Shareholder backing for proxy proposals climbed to its highest level in recent years during the 2026 season, even as the number of resolutions put to a vote continued its sharp decline, according to a report released by Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE: BR).
Average support for shareholder proposals rose to 27.9% from 24.3% in 2025 – a gain driven by increases from both retail and institutional investor segments, according to Broadridge's annual ProxyPulse report. That improvement came against a backdrop of fewer proposals overall, as the environmental and social category – once the engine of proposal growth – shed nearly half its volume year over year.
"The number of environmental and social proposals that were voted on declined by 47% between the 2025 and 2026 proxy seasons," said Chuck Callan, Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Broadridge. "At the same time, shareholder support for proposals on disclosing political spending, at 42% on average, rose to a new high. Backing for directors and say-on-pay remained strong, with say-on-pay support hitting a 10-year high."
The political spending finding is notable. Shareholder proposal submissions declined from 951 in 2025 to approximately 789 in 2026, with corporate governance proposals comprising the largest share at 49%. No environmental proposal received majority shareholder support in either the 2025 or 2026 seasons, according to Harvard Law School's Forum on Corporate Governance.
One of the report's more consequential findings concerns the expanding footprint of retail investors in the proxy process.
Retail shareholders owned 6 billion more shares this season than last and cast ballots on 2 billion more of the shares they hold – a meaningful shift for a cohort historically characterized by low participation rates.
That broadening is tied in part to the rapid expansion of pass-through voting programs. More than 900 funds offered these programs – which allow retail shareholders to direct how their fund votes the underlying equities – in the 12 months ended June 30, 2026, up from approximately 400 a year earlier. More than 400,000 shareholders were enrolled in such programs as of the same date, Broadridge reported.
The numbers reflect what advisors working with retail clients should be watching closely. As pass-through voting platforms scale and become more accessible, proxy voting is being positioned as a more visible decision point for investors, according to governance researchers at Morningstar.
For wealth managers, that creates an opening to bring shareholder engagement into the client conversation – particularly as clients increasingly ask how their portfolios align with their values.
The expansion of retail voting participation has been a topic InvestmentNews has tracked for several years, with early efforts by major fund companies to pilot pass-through programs now maturing into a meaningful infrastructure shift.
Retail voting programs and pass-through voting by institutional investors could dilute concentrated vote blocks or provide new avenues to mobilize retail shareholders, according to governance analysts at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
Alongside the voting shifts, corporate America continued its embrace of the virtual shareholder meeting format. Companies held a record 2,542 virtual shareholder meetings between July 2025 and June 2026, a count that included more than 200 first-time adopters.
The rise in digital governance infrastructure tracks with the broader democratization theme running through the 2026 data – more shareholders, more voices, and more ways to participate.
For financial advisors helping clients navigate their holdings in public companies, the 2026 proxy season data points to a governance landscape in flux. Governance issues are becoming the biggest battleground, with regulatory shifts having led to a steep decline in overall shareholder proposals while the proposals that do reach a vote are drawing stronger support. That combination may produce a more concentrated, consequential proxy calendar in the seasons ahead.
The ProxyPulse data is drawn from Broadridge's processing of shares held in street name at more than 1,000 broker-dealers and custodian banks. The report covers annual meetings held between January 1 and June 30 across each of the past five proxy seasons, classifying accounts as retail or institutional based on delivery channels and voting platforms used.
Advisors looking to deepen their understanding of how proxy voting intersects with client ESG considerations will find the shift in retail participation data particularly relevant, as the distribution of voting power continues to move downstream.
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