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.