San Francisco played host this week to a political showdown in Democratic and Republican fundraising efforts. Gabe Freschler, reporter for the San Francisco Standard shares his thoughts on the campaigns with KALW’s election productions manager, Johanna Miyaki.
Johanna: “Can you draw sort of the contrast and comparison between these two fundraising events between Biden and Trump's campaigns in San Francisco yesterday’’
Gabe: “ Kamala Harris comes to the Mission District, which is known as one of the most progressive neighborhoods in San Francisco. So, and certainly very progressive for the rest of the country. You know, you have the ticket prices which are around about $6,000 per person for the Kamala Harris fundraiser. And then, you know, you compare that to the fundraiser that Trump is going to be at tonight.
That's in Pacific Heights known as a little bit more of a conservative neighborhood um in,in the city. And the ticket prices, you'll gasp, they're at half a million dollars for a couple to attend. So, you know, it really just kind of, I think is a great reflection of just really how different these two candidates are, in almost every way possible.”
Johanna: “What are the policies that these Trump supporters that might drop that kind of cash to attend…what are they behind? Like, what are the policies that they support?
Gabe: “ Its a good question, I think there's not one singular issue that is galvanizing some of this support in Silicon Valley. I think it's a lot of different things happening at once, but it's certainly interesting to see that there's been, you know, multiple tech folks coming out in more recent weeks in support of Trump. in terms of things that are driving them toward him, I think you can break it up into a couple of different issues. I think one is the economy.I think that they'll, you know, point to, oh, when Trump was president things, you know, were a lot better. Of course, you have to factor in the pandemic. With that, I think they're very, these folks are really critical about the our involvement in the war in Ukraine. I think that's another aspect is they're very critical about his foreign policy. Of course, another one is immigration. You'll see a lot of these folks, you know, some of the folks in Silicon Valley who are supporting Trump be very critical about kind of the democrats kind of position on immigration.
Tech entrepreneur David Sacks hosted the Trump fundraiser at his mansion in Pacific heights on Thursday.
Gabe Greschler's article