Crypto PAC jumps into Senate race, opposing Katie Porter in California
The biggest name and largest spender of cryptocurrency in the 2022 election cycle is now awaiting prison time for fraud and conspiracy. But new super PACs have emerged as successors to the collapsed Sam Bankman-Fried empire, and they're making their first big bet of the 2024 election cycle: They're trying to take on Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat who will be in the Senate primary next month. of California is present.
The largest new crypto-focused super PAC, Fairshake, began booking television and digital ads across California late Monday with a multimillion-dollar purchase, and it could be a major player in the final three weeks of the race.
Fairshake revealed in federal filings two weeks ago that it and two affiliated super PACs had collectively amassed about $80 million by 2023, with most of the money coming from three major cryptocurrency players: Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Andreessen Horowitz.
In the Senate race in California, Ms. Porter is running against Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat, and Representative Barbara Lee, another Democrat, as well as Steve Garvey, a Republican and former baseball player. The top two finishers from the March primary advance to November, even though they are both Democrats.
In a statement, Fairshake accused Ms. Porter of taking campaign money from other industries and misleading the state about her record, saying: “Katie Porter says one thing and does another.”
The group is planning a series of anti-Porter ads and had begun booking time at markets statewide on Monday.
It is not clear exactly what Ms. Porter has drawn the ire of the crypto industry beyond her record as a progressive who advocated regulating the industry to better benefit consumers and who called grilling a chief financial officer a made it into a viral moment a few years ago.
The crypto financiers behind Fairshake and its two affiliated groups, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, are fairly open about their agenda: ensuring a favorable set of regulations while the federal government considers how to regulate the crypto industry and using political spending to raise money to earn. It.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who personally donated $1 million in September, told Axios that same month: “Money moves the needle. For better or worse, that's how our system works.”
Mr. Armstrong said at the time: “If you look at the oil and gas lobby or the banking lobby, I mean they spend, I don't know, about $100 million a year.” Interestingly, Fairshake's statement mentioned some of the same industries that supported Ms Porter.
The new crypto megagroup and its subsidiaries have attracted prominent Democratic and Republican consulting firms.
Fairshake has so far paid money to Impact Research, a polling firm that worked for President Biden in 2020, and to Jamestown Associates, an advertising agency that produced commercials for former President Donald J. Trump that same year. Records show the group employs two other prominent polling firms: Schoen Survey Research, founded by Doug Schoen, and Global Strategy Group, which works for a wide range of congressional Democrats.
On Capitol Hill, Ms. Porter was a close ally of Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who was once her professor at Harvard Law School. Ms. Warren was an outspoken critic of the lax regulations surrounding cryptocurrency, and Ms. Warren was an outspoken critic of the lax regulations surrounding cryptocurrency. Porter once signed a letter with Ms. Warren to Texas regulators about cryptoaccording to crypto news tracking site Bitcoin.com.
Mr Schiff, who has campaigned to elevate Mr Garvey over Ms Porter until the general election, has a statement on the crypto industry on his policy page, writing about the need to nurture such innovative industries. “We must develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks to ensure these businesses and jobs stay here and grow here,” the page said.
Fairshake and its affiliated groups already spent relatively small amounts on other races last year, including for Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, before he announced his retirement.
The other biggest expenditure to date from affiliated crypto group Protect Progress was in aid to Shomari Figures, a Democrat running for the Alabama House of Representatives. On the issues page of his website, Mr. Figures emphasizes the importance of supporting cryptocurrencies, writing that he would work to “embrace the new landscape around digital assets, such as cryptocurrency, to drive innovation and technological advancement.”
Mr. Figures has benefited from nearly $750,000 in crypto spending since late January — reminiscent of the huge sums Mr. Bankman-Fried and others poured into 2022 congressional races.
Mr Bankman-Fried's crypto trading firm, FTX, collapsed in late 2022 and he was arrested and charged with fraud following its multi-billion dollar implosion. He was found guilty in November.