Dems try to 'mend fences' with 'critical' — and once reliably blue — voting bloc: report

Democratic hopes of retaking the House in 2026 appeared to have started in Silicon Valley, where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with more than 150 tech donors in an attempt to make inroads into the once-solidly blue voting bloc, according to media reports. Democrats are “trying to mend fences and they’re also trying to keep them in the tent,” Alex Hoffman, a Democratic donor adviser, told Politico of the tech donors. Trump has made a show of his new billionaire tech allies lining up behind his “America First” policy agenda – taking meetings with them inside the White House and hosting news conferences alongside figures like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and, most notably, his Department of Government Efficiency chair Elon Musk – all once “card-carrying Democrats,” according to the Politico report. “These donors are also pissed, watching former and current colleagues have unlimited, unchecked power, and getting richer off of this and they’re not.” In Silicon Valley, Jeffries said Democrats “were reaching toward the center, while Trump will swing harder right,” Politico reported.