Building on the insights from our 2024 U.S. Political Risk Analysis, this comprehensive guide serves as a crucial follow-up tailored specifically for corporate decision-makers. Designed for corporate boards, management teams, and institutional investors, this guide acts as a dynamic roadmap for effectively managing political uncertainties that may impact your business as we approach the 2024 election.
Understanding U.S. Political Risk: Implications for Business in 2024
This executive presentation, drawing on objective academic and business sources, details the critical threats facing U.S. democratic institutions. Understand how the weakening of political structures and erosion of democratic principles can impact your business environment. More importantly, discover actionable strategies for business leaders to mitigate these risks and contribute to the stabilization of U.S. democracy.
Democracy Report Card
To help business leaders make informed decisions about engaging in state-level politics and democracy reform, we have launched the Leadership Now Project Democracy Report Card, a highly digestible, high-level view of state-level democracy.
Each state is assigned a letter grade based on their democratic performance across three critical categories:
Voting
Electoral systems
Campaign finance
Role of Registered Independent Women in 2022 Midterm Elections
We partnered with Emerson College Polling to gain greater insight into the viewpoints of registered Independent women in key swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
View the results:
ESG & Corporate Political Spending
ESG & Corporate Political Spending: Practical Actions For Business Leaders To Reduce Risk, Ensure Alignment & Support A Stable Economic Environment
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) topics continue to drive discussion across corporate and investor communities, but often overlook one of the most critical drivers of impact: corporate political influence. Our research explores the impact of corporate political spending across ESG dimensions, current tools and data sources that support greater visibility into this spending, and leading practices for transparency and disclosure and recommends actions for business leaders, including:
Provide transparency through direct contributions and public disclosures
Align political contributions with corporate values
Support a stable & healthy U.S. democracy
PAC Funding For Members Of Congress Who Voted Against Certifying The Electoral College
Five months after the January 6th insurrection — which prompted companies to make bold commitments to stop funding lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election — the question remains: does it make a significant difference if business PACs continue to refrain from funding those who denied the election results?
The Leadership Now Project analyzed the data to answer this critical question. The analysis demonstrates that business PAC funding matters significantly. Many believe that business PACs are relatively inconsequential — since on a whole they amount to only about 15% of total funding for members of Congress — but the numbers suggest otherwise.
2020 Democracy Market Map
Using public data and a machine-learning approach, the Leadership Now Project mapped the “democracy market” to identify the scale and role of political actors — public charities, private foundations, political committees, and candidates — and the flow of funds among them. This effort sheds light on threats to democratic function and viable solutions for reform. Click below to review our initial findings.
American Democracy, American Racism
The fight for democracy and the fight for equality have long been intertwined in the United States. In the wake of George Floyd's murder and the ongoing racial injustices impacting communities of color, Leadership Now put together an analysis that lays out the critical linkages between systemic racism and the flaws in our democratic system. The analysis demonstrates the ways in which voter participation, electoral systems, campaign finance, and representation in politics are both products of, and contributors to, structural racism.
COVID-19: The Challenge To Democracy
The U.S. is facing a profound public health and economic crisis. While Congress and state capitals race to tame the pandemic and buoy the economy, the action is also required to prevent COVID-19 from becoming a political crisis.
To understand what is needed to ensure the continuity of elections and safeguard our democracy in this unprecedented moment, Leadership Now conducted a rapid analysis of the challenges the pandemic poses to democracy. View our digestible presentation detailing COVID-19 democracy risks, action recommendations, and a snapshot of the organizations responding.
State of Democracy in the US According to Executives and MBAs
Executive Summary
At Leadership Now, we used industry best practices to collect data and run cutting-edge modeling to gain accurate insights on MBAs and executives, including their demographics, political affiliation, and opinion on the state of our democracy.
Leadership Now collaborated with Citizen Data to survey over a thousand MBAs and business executives in the US on the need for reforming our democracy.
More than two-thirds of MBAs and executives are "very concerned" about the state of our democracy, and more than half believe that business leaders have a responsibility to take action to fix the issues in our democracy.
View the survey to see where business leaders land on specific reforms like public financing and term limits.
HIGHLIGHTS
Scraped universe key findings.
MBAs and executives are skewed male and Caucasian.
They are slightly more Republican than the general electorate, though are still a balanced group politically.
They tend to vote at high rates in general elections.
Survey key findings.
MBAs and Executives are more concerned about our nation and more pro-democracy reform than the general population.
Over half of those surveyed believe business leaders have a responsibility to help fix issues in our democracy.
Most say these issues are at least as important as traditional policy issues like immigration and abortion
There aren’t significant differences between the two groups, but women with MBAs tend to be more Republican and slightly less pro-democracy reform than males.
Though, women in both groups are more supportive of democracy reform than men.
Unique insights.
Most MBAs and Executives that are Democrats say the United States does not have fair elections and that it is at least somewhat difficult to vote, echoing national trends. Republicans overwhelmingly disagree.
Democrats in business also are more likely to say that business leaders have a responsibility to act in democracy, with 63% of MBAs and 64% of Executives saying so, compared to 48% and 49% of Republicans, respectively.
Republicans, Democrats, and independents in business all strongly support independent commissions for redistricting, but there is a gap for all other democracy reform measures asked.