Nordstrom workers who contributed to election backed Clinton over Trump
Nordstrom says it dropped Ivanka Trump’s brand because the dresses, heels and jewelry weren’t big sellers. But the decision nonetheless aligned with the political views of some of the upscale retail chain’s employees.
President Trump, Ivanka’s father, finished a distant third among Nordstrom workers who made individual campaign contributions during the presidential race, a USA TODAY analysis of 2015-16 Federal Election Commission data shows.
Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of State, took first place, receiving $38,232 from 60 donors whose employer was identified as Nordstrom in the data. Sen. Bernie Sanders, IVt., claimed second place, collecting $13,196 from 33 contributors.
Trump collected $2,556 from 17 Nordstrom donors, the campaign financial data show.
The employees joined Erik Nordstrom, a co-president of the company, who gave $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign last year. Shellye Archambeau, a Nordstrom board member and CEO of Metricstream, similarly gave $1,000 to Clinton in 2016, the FEC data show.
The 110 Nordstrom-employee donors represent a fraction of the company’s roughly 76,000 fulland part-time employees, so their political opinions aren’t necessarily a proxy for the collective views of all their work colleagues.
Nordstrom had no comment on the political contributions. However, Co-Presidents Peter, Blake and Erik Nordstrom sent a Jan. 31 email to company employees that broadly characterized the chain’s workforce while referring to Trump’s executive order that temporarily restricts immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.
“We literally have thousands of employees who are first- and second-generation immigrants,” the email said. “Every one of your unique qualities brings a richness that allows us to better reflect and serve the multi-cultured communities we’re a part of and ultimately makes us a better company.”
The message ended with a promise of support for employees directly or indirectly affected by the new restrictions.
Nordstrom is one of the nation’s largest upscale retailers, with 348 stores in 40 U.S. states and Canada that sell a broad variety of clothes, shoes and accessories made by such well-known brands as Chanel, Christian Louboutin, David Yurman, Bobbi Brown and Kate Spade New York.
Nordstrom announced its decision on Ivanka Trump’s fashion line on Feb. 2 amid what the company characterized as sales that have “steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.”