Kamala Harris’s ascent as the likely US Democratic presidential nominee is quelling the party’s fears that recent endorsements of Donald Trump by a handful of high-profile venture capitalists might turn Silicon Valley into a Republican stronghold.
Within two days of President Joe Biden’s departure from the 2024 race, Harris had secured the backing of key figures from the technology sector — including former Meta Platforms executive Sheryl Sandberg, Netflix chairman Reed Hastings, and venture investors Vinod Khosla and Reid Hoffman.
That pro-Harris wave countered a flurry of historically unprecedented support for Trump by investors like David Sacks, Sequoia Capital’s Shaun Maguire and Andreessen Horowitz’s founders — who deepened their pro-Trump positions following the failed 13 July attempt on the former president’s life.
The surge of Harris backers highlighted Democrats’ enduring hold on tech’s northern California heartland, where voters have long skewed left of centre on social issues like abortion rights and immigration — and are likely to do so for years to come, according to academics, local politicians and business leaders.
“Silicon Valley is definitely one of the bluest areas in California,” said Bruce Cain, a Stanford University professor who specialises in state politics. “The joke I used to make is that a Republican who wanted to live in this area needs a passport.”
While prominent investors like Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya have rallied to Trump’s side, energised by his selection of Ohio senator and former venture capitalist JD Vance as his running mate, the geographic centre of Silicon Valley — the region around San Jose, some 65km south of San Francisco — remains a reach for Republicans.
‘Big megaphones’
The two counties at its heart — Santa Clara and San Mateo — have more than three Democrats registered to vote for every Republican, and independents significantly outnumber Republicans. Santa Clara is represented in the US house by Ro Khanna, a top progressive Democrat, while retiring representative Anna Eshoo will likely be succeeded by another San Mateo Democrat.
Venture industry figures who have turned to Trump don’t reflect the region’s electorate, according to Clara Brenner, co-founder of the Urban Innovation Fund, an investment firm focused on early-stage tech companies. These investors “have big megaphones, so it’s not surprising that you’re hearing from them”, she said. “They have their own axes to grind with regulators and their own economic reasons to cosy up to Trump.”
Instead, Republicans are seeking to tap some of the tech industry’s deep pockets. Vance, a protege of Peter Thiel, is scheduled to headline a fundraiser in Palo Alto, according to the New York Times, the latest in a series of events to build donor enthusiasm.
That support would build on Elon Musk’s plan to plough money into a super-political action committee backing Trump’s bid. Meanwhile, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced their support for Trump, saying on their podcast that his policies would benefit start-ups more than anything from the Democratic side.
Silicon Valley’s biggest Trump backers cheered Biden’s exit and echoed investor and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in rejecting Harris as the nominee. Costolo wrote on X that he expected Harris to “get trounced” while Musk trolled Khosla and Hoffman, inviting them switch to the Republican Party.
Yet even as Republicans eye Silicon Valley’s chequebook, many of the industry’s biggest donors applauded Harris as the party’s new standard-bearer. The vice president, a California native, has home field advantage when it comes to fundraising after serving as the state’s attorney-general and later as one of its two US senators.
Hastings, a Netflix co-founder and longtime Democratic donor, posted his support for Harris on X on Tuesday, while SV Angel’s Ron Conway urged his peers to back her candidacy: “The tech community must come together to defeat Donald Trump.” Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan said he thinks Harris revitalises Democrats’ chances of winning and can prevail if she runs on a tough-on-crime platform.
The executives joined a rush of support for the vice president, who quickly won the backing of Biden, former house speaker Nancy Pelosi along with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In Hollywood as well in some corners of Wall Street, there has been a groundswell for Harris.
Joseph Cotchett, a Silicon Valley lawyer and top Democratic fundraiser, said his phone rang well into the night with calls from people ready to support the vice president. “It was a big drumbeat that Silicon Valley was going to march along with Trump and Vance,” Cotchett said. “That’s all turned around in the last 24 hours.”
Many Democratic donors had been on pause after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, according to another Bay Area fundraiser whose network includes people in tech and venture capital. Since Harris emerged as his successor, the burst of support has rivalled the enthusiasm surrounding Barack Obama’s emergence in 2008, said the fundraiser, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The Harris campaign said it raised US$100-million between Sunday afternoon, when Biden withdrew, and Monday evening, though details won’t be available until 20 August. In 2020, employees of tech companies including Alphabet, Netflix and Meta gave $13-million to Biden’s campaign, compared to less than $900 000 for Trump, according to OpenSecrets.
“It’s worth being cautiously optimistic,” Box CEO Aaron Levie said in a post on X, “but Harris has a clear opening to drive a more pro-business, pro-tech and less chaotic platform that works for the 21st century than the alternative path.” — Rya Jetha and Lizette Chapman, with Katie Roof, Bill Allison and Eliyahu Kamisher, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP