Biden, DeSantis highlight parade of Silicon Valley fundraisers. Will all the talk focus on Trump?

Cozying up to some of the country's wealthiest and most prolific donors on trips to Silicon Valley is nothing new. What's discussed in these invitation-only events is often difficult to discover for the rest of us. But it will be no surprise that part of every candidate's pitch will reflect on the man who isn't flying coast-to-coast: Donald Trump.

In the week after news broke of Donald Trump’s historic federal indictment, his campaign announced the former president raised more than $6 million for his 2024 run for the White House.

What’s also unique about Trump’s haul — he didn’t raise it the popular way, by flying hat in hand to Northern California.

The parade of presidential hopefuls descending on the Bay Area has officially begun with even President Biden himself scheduled to attend three private fundraisers this week at some of the region’s most exclusive neighborhoods.

Like Biden, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is coming to the belly of his blue-state rival on Monday — not necessarily to thumb his nose at his Golden State nemesis Gov. Gavin Newsom to rub in Florida’s sending three dozen migrants on a wayward journey to Sacramento earlier this month.

DeSantis will be here for the money. A Woodside estate is also on his itinerary ​– just miles from Biden​’s $6,600-a-plate nosh with Democrats at the Atherton home of venture capitalist Steve Westly.

Cozying up to some of the country’s wealthiest and most prolific donors on trips to Silicon Valley is nothing new. The Clintons and Obamas were frequent visitors to a who’s who of homes on the Peninsula.

What’s discussed in these invitation-only events is often difficult to discover for the rest of us. (There was the time President Barack Obama caused a stir at an Atherton luncheon at the home of Levi-Strauss heir John Goldman and his wife, Marcia, by referring to now-Vice President, then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris as the “the best-looking attorney general.”)

But it will be no surprise that part of every candidate’s pitch will somehow reflect on the man who isn’t flying coast-to-coast: Donald Trump, who polls show leads a suddenly bursting field of GOP candidates, including DeSantis, by 30 points.

Certainly the guests must ask themselves: Will their money help any GOP rival to surpass Trump — the former president who has only gained support despite efforts to impeach him, indict him and shame him? Although Trump lost re-election in 2020, more Americans voted for him the second time around than in 2016.

“Trump is the elephant in the room, but this is still a fluid race,” said Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution fellow and former GOP strategist. “I mean, do not write his name in ink as the Republican nominee. Things can change.”

George H.W. Bush had a 90% approval rating in 1991 from the Gulf War.  A year later he was defeated. At this point in 2015, most Republicans were convinced Jeb Bush would be the nominee.

But so far, the trend lines for the 2024 election have only widened between Trump and DeSantis, while the remaining challengers linger at the bottom of the X-Y axis. What the candidates lack so far in polling, however, they are trying to make up for in their campaign war chests.

“You’ve got to show early money. You’ve got to show earnest money,” said Sonoma State political science professor David McCuan. “Money is a signaling device that you won’t flame out.”

It’s an important test for the array of GOP candidates in particular who are lining up their splashy Silicon Valley patrons: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper for former South Carolina governor and Trump’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Oracle founder Larry Ellison for South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and real estate investor John Hamilton who is hosting the Peninsula fundraiser Monday for DeSantis.

In nearly any other election, this might all appear like politics as usual, candidates in an open primary jockeying for support and showing off their fundraising prowess by the financial reporting deadline at the end of June. Candidates need at least 40,000 unique donors to make the stage for GOP’s first debate in August. But Republican strategists worry that instead of elevating a worthy opponent to Trump, a divided donor base will only ensure Trump’s inevitability.

“If part of their objective is to not have Donald Trump as the nominee, they’re not helping the process when they fracture and each start getting behind these different candidates,” said former state GOP Chair Jon Fleischman, “because that is the recipe for Trump’s nomination.”

California is overwhelmingly Democratic, handily delivering the state to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. But often obscured in those numbers is the fact that one in four California voters chose Trump in 2016 and one in three voted for him in 2020.

Trump’s opponents are now tapping into those Republicans – especially the monied ones – hoping for changes of heart.

Already one of Trump’s premier supporters – PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel – has told his close associates that he is turned off by the GOP’s culture wars agenda and plans to sit out 2024 presidential politics and not donate to any candidate, according to Reuters. Thiel, who is gay, indicated his disdain for the shifting Republican focus as early as 2016, saying that “fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline.”

Still, like Thiel supporting Trump in 2016, there’s an iconoclastic mentality among the Silicon Valley set who consider it in their DNA to make bold or unpopular decisions – and expect candidates to come courting.

“Both Draper and Ellison take great pride in being individualists,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at UC Berkeley and USC. “No one is ever going to accuse them of following the herd either in tech or in politics. So it’s no surprise that they’re both lining up with candidates who may not be front-runners but who likely represent the GOP’s future.”

Although Trump was successful at raising money in California among a number of ”traditional” Republicans over the past two elections, McCuan from Sonoma State said, “where he hasn’t played as well is Silicon Valley – and that’s because Silicon Valley’s politics tend to be more libertarian.”

And more eccentric, he said.

Tesla founder and new Twitter owner Elon Musk has become a conservative firebrand, for instance, while Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has endorsed anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to take on the sitting president in the Democratic primary.

 

To Republicans, each of Trump’s challengers may offer something appealing: Scott talks about the positive future for America; Haley is a former governor and brings foreign policy experience; DeSantis led his state through COVID with fewer restrictions.

“Everyone’s got a story,” said Fleischman, who is supporting DeSantis. “But at the end of the day, Donald Trump’s got 35 to 40% of the vote locked up. It’s not moving anywhere. So every candidate that gets in the race is dividing up the other 60 to 65% of the vote. The further you divide that 60%, eventually it gets to a point where Trump’s plurality is all it takes for him to win.”

Super Tuesday comes on March 5 in 13 states, including California. By December, Fleischman hopes Republicans will rally around a single Trump challenger.

“I don’t think there’s any thought of that or any kind of strategy there yet,” Fleischman said. “All of these successful business people that are writing these donations really need to step back and think through the long game here.”