Which grocery stores donated to Donald Trump's campaigns or affiliated PACs and when?
Executive summary
Major grocery chains do not, as corporate entities, directly give money to federal candidates; donations come from corporate PACs, executives and employees instead [1]. OpenSecrets shows Food Stores PACs reported $0 to federal candidates in 2024 while industry-level pages list contributions tied to employees, PACs or affiliates [2] [3]. Reporting and filings show individual retailers (Target) or executives gave to Trump-related inaugural funds or super-PACs, but available sources do not present a definitive, comprehensive list of “grocery stores that donated to Donald Trump” with dates in a single place [4] [5] [6].
1. Corporate donations vs. individual and PAC giving — what the law and reporters say
Federal campaign rules prohibit corporations from donating directly to candidates, so references to “companies donating to Trump” almost always mean a company’s PAC, its executives, or employees, not the corporate treasury; Snopes emphasizes that social lists claiming whole companies gave to Trump conflate corporate identity with legally separate PAC or individual donations [1]. OpenSecrets repeatedly flags the same distinction across its food-stores and retail industry pages: totals attributed to organizations include PACs and employees or owners, not direct corporate cash to candidates [3] [6].
2. Industry-level data: Food stores as a group in 2024
OpenSecrets’ industry pages for Food Stores show the sector’s contribution patterns and maintain that Food Stores PACs gave $0 to federal candidates in 2024 — a noteworthy industry-level datapoint that complicates claims that “grocery stores” broadly funded Trump’s federal campaign that year [2]. Industry summary pages nonetheless exist for researchers to trace donations by individual PACs, executives and employees linked to specific firms [7] [3].
3. Examples reporters have flagged: retail donors and inaugural funds
News outlets and filings identified that large retailers have given to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee, which is separate from candidate committees: Target disclosed a $1 million donation to Trump’s 2025 inaugural events in FEC filings, marking a first for the company [4]. Newsweek and other outlets list corporate links to Trump’s inauguration fundraising, but those lists mix corporate donations to inaugural events, donations by executives, and payments routed through other entities — not straightforward corporate-to-campaign gifts [5].
4. Grocery chains and congressional donations: specific PAC checks
Reuters’ reporting on grocery-chain political activity shows Kroger’s and Albertsons’ PACs or executives making modest contributions to members of Congress — for example, Kroger’s PAC gave $2,500 to Sen. Sherrod Brown and Albertsons’ PAC gave $5,000 — demonstrating that grocery-affiliated PACs do operate in federal politics even if they did not fund Trump directly in 2024 per OpenSecrets’ food-stores PAC total [8] [2]. These examples show localized, candidate-specific donations rather than a blanket funding of Trump’s presidential campaign.
5. Super PACs, megadonors and dark-money vehicles that backed Trump
Much of the money supporting Trump in 2024 and afterward came through megadonors and super PACs rather than retail PACs; analyses by the Brennan Center and reporting on MAGA Inc. show massive post-election fundraising from wealthy individuals and outside groups, which dwarf typical corporate PAC activity and complicate attempts to attribute support to particular grocery chains [9] [10]. Sludge and Brennan Center reporting list top donors to pro‑Trump outside groups but do not map retail grocery chains onto those lists in the sources provided [11] [10].
6. What we can — and cannot — conclude from available sources
Available sources show: (a) corporate entities cannot donate directly to federal campaigns and many lists online mischaracterize PAC/individual giving as corporate donations [1]; (b) OpenSecrets reports Food Stores PACs gave $0 to federal candidates in 2024 while still providing contributor breakdowns that trace PACs and executives [2] [3]; and (c) at least one major retailer (Target) gave $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inaugural fund, a separate vehicle from his campaign [4] [5]. Available sources do not mention a single, authoritative list that names each grocery store and precise dates of donations to Trump’s campaign or affiliated PACs across cycles; that granular list is not found in current reporting (not found in current reporting).
7. How to verify specific claims going forward
To verify whether a specific grocery chain’s PAC, executives or employees gave to Trump’s campaign, consult FEC filings and OpenSecrets contributor pages for the candidate or PAC in the relevant cycle, plus inaugural-committee filings for 2025 donations; OpenSecrets and the FEC provide donor-by-donor detail [6] [3]. Be cautious of social-media lists that attribute corporate donations to companies as a whole without distinguishing PACs, executives, or inaugural-fund gifts [1].
Limitations: This piece relies only on the supplied documents; the sources do not supply a comprehensive, itemized roster of grocery-store donations to Trump and affiliated PACs with dates, so definitive naming of “which grocery stores and when” is not possible from the available reporting (not found in current reporting).