The two senators were key attractions at a conference in Washington hosted by LincolnLabs, a group of entrepreneurs and digital operatives that hosted a similar event in Silicon Valley last year.

"I love tech," Cruz said, kicking off his speech to the crowd and not-so subtly mentioning that both of his parents were computer programmers.

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The 2008 presidential election saw an infusion of tech with politics, and President Barack Obama's savvy operation has widely been referenced as the precedent for harnessing data and digital models for political campaigns. Many of Silicon Valley's biggest names -- and their wallets -- are considered potentially big power players in the 2016 presidential election.

Bush, whose last campaign took place in 2002 -- long before the political world got smart on tech -- has attempted to show that he's still ahead in the digital realm.

"I was digital before digital was cool I guess," he said in December, noting his prolific use of email as governor of Florida from 1999-2007.

His Blackberry can be seen in his official portrait.

But two incidents this week revealed Bush might not have caught up with modern times.

In an effort this week to show his transparency and accessibility, Bush released 250,000 emails to the public, but the dump included some personal information like names, emails and even Social Security numbers -- a huge no-no for online documents. The error was first reported by the tech blog, The Verge.

Bush's digital efforts were also in the spotlight after his team was forced to let go of their chief technology officer one day after announcing the hire. The aide resigned after it was made public that he deleted part of his online footprint, including tweets that referred to women as "sluts" and commented on gay men at the gym.

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