2026 MIDTERMS: Clemson employee political giving skewed left even as the surrounding county votes deep red
Clemson University-affiliated employees donated $69,696.21 total, with $64,811.64 (92.99%) going to Democratic-aligned committees.
Republican-aligned committees received $4,884.57 (7.01%), meaning Clemson donors gave about 13.3 times more to the left.
Alessia Degraeve | Associate Editor
March 25, 2026, 7:32 am ET
Employee donations to federal candidates and campaign committees in the 2026 midterms cycle show a strongly left-leaning pattern among Clemson University-affiliated donors.
Clemson-affiliated employees gave about 13.3 times more money to Democratic-aligned candidates and committees than to Republican-aligned ones.
Of the $69,696.21 in total employee contributions recorded in the Federal Election Commission (FEC) database, $64,811.64 (92.99%) went to Democratic-aligned candidates and committees, while $4,884.57 (7.01%) went to Republican-aligned candidates and committees. The dollar gap between the two totals stands at $59,927.07.
That donor profile sits in tension with the surrounding political environment. Clemson is located in Pickens County, where Donald Trump won about 74.6% of the vote to Joe Biden’s 23.7% in the 2020 presidential election.
