McDonald’s (MCD) has long found itself in the middle of presidential politics, from former President Bill Clinton’s frequent pit stops to Donald Trump serving up Big Macs at the White House.
But this time, the spotlight has never seemed so bright.
Both Kamala Harris and Trump are competing to be the candidate most associated with the chain that the company says is patronized by nearly 9 in 10 Americans at least once a year.
The most direct outreach recently has clearly been from Harris. She’s talked for years about working at the restaurant during a summer in college doing, among other things, “fries and ice cream.” She’s brought it up in speeches in recent weeks and in at least one campaign ad.
“I worked at McDonald’s to earn spending money,” Harris recently told a North Carolina crowd, adding that “some of the people I worked with were raising families on that paycheck.”
Meanwhile, Trump is also clearly aiming for the votes of the McDonald’s faithful. He’s long touted his fondness for eating McDonald’s. He’s also using the chain to attack his opponent. This past Sunday he claimed — without providing any evidence — that Harris never worked there.
How this impacts the company is yet to be determined. But a look back at recent instances that have put the company in the political spotlight — from Bill Clinton’s visits to the aftermath of the documentary “Fast Food Nation” — suggests the company is adept at navigating ever-changing political winds.
Indeed, the attention could matter less for the bottom line than the policy issues on the horizon, both in Washington, D.C., and at the state level. For example: the minimum wage and unionization efforts.
“There are plenty of moving pieces for McDonald’s — there always are,” Sean Dunlop, who analyzes the company for Morningstar, told Yahoo Finance. “It’s unlikely that being featured prominently in campaign ads or being associated with either party should have a massive financial impact — it will be the policy which follows that ultimately matters.”
Representatives for McDonald’s didn’t respond to a request for comment from Yahoo Finance on the impact of the campaign trail attention on their bottom line — or on Harris’s employment history there.
Big Mac political issues
There are a whole host of policy issues that await the company — and the fast food sector more broadly— in 2025 and beyond.
Perhaps the most pressing item began in Harris’s home state of California but could spread nationwide. The Golden State is where Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation that raised the hourly minimum wage rate for certain fast food workers to $20 per hour earlier this year.
The bill, formally known as Assembly Bill No. 1228, has led to a lobbying effort from fast food executives who claim that the increased wages could force fast food companies out of the state.
“Where we see more action,” Dunlop said of McDonald’s and other fast food chains, “is with local advocacy, with the firm pushing candidates who are less likely to advocate for sharp wage increases.”
Oregon and Illinois are two states where similar bills are being considered. Perhaps not coincidentally, in 2023, according to disclosures, the company sent a series of donations to local legislators in those two states who are likely to have a say in such changes.
And this is a larger issue where Harris and the chain could conflict. During her 2020 presidential run, Harris highlighted what she called unlivable wages at McDonald’s and even at one point said, “The arches are falling short.”
This time around, Harris has reiterated her desire to raise the federal minimum wage, but hasn’t commented on policy toward fast food chains specifically.
The company has also spent $1.4 million so far this year on federal lobbying efforts, according to OpenSecrets. (That’s a similar pace of spending as recent years.)
The focus on Washington is because the company has some business there as well. There are proposals before the National Labor Relations Board — not to mention Congress — that could result in more oversight of franchise labor practices or more ability for fast food workers to unionize.
Democrats in Congress have also tried for years to raise the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 per hour.
Outreach from political campaigns
Meanwhile, the McDonald’s outreach from Harris and the focus on her time as an employee is clearly a bid to connect her with voters who know the chain well.
It’s literally relatable for millions. According to the company, 1 in 8 Americans has worked at a McDonald’s at some point in their life.
But Trump has also long been focused on the chain. Donald Trump Jr. recently joked that nobody has consumed more McDonald’s “per capita” than his father when the former president made a McDonald’s stop last year after visiting with first responders in East Palestine, Ohio.
Trump ordered a giant spread of fast food — including McDonald’s — when the Clemson University football team came to the White House in 2019 after winning the national championship.
“I think that would be their favorite food,” the then-president told reporters of his choice.
The political image of McDonald’s has also ebbed and flowed over the years. The chain was less politically popular a few decades ago following the 2004 release of the documentary “Super Size Me” and the 2006 release of the book “Fast Food Nation.” The latter became a bestseller focused on the “dark side of the all-American meal.”
It brought the company renewed criticism but didn’t stop many politicians from being photographed at least occasionally next to the golden arches.
Even Barack Obama, who once worked at a Baskin Robbins, but is known more with his wife Michelle for their focus on healthy eating, occasionally gobbled down fast food. His presidential rival in 2012, Mitt Romney, at times handed out McDonald’s and picked a running mate, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who himself reportedly once worked at McDonald’s.
In earlier eras, the embrace of McDonald’s was more unabashed. Bill Clinton loved McDonald’s to the point that a plaque even reportedly adorns the Little Rock, Ark., location he frequented as governor.
And a famous Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Phil Hartman as Clinton mingling with voters at the chain (and then proceeding to eat their food) is one of the most iconic political sketches of all time.
Clinton even used McDonald’s to make the case for Harris at the recent Democratic National Convention, saying, “Now she’s at the pinnacle of power and she’s still asking, ‘How can I help you?'”
He also joked about his own reputation when he told the crowd of Harris, “I’ll be so happy when she actually enters the White House as president, because she will break my record as the president who spent the most time at McDonald’s.”
Clinton himself is unlikely to be anywhere near the chain these days: He adopted a vegan diet over a decade ago.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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