Democrats, tech splurge ahead of midterms

Left-leaning groups are pouring money into online advertising on platforms like Facebook ahead of the midterms — and cash from Silicon Valley staffers is flowing to Democratic campaigns, according to recently released data. Donations to Democratic candidates from tech staffers, political action committees and outside groups is more than triple that of Republican candidates, $13.4 million to $3.7 million. Among top firms, Amazon came out on top overall with $12.4 million in donations to candidates, parties and outside groups, though Google outspent Amazon in terms of donations to liberal groups and candidates. And Recode found that more than 90 percent of staff donations from Netflix, Twitter, Airbnb, Apple, Stripe, Lyft, Alphabet, Salesforce, Facebook, Tesla, eBay, PayPal and Microsoft went to Democratic candidates this campaign season, with Amazon, Uber and Hewlett-Packard and Intel not far behind percentage-wise. Democratic candidates, meanwhile, are vastly outspending their Republican counterparts on Facebook ads.