Louisville money in politics

Access Louisville

We talk campaign finance trends on this week's Access Louisville podcast.

A few weeks ago, LBF Reporter Piper Hansen began digging into donation trends among workers at some of Louisville's biggest employers. She found that most of those donations (for the second quarter of 2024) went to Democratic presidential nominee and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump. Here's a look at trends from the top three employers, according to info from OpenSecrets.org, a nonprofit campaign finance tracking website.

• United Parcel Service Inc. employees — $226,529 donated in total; Harris contributions: $139,746; Trump contributions: $86,783
• Ford Motor Co. — $119,986; Harris contributions: $76,071; Trump contributions: $43,915
• Kroger Co. — $85,917; Harris contributions: $46,696; Trump contributions: $39,221

Hansen talks about these figures on this week's Access Louisville podcast and you can read more about what she found here.

Campaign contribution data just released for the third quarter, as well. Hansen is digging into those figures now — looking at individual donations this time — we expect to be posting a story soon at Bizjournals.com/Louisville. Election Day is on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

More this week

Following the campaign finance talk we discuss talk a little restaurant news, including an ownership change Le Relais. We also chat about a new endeavor from the team behind Wild Eggs. It'll be doing a virtual kitchen for a related concept (Crazy Bowls & Wraps) in order to serve customers on delivery apps.

We talk about a deal to purchase the former Harvest restaurant building selling and some news from the Louisville Economic Development Alliance. And wrap things up with some local media news, with Bill Lamb returning to WDRB.

Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. It's available on popular podcast services, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.