The freshest force in American politics wears striped socks, has fire-engine red hair and comes bearing french fries.
McDonald’s for decades has exerted outsize influence on Americans’ meals. Now the Golden Arches are playing a growing role in politics, as the company and its franchisees spend millions of dollars on donations to candidates for public office and political action groups, and have engaged in lobbying in at least 10 states, an analysis of filings shows.
In California, the Chicago-based company and its franchisees are seeking to unseat politicians who backed the state’s new minimum wage law for fast-food workers. The chain’s New York restaurant operators helped sponsor ads this year against state legislation that would allow workers to sue employers over wage, health and safety violations. McDonald’s has also hired a lobbyist in Colorado to track local legislation.
McDonald’s has long lobbied on Capitol Hill on issues like nutrition and employment, as one of the nation’s largest private employers. But the company realized around 2022 when it started engaging more in California that it was years behind other companies in influencing local policymaking, said Michael Gonda, who oversees the chain’s domestic government relations efforts.
Over the past decade, progressive forces in several states have advocated for legislative and regulatory measures to improve worker conditions and pay. Unions and worker advocacy groups helped push for a new law to raise fast-food wages in California and create more industry oversight, which McDonald’s and other chains said created an uneven playing field versus other types of restaurants and businesses.
Political spending from McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain by sales, has ballooned since the wage law was debated and enacted, campaign filings and company records show.
“California was a watershed moment,” Gonda said.