Which Presidential Candidate Is Winning the Tech Money Race?

It is becoming clear that the road to the White House in 2016 leads straight through Silicon Valley. Once a bit-player in the political money game, the technology industry came in second behind the oil and gas industry among the top sources for political contributions in the 2012 presidential election. The candidates have noticed and are courting the Valley’s wealthy tech elite. The biggest contributions are not to the campaign committees themselves but to the Super PACs affiliated with the candidates.

That’s why Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) is leading the tech funding field by a wide margin, according to a recent analysis by Crowdpac, a nonpartisan political data and tech startup, of contributions to campaign committees and Super PACs by people in the tech sector. How did Sen Rubio, who tied for third place alongside John Ellis Bush and Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the closely watched Quinnipiac Poll released last week, get so much more money than every other major candidate? His Super PAC landed two contributions from software billionaire Larry Ellison totaling $3 million.