Starbucks

Quick Take

The clearest political signal at Starbucks comes from its own people: individuals who list the company as their employer have sent the large majority of their federal political donations to Democrats across multiple cycles, by one GovPredict analysis roughly 87 percent, and by a separate Data Catalyst employer-by-employer review more than 90 percent.[3][8] The company itself has stepped into hot-button fights before, most famously in 2013 when then chief executive Howard Schultz took out full-page newspaper ads asking customers to leave their firearms at home.[4] Yet the corporate side plays it down the middle: in 2024 Starbucks gave coffee to both the Republican and Democratic convention host committees and called its giving nonpartisan.[5] And since 2021 the company has been locked in a grinding fight with a baristas union that the political left has loudly backed, a fight still without a contract.[6]

Public Political Activity

Federal disclosures give the most concrete read. In the 2024 election cycle, OpenSecrets recorded about $466,953 in contributions tied to Starbucks, alongside roughly $1.54 million in federal lobbying and no reported FEC outside spending (which captures independent expenditures, not all politically relevant activity).[7] The donation total is significant in what it does not contain: Starbucks does not operate a corporate political action committee. Its own 2024 political disclosure report lists $0 in corporate PAC contributions, so the OpenSecrets figure reflects only individual donations from people who list the company as their employer.[13] The partisan tilt shows up clearly in that giving. A GovPredict analysis of more than a decade of records found that those individuals gave roughly 87 percent of their donations to Democrats and about 13 percent to Republicans, and a separate review of donations by employer placed Starbucks among companies whose employees directed more than 90 percent of their giving to Democrats.[3][8] Howard Schultz, who led the company through three separate terms, personally gave roughly $85,050 to Democrats and $20,250 to Republicans over the same period, and in 2019 weighed an independent run for president that many Democrats worried would split their vote.[3]

At the corporate level the company is more guarded. Starbucks maintains a published corporate political contributions policy and frames its activity as nonpartisan, including the in-kind support it provided to both major parties' 2024 nominating convention host committees.[5][9] The same disclosure report describes its federal lobbying as focused on workforce, supply chain, tax, and trade matters, with quarterly Senate filings adding emergency preparedness and the company's "Back to Starbucks" reinvention plans.[13]

Public Positions & Statements

Starbucks has occasionally waded into contested national issues. In September 2013, after gun-rights activists staged "Starbucks Appreciation Day" gatherings in its stores, Schultz published an open letter, carried as full-page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today, asking customers not to bring firearms into stores or outdoor seating even in states where open carry is legal. He framed it as a request rather than a ban and said the company did not want to be the stage for the gun debate.[4]

The company has also signed on to federal civil-rights legislation aligned with the political left. Starbucks is a member of the Human Rights Campaign's Business Coalition for the Equality Act, a coalition of more than 400 companies publicly backing the federal Equality Act, which would extend civil-rights protections to sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and other settings.[12]

Starbucks has also moved its employee benefits in directions that line up with the political left. In May 2022, weeks after the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs, the company announced that it would reimburse travel expenses for employees and their dependents enrolled in its health plan to access abortion or gender-affirming procedures when those services were not available within 100 miles of their home, a benefit few other large restaurant chains were offering at the time.[17]

The company has also built a long public record on diversity, equity, and inclusion and on social-cause marketing, which has drawn fire from both directions. Conservative critics have pressed it over that posture: in 2025 a conservative shareholder group, the National Legal and Policy Center, filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission criticizing the company's diversity and social positioning, after earlier seeking Schultz's removal from the board.[10]

Since 2021 the most consequential political story at Starbucks has been labor. Workers at a Buffalo, New York, store voted to unionize in December 2021, the first company-operated U.S. Starbucks to do so, and the campaign spread to hundreds of locations.[11] Starbucks Workers United had won elections at more than 650 stores by late 2025, though store closures have left roughly 560 stores and about 11,000 baristas actively represented, a small share of the roughly 11,000 U.S. company-operated stores the union can organize, and after four years the two sides still have no contract.[6][11] The union and its allies on the left have kept up pressure: baristas launched a nationwide strike in December 2024, walked out again in May 2025 over a new dress code, and began an open-ended unfair-labor-practice strike on Red Cup Day in November 2025, with Senator Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani joining picket lines that December.[6][11]

Starbucks has also drawn fire from the left in that fight. In October 2023, after Starbucks Workers United briefly posted "Solidarity with Palestine!" on social media two days into the Israel-Hamas war, Starbucks sued the union for trademark infringement in federal court in Iowa, asking it to stop using the Starbucks name and a green circular logo; the union countersued in Pennsylvania, and the dispute drove a wave of left-leaning customer boycotts.[18]

