Clinton’s Silicon Valley fundraiser resigns

Hillary Clinton has lost her key fundraising liaison with Silicon Valley’s tech sector, a blow to the campaign in that important donor region.

Emanuel Yekutiel confirmed to The Hill in a telephone interview that he resigned from Clinton’s presidential campaign, saying he “just came to the realization that I didn’t want to be in political fundraising at this time in my life anymore.”

{mosads}Yekutiel was an important recruit for the campaign, as he was previously chief of staff for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s political advocacy group, FWD.us. 

The 26-year-old was hired in April to be Clinton’s deputy finance director for Northern California, but his job, as Yekutiel explained it, was managing the campaign’s fundraising with California’s wealthy technology sector. 

He said he was the first person on the ground for the campaign in Northern California.  

Silicon Valley is a key source of Democratic Party money and was a crucial fundraising base for both of President Obama’s campaigns. Clinton has relied heavily on California, flying to the state every two months, instead of every three months, as Obama’s campaign had done. 

One top Democratic fundraiser said “penetrating the tech community is “really, really hard” and that Yekutiel might have been a too junior for the role.   

“It’s very, very rare for staff to have turnover, especially a likely nominee” at this stage, the fundraiser said.

The campaign has “done what they needed to do but they’ve had to work much harder and they come here more than they should — once every two months” to make up for money they should’ve raised elsewhere, the fundraiser added.