibility is that the initial data of political donations for the current election cycle included people donating to Joe Biden who was the candidate who won the Democrats’ primary votes. Perhaps fewer federal employees support Kamala Harris than supported Joe Biden.

It may also be that those who donate money are more fervent Democrats who donate money throughout the election cycle. Most of the money donated often arrives as the actual election data gets closer.