Vice President Kamala Harris has immediately complicated Republican efforts to win over Silicon Valley converts.

Donald Trump tallied millions in donations from tech-world figures in recent months. But Democrats have long held an advantage there and the new presumptive Democratic nominee has especially deep connections to this community and its pocketbooks.

How this plays out in the months ahead could make things, at the very least, awkward, even for some of Trump's most ardent supporters.

"She came to my wedding," said Trevor Traina, one of the tech world leading the charge for Trump in a recent interview. He is the founder and chairman of digital wallet app Kresus Labs and was ambassador to Austria under Trump.

Traina helped organize a recent high-profile Silicon Valley fundraiser for the former president at the home of billionaire David Sacks that raised $12 million.

His support for Trump isn't wavering, he said, but he also declined to criticize Harris personally in the recent conversation.

"Kamala is a dear friend of mine, and I like her very much," he said before adding, "It's just that in today's world, candidates who want to be successful on the left have to toe the line on the whole Elizabeth Warren school of thought."

Others say a change is afoot inside the center of the tech universe as Harris has quickly consolidated the public support of existing Democratic mega-donors and a new open letter from "VCs for Kamala" has over 400 signatures.

Her campaign also raised over $200 million in national grassroots donations in her first week of the race.

"The change from Biden to Harris has absolutely shifted the environment in Silicon Valley," said Box CEO Aaron Levie in a recent post on X.

The well-known Democratic donor added that some "were on the sidelines or wouldn't have been all that energized, but that has changed now."

Another indication of possible Harris momentum in Silicon Valley was a reader survey by the Information that found a jump in tech-world support for Harris.

Harris's ties to Silicon Valley even extend to the familial.

Her niece is Meena Harris, who used to work at Uber (UBER) and wrote a children's book about her aunt. She's married to Nikolas Ajagu, who, according to Linkedin, was formerly an executive at Facebook (META).

A counteroffensive from Trump and his allies

Trump, meanwhile, is clearly not going to cede any gained ground without a fight.

On Monday, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance visited Palo Alto for a sold-out fundraiser, according to an invitation posted online.

Vance boasts his own bevy of Silicon Valley contacts from a stint as a San Francisco venture capitalist and was back in the region for a fundraising lunch in the nearby town of Coalinga on Wednesday.

Harmeet Dhillon is a California lawyer and the former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party who shared this week's invitation. Like many in the area, she crossed paths with Harris, once representing opposite sides in litigation.

She said in a recent interview that Harris's potential to shake up this aspect of the race is being overblown.

"She lives in Silicon Valley, but ... she's not part of the tech community," Dhillon said of Harris, arguing "no one's authentically a cheerleader for Kamala Harris other than her immediate family members."

Dhillon also strongly disputes the notion that Harris could be friendlier to Big Tech than Biden. She is most focused on the Harris record when it comes to other issues like crime, which she said could be more determinative among the safety-conscious tech community.

And Vance's selection has also already led to a thaw of sorts between the Trump campaign and one key tech billionaire: PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

Vance used to work for Thiel and the billionaire, in a recent New York Times interview, signaled new warmth for Trump while also remaining noncommittal about jumping into the 2024 race financially.

The Harris tech agenda

A possible tech agenda for Harris, if she wins this fall, is also being looked at closely.

Harris rose to national prominence in San Francisco and was known during her time in California for having a modestly collegial relationship with Big Tech. Donations from some of Silicon Valley's most prominent figures and their employees fueled her early runs for office, especially her 2016 Senate victory.

And during her time as California attorney general, Harris often looked at tech issues but ended up focused on voluntary agreements with companies as she sought their cooperation on issues like sex trafficking online.

Even during her 2020 presidential race, when Harris veered left on a variety of issues, she declined to call for the breakup of Big Tech as her rivals, Sens. Warren and Bernie Sanders, did. She focused on regulating the giants around issues like online privacy.

Harris has focused on AI during her years as vice president and offered a similar approach focused on largely voluntary agreements as Washington begins to grapple with the technology.

In a speech in London last November, Harris called out companies and accused some of choosing profit over safety.

But at the same time, she often courted AI business leaders and convened CEOs to discuss the issues. This helped shepherd a wave of voluntary business-world commitments to some of the plans from top companies like Adobe (ADBE), IBM (IBM), and Nvidia (NVDA).

Harris has offered little in the way of public commentary on tech issues since entering the race but is expected to tout Biden accomplishments popular in tech circles like the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which is sending billions to semiconductor companies.

A focus on those issues could be amplified further if Sen. Mark Kelly is picked as VP. Kelly has made the semiconductor efforts a centerpiece of his time in the Senate and helped shepherd much of the money to the swing state of Arizona that he represents.

Trump, meanwhile, is set to keep focused on the mashup of vocal tech-world venture capital figures and crypto libertarians he has assembled behind his candidacy.

"You are going to be very happy with me," Trump told an audience of bitcoin enthusiasts last weekend, arguing that across tech issues like cryptocurrency and AI "we understand it, they don't understand it."

As for Traina, he expects that many of Trump's inroads in Silicon Valley will be durable as Trump-leaning technology figures are increasingly comfortable speaking out.

That going to continue to allow Trump, he says, to access a "silent majority [in Silicon Valley] that was at the very least centrist, if not slightly right of center, but who were apolitical."

Traina himself has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump and to other Republican candidates in 2024. But in yet another example of the complex equation in Silicon Valley at the moment, Traina himself had a very small role in the political rise of his former wedding guest.

According to election records, he sent Kamala Harris a $1,500 check back in 2015.

Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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