With the news Sunday that President Joe Biden is stepping out of the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris became the first-ever presumptive candidate of a major political party to hail from the Bay Area.
Northern California’s heavyweight donor class is likely to play a key role in the attempt to propel Harris past any would-be Democratic rivals and into the Oval Office — and deny Donald Trump a return.
An Oakland native who formerly served as chief prosecutor for both San Francisco and California, Harris relied on a network of wealthy contributors, many with ties to Silicon Valley, in her previous bids for office.
“I think the Bay Area is going to become the epicenter of fundraising for this presidential race,” said Manny Yekutiel, whose café in the Mission, Manny’s, has become a salon for San Francisco’s political class. Yekutiel, who held a fundraiser for Harris in June, when Biden was still on the ticket, said he feels “energized and pumped” by the candidate swap.
“This is a hometown hero,” said Yekutiel.
After the news broke about Biden’s exit, The Standard spoke with donors and elected officials, many of whom said they were committed to standing behind Harris. Gretchen Sisson, a Democratic donor and wife of Facebook co-founder Andrew McCollum, said she was “absolutely” planning on supporting Harris.
“We’re going to win this election,” said Sisson.
Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, one of the Democratic Party’s delegates for the Chicago convention in August, said the choice of Harris as the nominee is the most “democratic” approach.
“If she becomes the next nominee, I think people are going to get to know her the way we in California know her,” said Kounalakis. “And love her.”
State Controller Malia Cohen, also a Democratic Party delegate, said she is a “whole lot more excited” about the November election now that Harris is the presumptive nominee.
“The choice is obvious,” said Cohen, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “A tried and true prosecutor would light up Donald Trump and really give him a run for his money.”
Cohen said Harris’ candidacy could help shore up other Silicon Valley donors who may have been hesitant to contribute to Biden’s campaign. Trump has recently wooed big names like entrepreneur Elon Musk, but Cohen said the vice president’s entrance could help rally tech behind the Democrats.
On Sunday, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman said he would back the vice president.
“Kamala Harris is the right person at the right time,” Hoffman wrote in a post on X. “Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are promising an agenda that will wreak havoc on the American people.”
Plans for Bay Area fundraisers weren’t immediately clear. An event for Biden by longtime Democratic Party donors Quinn Delaney and Wayne Jordan had been set for July 27 in the East Bay city of Piedmont. Representatives with the campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harris will likely focus on the issue of reproductive rights as a major source of fuel for Democratic fundraising.
Speeches she has given to donors in San Jose and San Francisco over the past year have painted a stark contrast between the two major parties’ stances on abortion access. The Washington-based Reproductive Freedom for All organization, formerly known as NARAL, endorsed Harris on Sunday.
The vice president also got the support Sunday afternoon of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Ann Ravel, the former chair of the Federal Elections Commission, said the endorsement of Harris made the most sense financially for Biden’s campaign, which recently reported roughly $90 million of cash on hand. Ravel said that because Harris is connected to the campaign, she is entitled to the existing funds.
“She’s already part of the ticket,” said Ravel. “And that’s where the money came in.”
Although with Biden’s backing, Harris is the presumed nominee, there were signs Sunday that the Democratic Party hadn’t fully coalesced around a single nominee.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, long seen as one of the behind-the-scenes political chess players of the Democratic Party, applauded Biden on Sunday for dropping out but fell short of endorsing Harris.
Former President Barack Obama similarly was silent on the vice president’s nomination, writing in a Medium post that he had “extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”