For Reputation’s Sake: Shifts in Corporate Political Activity After the Capitol Insurrection

How did firms adjust their corporate political activity (CPA) in response to the January 6th Capitol Insurrection? Through a longitudinal study of campaign contributions from Fortune 500 companies’ political action committees to members of Congress, I estimate the size and duration of corporate penalties toward legislators who objected to the 2020 election results. Using a Difference-in-Differences design, I find a sharp but declining penalty against election deniers in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles. While firms that pledged to cut off their contributions did so to the greatest degree, I find evidence of this behavior across most large corporations. I suggest that corporate social responsibility and concerns over public reputation shape corporate responsiveness to political shocks like January 6th, and show that more visible corporations were more likely to keep their distance from election deniers. These findings emphasize the important trade-off between access-seeking behavior and public reputation in the corporate response to political controversies, and in CPA more generally.