Goldman Sachs Goes Republican

Sept. 14, 2010— -- If you needed a reminder that Wall Street and Washington make the strangest of bedfellows, new research shows that Goldman Sachs donated more money to Republicans than Democrats for the first time in decades.

The latest data from the Washington D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics shows that Goldman has doled out roughly $914,000 to Republican candidates compared to about $776,000 to Democrats in this year's election cycle.

"I think that Wall Street and other large donors have become not too much unlike the electorate at large – sort of willing to change," said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report, one of the nation's leading non-partisan political handicappers.

The shift is all the more striking considering that in a 20-year period covering 11 election cycles, Goldman donated nearly $21 million to Democrats, almost double the $12 million it gave Republicans, according to data released by the Center for Responsive Poltics last week.

"They're shorting the Obama administration," said Nell Minow, co-founder and editor of the Corporate Library, a governance research firm. "It is quite clear that the best friends of Wall Street are in the Republican Party, particularly in this midterm election. One thing that Goldman knows is which way to bet."

A Goldman spokeswoman declined comment.

The pro-Republican tide is not surprising, considering how the industry saw the Democrats' financial reform legislation as heavy-handed and anti-Wall Street. As recently as 2008, about 3 out of every 4 dollars in political donations from financial industry members and political action committees went to Democrats.

The financial industry will surely side with Republicans in the latest skirmish with the White House over Bush-era tax cuts. Senate Republicans this week vowed to block any effort to renew Bush administration tax cuts if upper income taxpayers are excluded from the reductions. Obama would renew the tax cuts for most people, but let the top income tax rate rise back to almost 40 percent on family or small business income over $250,000.