News
Crypto Super PAC Notches Win in House and Senate Races
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
On Tuesday, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., he lost the primaries to Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Bowman’s defeat was due in part to his outspoken criticism of Israel. However, cryptocurrency PAC Fairshake also entered the race and spent $2 million to air a commercial critical of Bowman.
Fairshake and its two affiliated political action committees, one for Republicans, one for Democrats, quietly scored a half-dozen other victories Tuesday as candidates they supported slipped to victory, though none of the races were competitive. They included Representative John Curtis, who won the Republican nomination for Utah’s open Senate seat.
U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., joins TikTok creators at a news conference to speak against a possible TikTok ban, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 22, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Created last year as part of a joint effort among more than a dozen crypto firms, Fairshake PAC has emerged as one of the highest-spending PACs in the 2024 election cycle.
According to AdImpact, Fairshake and its two affiliated PACs have invested more than $37 million in advertising in primary races so far.
Despite the broad mission of championing the entire $2.2 trillion cryptocurrency market, Fairshake is funded by a very small group of donors.
Of the $160 million in total contributions Fairshake has raised since its founding, approximately $155 million – or 94% – can be traced back to just four companies: Ripple, Andreesen Horowitz, Coinbase, and Jump Crypto.
But it’s not just money the cryptocurrency industry plans to give out this fall. The non-profit Support cryptocurrencies claims to have collected more than 1.1 million email addresses of cryptocurrency “supporters” who it hopes to engage all the way to the polls.
The strength of crypto groups is making itself known on Capitol Hill, especially among lawmakers facing difficult elections in 2025, where a few thousand voters, or a large donation, could make the difference not only in a race, but also in which party controls each of them. Room.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple he said this is a “defining moment” for cryptocurrencies and that it made a difference to have an “organized, cohesive effort around Fairshake.”
“This is an industry that has been left behind in Washington and has been really on the defensive,” Garlinghouse told CNBC.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, speaks during the CoinDesk 2022 Consensus Festival in Austin, Texas on June 11, 2022.
Jordan Vonderhaar | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The effort is also intended to showcase a mature cryptocurrency industry. After the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Friedthat have invested millions in the 2022 midterm elections, crypto groups present themselves as more serious players.
Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad, who previously worked at both the White House and Goldman Sachs, said the industry understood the need to not only engage lawmakers, but also coordinate with cryptocurrency owners and blockchain to amplify their political weight.
“We realized that the only way to take the politics out of cryptocurrency was to build a political operation that levels the playing field.”
He also said the group is tapping into what it sees as a grassroots movement to allow “Americans who own cryptocurrencies to be part of the process.”
The group doesn’t plan to spend on the presidential race in the coming months, but rather on the House and Senate, according to a Fairshake spokesperson. Both chambers are up for grabs in 2025.
Fairshake has yet to start spending in the general election cycle, but several industry officials said they are keeping an eye on states like Ohio and Montana, where incumbent Democrats who are bearish on cryptocurrencies face challengers who have embraced the technology.
In Ohio, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, an self-declared cryptocurrency skeptiche is clashing with Republican Bernie Moreno, founder of a blockchain startup.
In Montana, Republican challenger Tim Sheehy called cryptocurrencies “the future of finance and the Internet.” Meanwhile, incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester he told “Meet the press” in 2022 that cryptocurrency did not “pass the smell test.” Reportedly, so does he called “bull—-” cryptocurrency, according to Semafor.
But as Tester wages one of the Senate’s toughest reelection fights, his attitude toward cryptocurrencies appears to be changing.
Tester told reporters he is keeping an open mind on several cryptocurrency bills before the Senate.
“This is 21st century stuff,” Tester told reporters June 12 at the Capitol. “I thought faxes were bullshit too.”
This change in mentality also manifested itself in the votes. Tester was one of 11 Democrats vote to overturn SEC guidelines on cryptocurrencies which was criticized by the industry.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., speaks to reporters as he walks through the U.S. Senate subway on Capitol Hill, Sept. 18, 2018.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Democratic Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jackie Rosen of Nevada, who are also in tough reelection battles, voted in favor of the bill.
In the House, Rep. Elisa Slotkin, D-Mich., who is running for an open Senate seat, voted to both overturn the SEC guidance and another bill create a market structure for digital assets.
However, it remains to be seen how big a role cryptocurrencies will play in the November elections and how many votes will be influenced by candidates’ positions on cryptocurrencies.
A annual survey released in May by the Federal Reserve found that about 7%, or about 18 million American adults, have owned or used cryptocurrencies in the past year. This figure is 5 percentage points lower than the same survey reported in 2021.
Issues like the economy, immigration, and abortion affect more people, by an order of magnitude, than cryptocurrencies. In fact, the relatively small pool of crypto users is something that the industry’s political ad creators seem to be aware of.
Fairshake-funded ads convey messages that are typically less about supporting or opposing cryptocurrency candidates and more about broader issues that resonate with voters, such as fairness and integrity.
During California’s primary season, a Fairshake advertisement targeted Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who was running for an open Senate seat, as a “phony” and tried to tie her to a corrupt corporation. Fairshake spent $9.7 million on the race.
Porter ultimately lost to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is widely considered friendlier to cryptocurrencies than Porter.