SAN FRANCISCO — When Rand Paul announced plans to set up shop in Silicon Valley, he portrayed it as a bid to reverse Republicans' fortunes in deep Democratic territory: "If we want to win the presidency,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in September 2014, “we have to figure out how to compete in California."

Other Republicans had similarly high hopes that Paul’s message against big government — and Big Brother — might strike a chord among this city’s tech elite and engineers alike. “He’s hopeful it’s a libertarian incubator of future Ayn Rands,” Shawn Steel, a past chairman of the California Republican Party, told POLITICO last year.


But seven months after the Kentucky senator’s team finally found an outpost here, not even a campaign sign hangs above the gated door outside StartupHouse, the shared, rented work space where his aides toil alongside app makers and Web designers. At times, nobody from Paul’s presidential campaign can be found among the doodle-covered walls, concrete floors and rows of computer-lined tables.

“They come in every now and then," said StartupHouse founder Elias Bizannes, whose work space boasts about being blocks away from tech companies like Slack and Yahoo, during an interview. The Paul campaign hasn't held a public event here since it hosted a “hackathon” in June, a quiet streak matched these days by the senator’s lackluster fundraising in the Bay Area.

This isn't the way it was supposed to be for Paul. The GOP candidate believed his Bay Area office would help him attract the engineering talent required to wage a modern, digital campaign. It was supposed to burnish his credentials as an innovation-friendly option for voters who had long shunned the GOP — even in a state that hadn’t voted Republican in a presidential race since 1988, and a city that had twice swung heavily toward Barack Obama.

At the time, Paul reveled in the incongruity.

"Some people want to know what the hell is a Republican doing in San Francisco," he said during a panel discussion after the May opening, in front of what the Chronicle described as a “high-energy, high-tech crowd” that included about 100 entrepreneurs. He supplied his own answer: "What we want is a government that leaves us alone."

Paul also boasted of his campaign’s tech savvy. “We use Snapchat more than anybody else," he said.

Now, though, Paul is faltering nationally in the polls — he may not qualify for the main stage at Tuesday's Republican debate — and he's struggling to capture money and attention in a region long considered crucial to his White House run. He raised less than $85,000 in the San Francisco metro area as of the end of September, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, despite his attempts to woo the tech industry with his criticism of National Security Agency surveillance. That's far less than GOP rivals like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — not to mention Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who has locked up donations from key executives at tech companies like Facebook, Tesla and Yahoo.

“I was there when the office opened up ... Since then, I really haven’t heard much,” said Garrett Johnson, the leader of Lincoln Labs, a Bay Area group that aims to boost GOP prospects in the Valley. "As far as being a magnet for activity, for people who want to get involved in his campaign or involved in some way, I’m not sure it’s achieved that," added Johnson, who praised Paul for experimenting in a way other candidates had not.

By the campaign's own measure, however, the office has performed precisely as planned — as a symbol of inclusion and an extension of Paul’s message rather than a source of campaign cash.

"Sen. Rand Paul is the only candidate who continues to engage communities outside of the GOP's comfort zone; while some will inaccurately focus on fundraising prowess, our Silicon Valley engagement is based on growing the tent of our party, while at the same time learning from the many smart minds in the area," said spokesman Sergio Gor. "We have accomplished both."

In a crowded Republican primary field, Paul early on sought to distinguish himself from the pack with a decidedly digital angle. He live-streamed his appearance at the SXSW tech conference in Austin, Texas, in March. He hired GOP tech guru Vincent Harris, who had previously advised Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. And he spoke openly about the Valley's policy priorities — including a 10-hour Senate speech criticizing the NSA in May, after which his campaign unveiled a series of videos and fundraising pitches that touted Paul’s record on privacy.

Paul announced his plans for the San Francisco office in September 2014 before he had even entered the presidential race, promising at the time to visit the Valley "fairly often." He appeared intent on changing tech's political dynamic: “If you look historically at who people donate to, it’s really been 9 or 10 to 1, Democrat to Republican — we haven’t done as well," he told POLITICO in November.

Bizannes said the Paul campaign first contacted him about renting space at StartupHouse after he wrote a blog post in April urging politicians to pay more attention to startups. The joint office space, whose motto is “Live in the Future,” offers what it calls a “progressive and energetic environment” where entrepreneurs can rub elbows while working on their ventures.

Following its official debut in May, the campaign held a coding-competition in June, which awarded the winners a chance to meet the senator. But the campaign hasn't held any major public events there since then. And Paul aides aren't there consistently.

Gor, the Paul campaign spokesman, said the senator had numerous aides on the ground in San Francisco, including an official tech council assisting his campaign, but did not provide a specific number of staff or advisers. The senator himself has visited the area three times since May, according to Gor, who declined to make Paul available for an interview.

While courting Silicon Valley, Paul has repeatedly touted his opposition to NSA spying, a position that's widely shared among tech engineers and executives. But his critical statements also have collided with the current trajectory of national security politics. The terrorist attacks in Paris and the recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., have swung the pendulum in the direction of the Republican Party’s more security-minded wing, with Rubio, Bush and others calling for greater surveillance of potential threats.

Nationally, Paul’s poll numbers also have dipped far below candidates like Donald Trump and Ben Carson. As a result, libertarians in tech hubs like San Francisco and Seattle “still really like him and they are inclined to support him, but they’re a little concerned with the overall performance of the campaign," said Liz Mair, a top GOP strategist who advised the senator before assisting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential run.

While Paul has “new and innovative ideas" and has found ways to leverage the Web to reach new voters, his uphill presidential bid has still created “a bit of concern for people as to how they’re going to spend their money and how they’re going to spend their time and energy," Mair said.

It’s especially true among the Silicon Valley's biggest Republicans like former Cisco CEO John Chambers and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who have gravitated instead toward Rubio. The Florida senator's campaign raised $228,000 in total from donors in the San Francisco metro area by the end of September, according to an analysis of zip code data by the Center for Responsive Politics. Bush, meanwhile, has raked in more than $450,000 from area donors. And both Republicans benefit from millions of dollars in additional San Francisco help from super PACs that support their candidacies.

Paul, by contrast, has pulled in a more modest amount, just under $85,000, and two super PACs affiliated with his 2016 bid haven’t fared much better, raising a total of $45,000 in just San Francisco by July, according to most recent estimate available from the center. His lack of traction in the Valley contrasts with that of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who ran for the presidency in 2012. And the senator hasn't found renewed support from his past donors, like Facebook executive Sean Parker. An aide for Parker, who has not donated in the 2016 presidential election cycle, declined to comment for this story.

Still, Paul's chief tech allies stress his message is resonating: "I think his fundamental argument still stands," said Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com and a major donor to Paul's presidential campaign.

But the Utah-based Byrne, who's a member of the senator's 2016 tech advisory council, said he could not couldn’t speak to Paul’s success in Silicon Valley or other major tech hubs. Asked how the senator has been received, Byrne said it's a "question I would answer by looking at campaign data," which he did not have.

For some in the Valley, though, it's simple: Paul's GOP label may be part of problem.

“I think Rand has struck a chord in Silicon Valley” with his libertarian philosophy, said Bizannes. “But [some] people don’t want to affiliate themselves with Republican politics here.”