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Hillary Clinton makes fundraising swing through Silicon Valley

By Eric DuVall
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with a supporter after an event in Pittsburgh last month. Clinton's support among tech industry leaders has generated $4 million and counting in donations to her campaign. Photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with a supporter after an event in Pittsburgh last month. Clinton's support among tech industry leaders has generated $4 million and counting in donations to her campaign. Photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI | License Photo

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton made a fundraising swing through tech-heavy Silicon Valley, tapping a sector of the economy that has shown itself more likely to support her candidacy than Donald Trump's.

Clinton has made adopting a tech-friendly list of policies a priority, amassing a large and diverse set of advisers who helped her draft her campaign's official policy paper on tech issues. In it, she embraced several of the tech sector's top policy priorities, including supporting "net neutrality," which prohibits Internet service providers from favoring certain high-traffic sites like Amazon and Netflix with greater bandwidth at the expense of smaller start-up companies. She also supports curtailing patent lawsuits that have hounded major tech companies like Apple.

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Her approach appears to be paying off.

Clinton completed a two-day fundraising swing through California, including Wednesday, which she spent in the Bay Area, where Apple CEO Tim Cook hosted one of three events on her behalf. Tickets for Cook's fundraiser sold for between $2,700 and $50,000, according to KPIX-TV, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco.

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Clinton also attended two other fundraising events in Palo Alto, Calif., home to many of Silicon Valley's most affluent and influential leaders.

There are nearly a dozen prominent tech executives counted among the campaign's top fundraising bundlers, known as "Hillblazers," who solicit donations from wealthy associates. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports as of her last financial filing -- which does not include any donations made in August -- Clinton's campaign has raised $4 million from the tech industry.

Comparatively, Trump has raised $200,000 from the tech industry -- a figure Clinton likely topped in a single day Wednesday.

Trump has also picked high-profile fights with the tech sector over their business practices and cybersecurity. Trump has said he will force tech companies like Apple to bring their manufacturing facilities back to U.S. soil from Asia. He also called on supporters to boycott Apple over the company's refusal to help the FBI break its iPhone encryption lock to aide in criminal investigations, citing customers' privacy concerns.

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