Democratic hopes of retaking the House in 2026 appeared to have started in Silicon Valley, where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) met with more than 150 tech donors in an attempt to make inroads into the once-solidly blue voting bloc, according to media reports.
He has his work cut out for him. The meet-and-great in affluent Los Altos Hill last week came at a shaky moment with the tech world – and the money they control – taking a rightward swing as President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Democrats are “trying to mend fences and they’re also trying to keep them in the tent,” Alex Hoffman, a Democratic donor adviser, told Politico of the tech donors.
Trump has made a show of his new billionaire tech allies lining up behind his “America First” policy agenda – taking meetings with them inside the White House and hosting news conferences alongside figures like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and, most notably, his Department of Government Efficiency chair Elon Musk – all once “card-carrying Democrats,” according to the Politico report.
To those in attendance at the gathering in California, Jeffries laid out efforts congressional Democrats are launching to beat back Trump’s agenda and their plan to recapture the House in the midterm elections.
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“The singular focus was — how do we ensure Silicon Valley remains with Democrats,” one of the attendees said to the publication. “Because right now, Silicon Valley is feeling very purple.”
His first appearance in Silicon Valley since the 2024 election is an “early overture” to the constituency that “is critical to Democrats’ fortunes in 2026,” the report said.
“There is a significant fear that these tech folks, who have been with us for a long time, will say, ‘f--- it, we’re going with the other guys,’” Hoffman, who works with donors across the country and did not attend the event, told Politico. “These donors are also pissed, watching former and current colleagues have unlimited, unchecked power, and getting richer off of this and they’re not.”
In Silicon Valley, Jeffries said Democrats “were reaching toward the center, while Trump will swing harder right,” Politico reported.
He also told the gathering that his party needed to choose their battles, and according to the outlet, invoked New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge, who he said is “not going to swing at every pitch.”