Who Are Langley's Favorite Candidates?

Campaign finance records reveal what the community at the heart of U.S. national security policy thinks about outside politics.

ZIP code 22101 is home to a lot of very powerful people. For one, it encompasses Langley, Virginia, home to the CIA's headquarters. But it's not just the CIA. The ZIP code also includes the nearby community of McLean, Virginia, home to many diplomatic residences and military contractors, such as Booz Allen Hamilton, former employer of Edward Snowden. 

So it's fair to say that many of the people of 22101 care a lot about U.S. national security policy. One of the ways they, like all Americans, can express themselves is by donating to political campaigns. And as with all Americans, they're required to disclose these donations along with their name, address, and occupation to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which posts them online. Although the privacy and free speech implications of requiring that kind of disclosure are not great, the FEC filings for 2023–2024 make for interesting reading.

Again, not everyone who lives in Langley and McLean works for the CIA, and not everyone who works for the intelligence agency lives in the same ZIP code. But because the local economy is so tied to the deep state and the military-industrial complex, the flow of campaign donations says something about the tendencies of America's national security elite.

The top five recipients of donations from 22101 were all Democratic: the Harris Victory Fund, the Democratic National Committee, Kamala Harris for President, the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, and the Democratic political action committee ActBlue. (In sixth place was The Lincoln Project, the ex-Republican movement that raked in $630,109 from donors in 22101.) That shouldn't be much of a surprise, considering that President Joe Biden won Fairfax County by more than 2-to-1 in 2020.

Similarly, Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine far outraised his Republican challenger, Hung Cao, in the 22101 ZIP code. So did Democratic incumbent Rep. Jennifer Wexton before she dropped out of the race for health reasons; her replacement, Suhas Subramanyam, has similarly managed to beat out Republican challenger Mike Clancy in 22101 since then.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is how residents of 22101 donate to candidates whom they can't vote for and who won't represent them. Outside of Virginia, the campaigns that received the most Langley-adjacent cash were hawkish Republicans and moderate Democrats. In other words, it's exactly how someone who wants the military-industrial complex to continue being powerful would vote.

Sen. Jon Tester (D–Mont.), who faces a tough reelection bid, raked in the most money—$183,219—from 22101 residents. Over the past few years, he's grown more hawkish. In 2015, he supported the U.S.-Iranian deal over nuclear issues and economic sanctions. Nearly a decade later, he's taken much more aggressive stances, dismissing anti-war protesters as "10 or 12 of these kids that are 'pro-Palestinian' or 'pro-Hamas' or 'antisemites'—I don't know what the fuck they are" and proposing legislation to stop Chinese people from buying American farmland.

The next top recipients are all Republicans running for Senate: Larry Hogan of Maryland, incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania. (Cruz, who ran for president in 2016, has made a name for himself as an ultra-hawk in Washington, especially on the Middle East.) Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.), who resigned after he was ousted as Speaker of the House by his own party, came in fifth place.

Cruz and McCarthy are well known for their hawkish positions on foreign policy. McCormick has made his military service a centerpiece of his campaign, supported using the U.S. military against drug cartels in Mexico, and said that Iran is the "original sin" of the Middle East. Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, made his first foreign policy speech last month, vowing to fight "isolationists" and strengthen U.S. support of Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel.

Unsurprisingly, Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) received $116,272 from residents of 22101, coming in 10th place among the non-Virginian campaigns. There is probably no one in the U.S. government more eager for conflict and a permanent American empire than Cotton, who first came up in conservative politics in 2006 calling for the arrest of journalists who reported on government surveillance programs, and was nearly picked to be CIA director in 2017.

Nor is it any surprise that Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D–Mich.)'s Senate campaign and Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.)'s reelection campaigns also made the top 20. Slotkin is an actual CIA veteran who likes to flaunt it. During her first congressional campaign in 2018, she freaked out a rival campaign operative by reciting his pets' names.

Schiff served as the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee from 2015 to 2023. Although he was an early critic of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, Schiff later shielded the NSA and became known as "one of Congress's leading anti-Russia hawks." He was an early supporter of arming Ukraine against Russia long before the Russian invasion of 2022, and led an effort to impeach former President Donald Trump for withholding that aid. Schiff attributes his suspicion of Russia to his early career experience breaking up a Soviet spy operation as a U.S. prosecutor.

Fort Meade, Maryland, where the NSA is based, was not nearly as active as Langley and McLean. ZIP code 20755 donated $12,041 to ActBlue and Democratic committees, $5,012 to WinRed and Republican committees, $1,230 to Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, and $2,830 to the Trump campaign.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R–Ala.) raised $2,000, the only congressional candidate to net more than a few hundred dollars from residents of 20755 this cycle. Someone in Fort Meade, whose employer and job title are not listed, donated $142 to the Libertarian National Committee.

Although current intelligence officers aren't supposed to put their job title online—for reasons that should be obvious—FBI agents are law enforcement officers working above board. Many of them listed their occupation on FEC records, so it's possible to see how FBI staff donated nationwide. Despite much ado in the media about Republicans turning against the FBI, the Trump campaign took in $15,410 from FBI staff, as opposed to the Harris campaign's $12,804. On the other hand, FBI staff gave $18,104 to ActBlue and $17,730 to WinRed.

It's an interesting illustration of how much—and how little—the politics of national security are shifting in America. On the one hand, many moderate Democrats have a newfound love of the military-industrial complex, driven by an anti-Trump reaction and a desire to out-hawk the competition. On the other hand, the most hawkish Republicans haven't stopped being hawkish, and although "neoconservative" may have become a dirty word, their ideas live on. Many of the people who work in and around the national security state seem to approve.