GOP gets plenty of support from the NVCA

The political waters might be turning blue, but the National Venture Capital Association still expects a red tide come November.

The trade group’s political action committee – VenturePAC – has strongly favored Republican candidates and causes so far in the 2005-06 election cycle, according to information culled from the Federal Election Commission’s online database.

In all, VenturePAC has contributed $386,500 to Republicans over the past five fiscal quarters, compared to $206,000 to Democrats during the same period.

This includes:

* $199,500 to 78 GOP House candidates vs. $109,000 to 36 Democratic House candidates.

* $72,500 to 17 GOP Senate candidates vs. $37,000 to 11 Democratic Senate candidates.

* And $114,500 to 19 GOP-sympathetic PACs, vs. just $60,000 to eight Democrat-sympathetic PACs. (It also contributed a total of $9,500 to three nonpartisan PACs).

Overall, about two-thirds of all contributed VenturePAC dollars have gone to Republicans, which closely mirrors the 66% that they got from VenturePAC during the 2004-05 election cycle. However, what’s different is that many political pollsters are predicting that the Democrats could take at least one house of the U.S. Congress in the upcoming fall election. Still, the NVCA is looking at more than just poll numbers.

NVCA President Mark Heesen says that VenturePAC backs candidates that it believes will win and support VC-related causes, such as increased R&D spending and “fixing” Sarbanes-Oxley.

Heesen acknowledges that Democrats might gain control of the House of Representatives, but believes the Senate will stay in Republican hands.

“We’re a lot more balanced than a lot of other business PACs,” he says. “But we feel right now that it makes the most sense to continue giving the majority of our PAC money to Republicans.”

VenturePAC is funded via contributions from NVCA members, and does not contribute to state, local or presidential races.