SAN FRANCISCO — Jeb Bush this week gushed with love for Silicon Valley, hanging in the offices of Thumbtack, causing a spectacle with his pre-announced Uber hail, and flashing around his Apple Watch, as he talked about how Washington needs to learn a few things from the Silicon Valley way.

It’s not really a mutual relationship.


Despite Republican candidates’ high-profile outreach to the Bay Area, most tech industry bigwigs are throwing cash at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Clinton’s campaign in the second quarter counted big checks from a variety of tech executives, including Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, YouTube leader Susan Wojcicki and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to a fundraising report filed this week. Sandberg, Cerf and Wojcicki each gave $2,700, while Musk gave $5,000.

By contrast, Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul collected just a handful of donations from Valley elite. The Republicans did receive support from many lower-level Silicon Valley employees, particularly Paul, who attracted a large number of small dollar donations.

All three GOP candidates have sought to make inroads in the region with a message of keeping government from getting in the way of innovation.

Paul, starved of Wall Street cash, has made a big effort to court Silicon Valley and the larger tech community. He’s traveled regularly to California, set up an office in San Francisco and previously made his case to the industry at the annual South by Southwest summit in Texas, while broadcasting his travels on Meerkat.

Bush also has been ratcheting up his pitch, telling employees at a town hall on Thursday, “The government of the future needs to look more like Thumbtack, to be honest with you: lower cost, higher quality, focused on outcomes, really focused on citizens, or in your case, the customers.” Rubio, for his part, traveled to a startup incubator in Chicago to talk about innovation earlier this month.

It’s still early in the race for the White House, but as the latest filings show, the GOP has plenty of ground to cover if it hopes to dislodge Democrats’ firm grasp on the industry’s wealthiest donors.

“President Barack Obama set a record for level of engagement with the tech community,” said Garrett Johnson, the co-founder of Lincoln Labs, a Republican tech group which is holding its Reboot conference this weekend. “We’ve been engaged by the Democratic Party for at least the past eight years … whereas you don’t have that track record for anyone on the GOP side.”

Tech executives showered Obama with support during both his 2008 and 2012 runs. By his re-election campaign, the incumbent even had in place a campaign apparatus — Technology for Obama — that raised cash from executives at Google, Salesforce and other Internet firms.

Of the $28 million contributed by the communications and electronics sector during the 2012 presidential race, more than $18 million went to Obama, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

And while some love has been lost over the Edward Snowden revelations, Democrats have only solidified their cultural advantage in Valley. For all the region’s libertarian tendencies, it is resolutely socially liberal — and on some of the most prominent national issues, such as same-sex marriage, Bay Area donors find themselves in total alignment with Clinton.

The result is evident in the latest round of fundraising reports.

Clinton snagged checks from Lisa Jackson, the newly elevated policy chief at Apple; Mark Pincus, the CEO of Zynga; Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox; and Aaron Levie, the leader of Box. Each gave $2,700. The campaign also received donations from a number of Facebook executives and two top venture capitalists at Andreessen Horowitz.

Republicans, by contrast, had a more sparse showing from the tech industry.

Bush did snag checks from Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Goldman ($2,700), and Raj Shah of Palo Alto Networks ($2,700). Rubio saw support from some Oracle executives, after former CEO Larry Ellison held a fundraiser for him at his Woodside, Calif., home. Rubio also got a donation from Cisco CEO John Chambers, another fixture in Republican fundraising. Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, attracted checks from more old-school tech types, including Ann Livermore.

Paul, who famously set up an outpost in the Valley to help recruit tech talent and support, didn’t attract donations from major industry executives, although he was popular with many tech firm employees.