For the last few elections, Silicon Valley has run a blue-tinted shade of purple with its political donations. Growing corporate money is starting to add more red.

Company donations from the tech industry are favoring Republican party candidates (53% to 47% for Dems), a flip from the last midterm election cycle but a margin much narrower than those seen in the early 2000s. With companies like Google starting to become major donors as individual donations level off, courting Silicon Valley's corporate side has become important for prospective candidates.

See also: The 27 candidates you need to know before voting

When individual contributions are taken into account, Silicon Valley ends up going blue. Liberal candidates in the 2014 election cycle have enjoyed a split of 59% to 40%, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. That is a slight decline from the last few elections cycles, including the 2008 election that saw 67% of overall donations to go Democratic candidates, but about in line with the historical average.

A little more than half of that money is from individuals, who skew heavily toward the Dems. Individual contributions (almost $15 million so far in 2014) outpace PAC donations ($7.3 million). That gap is narrowing, as compared to the last midterm election in 2010, individual contributions have fallen about $4 million while Pac donations are up a little under $1 million.

Political action committees, known as "PACs," are organizations that act as conduits for political donations, usually organized around a certain business or interest. Many companies have their own PACs that make donations on behalf of the company. Google has NETPAC. Microsoft has Microsoft Corporation Political Action Committee.

The corporate cash from PACs favors the GOP. As the Financial Times recently noted, Google recently overtook Goldman Sachs in total PAC donations.

This is still quite different form the races of the early 2,000s in which corporate PAC money from the tech industry even more heavily favored the GOP. The 2008 election of Barack Obama marked a distinct shift.

Silicon Valley has emerged as a political force thanks to its deep pockets and outspoken positions on topics like patent reform and immigration. The 2014 total of around $28 million outpaces other areas like education and commercial banking but lags others like oil and gas and the health industry.

The growth in corporate donations from the tech industry has begun to attract the attention of national candidates. Rand Paul, who is expected to have presidential aspirations in 2016, set up an office in Silicon Valley. Presumed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has come to the industry's defense over accusations of cooperation with the government's massive spying operation, and made the rounds in the valley in July.

Politico recently noted that increased political activity from tech companies has clashed with some of the views of its employees. The most recent high-profile exampled involved ALEC, a conservative group with a long list of corporate donors and a track record of success in delivering its legislature. Yahoo, Google and Facebook have all recently left the group, citing its stances on ares like climate change and renewable energy.

Some of tech's biggest names have also espoused conservative viewpoints. Peter Thiel has emerged as one of the more outspoken tech leaders that tends to lean right. Thiel, who cofounded PayPal and data analytics firm Palantir, routinely speaks about the need to emphasize technological progress as a means to solving societal issues, rather than turn to the government. Elon Musk once tweeted about his admiration for Margaret Thatcher.

The tech industry's emergence as a national and global force — particularly as business competition and national security issues with China ramp up — mean PAC donations should continue to make up ground on left-learning individual donors. That, however, does not mean Silicon Valley's total donations will eventually go red.

Roger Kay, a technology analyst and founder of Endpoint Technologies Associates, noted that corporate donations can be very fickle, often piling on to candidates and sides they expect to win. This election would seem to match that thought, with the Washington Post giving the Republicans a 96% chance of winning the Senate.

"The tech industry doesn't differ from other industries in that they like to bet on winners," Kay said. "The reason for the shift in the PACs to the GOP is that they think the GOP is going to win."