Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Biden raises millions in Bay Area
President says he’s being underestimated
President Joe Biden raised millions of dollars for his re-election bid in Silicon Valley on Friday as he poked at former President Donald Trump and argued that his campaign was being underestimated.
“The press doesn’t want to write about it, but the momentum is clearly in our favor, with polls moving toward us and away from Trump,” he said, noting that 1.6 million people have donated to the campaign, nearly all less than $200 each. He said his campaign has opened 150 offices in battleground states “and Trump has opened zero offices. And it’s not just because he’s on trial.”
California donors bankroll presidential campaigns on both sides of the aisle, and Biden and Trump have both raised more in the state for their reelection bids than anywhere else, according to the Federal Election Commission. The president is expected to return to Southern California for a fundraiser in June.
Biden’s Friday trip to California was his first since a February fundraiser at the Beverly Park estate of media mogul Haim Saban. The Israeli American billionaire prompted scrutiny this week because of an email he sent to senior Biden aides criticizing the administration’s decision to put a shipment of weapons to Israel on hold because they could be used in an offensive against a densely populated city in southern Gaza.
Biden encountered protesters on both sides of the issue in the Bay Area, as well as in Seattle, where he flew after the California visit. As the president’s motorcade drove to a fundraiser hosted by Marissa Mayer, the former chief executive of Yahoo, it encountered people holding Palestinian flags and signs that said “Defund Israel” as well as another group waving Israeli flags.
Biden did not address the issue at three fundraisers in California and Washington state on Friday, including the event hosted by Mayer, where tickets cost up to $50,000, according to the news website Puck. An earlier fundraiser Biden headlined at the Portola Valley home of Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, cost up to $100,000. The two events were expected to raise $4 million.
California first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom attended the Mayer event. Biden called the pair a source of inspiration and noted his efforts to create a diverse administration.
“These two ladies here in my view — and I mean this sincerely — are emblematic of how America is changing,” the president said. “They’re incredibly competent
and they’re incredibly capable and they’re changing the whole emotion of what constitutes success and what can be done.”
Silicon Valley has grown into a fundraising juggernaut for political candidates and overwhelmingly favors Democrats.
In the 2024 presidential election, Biden and associated groups backing his campaign have raised $17.1 million from the communications and electronics industry, which includes tech companies, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data released April 22 by the nonpartisan nonprofit Open Secrets, which tracks electoral finances. Trump has raised $1.7 million.
Trump did receive the backing of some notable tech leaders in his successful 2016 campaign, such as billionaire Peter Thiel, who made history that year when the Paypal co-founder said from the podium of the Republican National Convention that he is gay before Trump was nominated as the GOP candidate.
Thiel and some other tech leaders backed away from Trump after the tumult of his presidency and in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that attempted to halt the certification of the 2020 election results.