Business

Who Does Silicon Valley Support In The 2016 Presidential Race?

Left: [Shutterstock - a katz - 378987952] Middle: [George Frey - Getty Images -586844776] Right: [Shutterstock - Christopher Halloran - 180961979]

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Eric Lieberman Managing Editor
Font Size:

As technology permeates almost every aspect of modern life, Silicon Valley has become increasingly involved in the welfare of the country, and American politics.

But which candidate and what general line of thinking Silicon Valley supports is not completely clear. While the region has a certain degree of diversity, in general one would expect that there is an overarching political sentiment and leaning for the tech hub.

First, it is important to establish certain outliers in the area that are outspoken and potentially cloud the broader identity of the Silicon Valley.

PayPal co-founder and billionaire Peter Thiel is a self-avowed Libertarian, but chooses to support Republican nominee Donald Trump over Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson. This is somewhat surprising, since Thiel financially and principally supported former Republican presidential candidate then-Rep. Ron Paul in 2012. After giving $2 million to a super PAC backing former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Thiel does not plan on donating to Trump, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Thiel is one of the few in the tech world who has publicly supported Trump. While a portion of Silicon Valley has a libertarian streak, not many have voiced enthusiasm for Johnson.

Much of Silicon Valley tends to favor deregulation and increased levels of legal immigration — two ideals that are paramount to the Libertarian party platform — but tech leaders do not classify themselves as libertarian.

So what about the Republican party?

Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at a breakfast hosted by the American business executive. The meeting reportedly included talks about how Cook could best finance campaigns for House Republicans like Ryan. As a company, Apple said it would not support Trump and the Republican Party’s bid for the White House, because the candidate has made controversial comments about women, minorities and immigrants.

According to The WSJ’s published figures, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Rand Paul respectively collected more than eight times as much in donations from the tech industry through June than Trump. Even though he recently softened his anti-immigration rhetoric, Trump likely scared off many within Silicon Valley, considering a large portion of tech companies’ leadership are immigrants or children of immigrants.

Trump’s populist platform is far more appealing to the average American in the heartland, including blue-collar workers, than to coastal elites. And Trump doesn’t even seem to care about Silicon Valley’s lack of support, as a lot of his campaigning and stumping has been in working class cities.

An expert on Silicon Valley believes its choice is fairly obvious.

“It’s pretty clear, from FEC contribution filings and other reports, that Silicon Valley has been overwhelmingly supportive of the Democratic candidates,” Ryan Hagemann, technology and civil liberties policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an email. “This past election cycle alone, over 80 percent of residents voted for either Mr. Sanders or Mrs. Clinton in the primaries and 9 out of every 10 dollars contributed, whether to presidential or down ballot candidates, went into Democratic coffers.”

“The other, less libertarian side of the region’s politics favors many pro-government policies,” Hagemann explained. “They tend towards a belief in a civicratic ethos–that government can be a force for good.”

That is why Hagemann classifies the majority of Silicon Valley as its own category, which he refers to as “Tech-Democrat.”

Follow Eric on Twitter

Send tips to eric@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel