But a new report by the group Wal­mart Watch ana­lyzed the company’s polit­i­cal giv­ing and found that in the 2010 elec­tions, the com­pa­ny and the found­ing Wal­ton fam­i­ly still dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly sup­port­ed right-wing can­di­dates and Democ­rats with more right-wing positions.

After it was revealed that in 2008 Wal­mart offi­cials held meet­ings telling man­agers that vot­ing for Barack Oba­ma would mean ​“invit­ing unions in,” the com­pa­ny appar­ent­ly launched a media ini­tia­tive to show it was donat­ing as much or more to Democ­rats in the 2010 elec­tions. The move to cast itself as sup­port­ive of Democ­rats appears to be part of the company’s push to open more stores in urban and high­er-income areas with more pro­gres­sive and more high­ly edu­cat­ed residents.

Part of Walmart’s pub­lic image makeover has been to cast itself as a polit­i­cal­ly mod­er­ate com­pa­ny that donates as much to Democ­rats as to Republicans.

In recent years, Wal­mart has done much to mit­i­gate its image as a big box super vil­lain, even as it faces com­plaints from one of the largest gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion law­suits in his­to­ry and count­less oth­er alle­ga­tions of exploita­tive labor practices.

While the Wal­mart PAC’s dona­tions to Democ­rats were slight­ly greater than to Repub­li­cans for fed­er­al can­di­dates and lead­er­ship PACs ($922,000 ver­sus $920,050), when it came to Wal­mart PAC dona­tions to par­ty com­mit­tees, state-lev­el con­tri­bu­tions and the Wal­ton family’s con­tri­bu­tions, Repub­li­cans received expo­nen­tial­ly more donations.

In state races, the Wal­mart PAC donat­ed $1.8 mil­lion to Repub­li­cans and only $550,000 to Democ­rats. The Wal­ton fam­i­ly donat­ed more than $600,000 to Repub­li­cans at var­i­ous lev­els, and only $62,000 to Democ­rats. In all, accord­ing to Wal­mart Watch, in 2010 $3.5 mil­lion in Wal­mart and Wal­ton dol­lars went to Repub­li­cans and only $1.5 mil­lion to Democrats.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Walmart’s con­tri­bu­tions to Democ­rats were also geared toward Democ­rats with con­ser­v­a­tive social and fis­cal stances. The Blue Dog Democ­rats rep­re­sent­ed only 21 per­cent of Con­gress in 2010, accord­ing to Wal­mart Watch, but received 45 per­cent of the Wal­mart PAC’s dona­tions. The Wal­mart PAC also gave dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly to Con­gress­men aligned with the Tea Par­ty — Tea Par­ty mem­bers made up 12 per­cent of the House before the 2010 elec­tions, but received 19 per­cent of Wal­mart PAC’s dona­tions in Con­gres­sion­al races.

A press release for the report, ​“What’s Right: Walmart’s Words vs. Walmart’s Polit­i­cal Pri­or­i­ties,” says it

shows how the com­pa­ny and Wal­ton fam­i­ly have wield­ed their resources to under­mine the inter­ests of Walmart’s core cus­tomers and asso­ciates, and at times, even the leg­is­la­tion Wal­mart sup­pos­ed­ly supports. For exam­ple, despite Walmart’s pub­lic sup­port of health­care reform in 2010, 65 per­cent of recip­i­ents of con­tri­bu­tions from Walmart’s PAC or the Wal­ton fam­i­ly in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed against health­care reform.

The report notes that Wal­mart has lob­bied against bills that would man­date greater dis­clo­sure of polit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions, per­haps to try to con­trol its image.

The report also cat­a­logues how Wal­mart has increased its polit­i­cal influ­ence through lob­by­ing expo­nen­tial­ly in recent years, spend­ing between $6 mil­lion and $7.4 mil­lion between 2006 and 2008. The report says:

Com­pa­ny founder Sam Wal­ton didn’t think Wal­mart should be involved in pol­i­tics, which kept the com­pa­ny out of Wash­ing­ton for a long time. Wal­mart hired its first lob­by­ist in 1999, and its lob­by­ing activ­i­ties have increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly since then.

A major­i­ty of Wal­mart cus­tomers and employ­ees are mid­dle-income or low-income, but through its dona­tions and lob­by­ing efforts the com­pa­ny con­sis­tent­ly works against the inter­est of these groups, the report said. For exam­ple, Wal­mart lob­bied aggres­sive­ly to defeat mea­sures for expand­ed ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion and health­care for the unin­sured in Cal­i­for­nia. Labor-relat­ed issues have also been in the fore­front of Walmart’s lob­by­ing efforts.