The rift in corporate America tied to political leanings seems to be a combination of branding, political campaign contributions, and reputations among both consumers and investors.
On Monday, Fortune published the Fortune 500, our annual ranking of the largest companies in America. This year, we asked SurveyMonkey to conduct a poll on consumers’ opinions of the top 100 companies. The survey went out to more than 10,000 U.S. adults, who were asked about corporate reputation, trust, influence, and global impact. They were also asked to self-identify as liberal, moderate, or conservative. To determine the lists of the most loved or “successful” companies, SurveyMonkey used a composite measurement that includes answers to all 12 questions, both positive and negative, such as which companies they most want to invest in, would want to work for, as well as which ones are the most ruthless, and which ones they would want to shut down.
Six of the top 10 companies are loved by both conservatives and liberals: Walt Disney (DIS), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (Google) (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). This is consistent with each company’s reputation in other consumer confidence polls and mirrors Fortune‘s own annual survey of top executives and business insiders for our annual ranking of the World’s Most Admired Companies.
Conservatives’ love of Exxon Mobil (XOM) is a no-brainer, considering the company’s long history of contributing to the Republican National Committee and Republican candidates at the federal level, as well as the very powerful energy lobby in Washington. When asked which companies they would most want to invest in, conservatives chose Amazon, Walmart, and Exxon Mobil.
When asked which companies they think care most about them, conservatives chose CVS Health (CVS), Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble (PG).
Conservative survey respondents didn’t express complete, undying love for Walmart (WMT), though. When asked which company they thought was “worst for the country,” Wal-Mart Stores ranked third behind J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC). My colleague Chris Matthews does a good job of explaining why. Walmart scored well on several other questions in the survey, including which companies are the most influential, the question about investing, and which company would still be around in 100 years.
Conservative and liberal survey respondents expressed very clear positions in the cola wars. Conservatives favored Coca-Cola (KO), liberals sided with PepsiCo (PEP). Brand identity may have something to do with it, since both companies‘ political campaign contributions are split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Conservatives trust Ford Motor (F). The auto giant came in fifth as the “most trustworthy.” But it placed ninth in both the “most influential” and “likely to be around in 100 years” categories.
Here are the results of our survey:
Top 10 Fortune 100 Companies Favored by Conservatives
Source: SurveyMonkey
1. Walt Disney
2. Amazon
3. Apple
4. Microsoft
5. Wal-Mart Stores
6. Exxon Mobil
7. Alphabet (Google)
8. Ford Motor
9. Johnson & Johnson
10. Coca-Cola
ALSO READ: Here Are the Top 10 Companies Loved by Liberals
ALSO READ: Here Are the Companies Liberals and Conservatives Hate the Most
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