Federal labor regulators have repeatedly sided with the union. NLRB administrative law judges have found labor-law violations in most of the more than 100 Starbucks decisions handed down since 2021, including a March 2023 ruling that the company committed hundreds of violations in Buffalo with what the judge described as egregious and widespread misconduct demonstrating a general disregard for employees' fundamental rights.[14][15] The company has not lost every round, however. In June 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Starbucks in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, raising the bar the NLRB must meet to obtain federal-court injunctions against employers in unfair-labor-practice cases.[16]

Products & Services

Starbucks sells coffee and espresso drinks, teas, food, and packaged products. It operates and licenses more than 40,000 stores worldwide and about 18,000 across North America, and it reaches shoppers beyond its cafes through bagged coffee and ready-to-drink products carried by grocery and other retailers.[1][11] Its Starbucks Rewards loyalty program is central to how it reaches U.S. customers.

Founding & Ownership

Starbucks opened in 1971 in Seattle.[1] Howard Schultz, who joined the company early and later led it through three separate terms as chief executive, grew it from a local Seattle business into a global chain before stepping away.[10] Brian Niccol, who previously ran Chipotle, became chairman and chief executive in 2024 and has focused the company on his "Back to Starbucks" turnaround plan.[2]

Where to Find Them

Starbucks operates company-run and licensed stores across the United States and in dozens of countries, and sells packaged coffee and ready-to-drink products through grocery and other retailers. Its official website is starbucks.com.

Footnotes

[1] Starbucks Corporation, SEC Form 8-K (board announcement, About Starbucks), filed June 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000829224/000082922425000038/a20250625-boardannouncemen.htm

[2] Starbucks Corporation, SEC Form 8-K (fourth quarter fiscal 2025 results), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000829224/000082922425000074/sbux-09282025xexhibit991.htm

[3] Washington Examiner, "Starbucks employees gave mostly to Democrats over the last 15 years, analysis shows," 2019. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/546928/starbucks-employees-gave-mostly-to-democrats-over-the-last-15-years-analysis-shows/

[4] Simon Dumenco, Ad Age, "Read Starbucks CEO's Guns Open Letter to Customers," September 18, 2013. https://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/read-starbucks-ceo-s-guns-open-letter-customers/244229

[5] The Hill, "Starbucks provides in-kind donation to GOP convention host committee," July 2024. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4777911-starbucks-donation-rnc-dnc/

[6] CNN Business, "Starbucks workers are still without a labor deal four years after their first union win," December 9, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/09/business/starbucks-workers-union-four-years-without-contract

[7] OpenSecrets, "Starbucks Corp," accessed May 28, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/starbucks-corp/summary?id=D000037780

[8] Data Catalyst, "Understanding Individual U.S. Political Donations by Employer," 2023. https://datacatalyst.org/understanding-individual-u-s-political-donations-by-employer/

[9] Starbucks Corporation, "Corporate Political Contributions and Expenditures Policy," accessed May 28, 2026. https://content-prod-live.cert.starbucks.com/binary/v2/asset/143-97571.pdf

[10] National Legal and Policy Center, SEC Form PX14A6G (Starbucks shareholder solicitation), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000829224/000109690625000161/nlpc_px14a6g.htm

[11] Aneurin Canham-Clyne, Restaurant Dive, "By the numbers: 4 years of Starbucks Workers United," December 9, 2025. https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/starbucks-workers-united-4-year-anniversary-strike-by-the-numbers/807353/

[12] NBC News, "More than 400 businesses back LGBTQ rights act," April 28, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/more-400-businesses-back-lgbtq-rights-act-n1265605

[13] Starbucks Corporation, "2024 Political Disclosure Report," accessed May 28, 2026. https://about.starbucks.com/uploads/2025/07/2024-Political-Disclosure-Report.pdf

[14] Bloomberg Law, "Starbucks Scores Rare Win From NLRB Judge in Labor Law Case," December 12, 2025. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/starbucks-scores-rare-win-from-nlrb-judge-in-labor-law-ruling

[15] National Labor Relations Board, "NLRB Region-3 Buffalo Wins Administrative Law Judge Decision Requiring Starbucks to Rehire and Compensate Seven Unlawfully Fired Workers," March 1, 2023. https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-region-3-buffalo-wins-administrative-law-judge-decision-requiring

[16] Harvard Law Review, "Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney ex rel. NLRB," 2024. https://harvardlawreview.org/?p=16805

[17] CNBC, "Starbucks to cover employees' travel expenses for abortions, gender-affirming surgeries," May 16, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/16/starbucks-to-cover-employees-travel-expenses-for-abortions-gender-affirming-surgeries.html

[18] PBS NewsHour / Associated Press, "Starbucks, Workers United union sue each other in standoff over pro-Palestinian social media post," October 18, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/starbucks-workers-united-union-sue-each-other-in-standoff-over-pro-palestinian-social-media-post