CHICAGO — Mayor London Breed often insists that after years of getting beaten up in the national press, San Francisco is undergoing a renaissance. With Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, it’s not just the mayor reasserting the city’s political clout.
Around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, a rapturous crowd of elected officials, Democratic activists, donors, and staffers swarmed into Tao nightclub in Chicago’s River North neighborhood to celebrate Harris and San Francisco’s status as a mecca for innovation.
The Killers were performing and champagne and cocktails were flowing at the party, which was billed as a “night of technology and truth.” A collective belief that San Francisco is reclaiming its place as a center of power was palpable.
The splashy bash drew bold-faced names: California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and Controller Malia Cohen, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and members of Congress. The man of the hour was Chris Larsen, billionaire chairman of crypto firm Ripple, a local Democratic power donor and major cheerleader of Breed as she faces a tough reelection in November.
“It’s some kind of magic that has descended from space to save us from the evil empire,” said Larsen when asked about the Harris campaign. “It feels like a new day. And I think it will be good for the Bay Area.”
Partygoers, many of whom filed in after former President Barack Obama’s speech lauding Harris as the auteur of a “better story” in America, invoked the crackling energy of Obama’s 2008 campaign. Breed, who was Larsen’s guest of honor at the party, took the stage and stumped for Harris, whom she’s known since the presidential candidate’s early days as a San Francisco prosecutor.
“We like to claim [Harris] in this city,” Breed said. “Tonight is a time to talk about everything that San Francisco represents … because, you know, Republicans are trying to turn San Francisco into a bad word.”
At this point in the race, Republicans’ familiar epithet of “San Francisco liberal” — long deployed against figures like Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — doesn’t seem to be having its intended effect.
Three weeks ago, former President Donald Trump released an ad painting Harris as a cop-hating “San Francisco radical” gleefully presiding over open borders, inflation, and — even more sinister — a ban on plastic straws. Still, polling suggests that Harris has had a surge in support in battleground states after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and she rapidly locked up the nomination.
Breed ridiculed Republicans, who she said were happy to smear San Francisco while tweeting from iPhones and hailing Ubers — ubiquitous technologies that originated in the Bay Area. “We’re the AI capital of the world … because I said so,” she said.
For many in the San Francisco tech world, Harris represents not just a younger, more energetic Democrat but a distinctly pro-business candidate who understands their interests in a way that Biden perhaps did not.
That was apparent two weeks ago, when hundreds of investors, including SV Angel boss Ron Conway and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman packed into a Zoom call and pledged financial support and organizing prowess as part of a group calling itself “VCs for Kamala.” The group raised $150,000 for Harris’ campaign within a few hours.
“When you compare presidential candidates, [Harris is] the one who’s been in governance roles with a focus on creating innovation,” Hoffman said on the Zoom call. At an Aug. 11 fundraising event at the Fairmont hotel, Harris reportedly mingled with elite tech donors, including Hoffman and venture capitalists John Doerr and Steve Westly.
Asked what a Harris presidency would mean for the Bay Area, Larsen drew a sharp distinction between the vice president and her boss.
He described Biden as a hero and “wonderful person” but said his administration “missed the mark” on its relationship to Silicon Valley, sending some high-profile figures in the tech world into the MAGA camp.
Venture capitalists Ben Horowitz, Marc Andreessen, Chamath Palihapitiya, and Shaun Maguire have endorsed Trump. “It’s a head-scratcher. But I think it all is born from this very anti-business, anti-innovation stand,” Larsen said.
“The hope is that we’re not vilifying businesses anymore. It’s the lifeblood of America,” Larsen said. “We’re hoping that Kamala, being from the Bay Area, understands that. I think that’s going to be a really important shift in what you’re seeing.”
Closer to home, Larsen has showered cash on Breed’s reelection bid, recently giving $400,000 to an independent expenditure committee supporting her campaign and contributing some $750,000 to two March ballot measures Breed championed. He insisted the city is improving under her watch.
“She deserves to be reelected, point blank. The city’s improving,” he said.