Harris, Vance, and the tech wars: Why San Francisco holds the key to the 2024 election

Last week, at a speech in Florida, Donald Trump warned that a Kamala Harris presidency would “forcibly impose crazy San Francisco liberal values on Americans nationwide.”

San Francisco, population 808,437, has long been a punching bag for conservatives nationwide — but Trump neglected to mention that his own running mate, JD Vance, also has deep ties there.

Perhaps more than any other time in US history, both sides of the ticket include people with fundamental ties to the Bay Area.

First, there’s Vice President Harris. This week she became the first Californian Democrat to secure the presidential nomination. Growing up in Oakland, she methodically rose through local and then state politics, bridging the region’s long activist tradition and its old-school local Democratic machine.

Then there’s Ohio senator and vice presidential candidate Vance, who spent years as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist alongside conservative investor Peter Thiel. The Facebook backer not only shaped Vance’s ideas but supported his senate campaign, reportedly introduced him to Trump, and – along with other right-leaning tech barons – helped persuade the former president to put him on the 2024 ticket.

This race probably wouldn’t even be Harris versus Trump were it not for another San Francisco legend, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who reportedly was instrumental in getting Joe Biden out.

Meanwhile, Trump has begun making aggressive overtures to the cryptocurrency industry that boasts so many Bay Area devotees.

So how did one relatively small city – not even California’s biggest – gain so much sway over national politics? And what does that foreshadow about the 2024 election?

The contest between Harris and Vance is in part a duel between two