The biggest name in the 2022 election cycle and the biggest spender of cryptocurrencies is currently awaiting a prison sentence on charges of fraud and conspiracy. But a new super PAC is emerging as the heir to the collapsed Sam Bankman-Fried empire, and they're making the first big bet of the 2024 election cycle, with next month's California Senate primary. He is trying to destroy Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who is running for office.
Fairshake, the new largest super PAC focused on cryptocurrencies, began booking TV and digital ads across California in a multimillion-dollar acquisition late Monday, closing in on the final three in the race. Could be a major player in the coming weeks.
FairShake said in a federal filing two weeks ago that two super PACs affiliated with the company have amassed about $80 million combined in 2023, with most of that money going to Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Andreessen. It has been revealed that Horowitz is coming from three major crypto currency players.
In the California Senate race, Porter is competing against Democratic U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, fellow Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, and Republican Steve Garvey, a former baseball player. The top two finishers in the March primary will advance to November, even if both are Democrats.
“Katie Porter says one thing and does another,” FairShake said in a statement, accusing Porter of accepting campaign contributions from other industries and misleading the state about her background.
The group was planning a mass campaign of anti-Porter ads and began taking pre-orders in markets across the state on Monday. The ad, released Tuesday, begins, “Katie Porter is playing us for fools,” and accuses her of accepting donations from industry executives.
Beyond his track record as a progressive who supports regulating the industry in favor of consumers and made headlines several years ago for harsh criticism of financial chief executives, what makes Mr. Porter so excited about cryptocurrencies? It's not clear exactly what caused the industry's ire.
“Californians will not be fooled. The shadow crypto billionaires don't want a strong voice for consumers in the Senate,” Ms. Porter said. I wrote to X After the New York Times reported on the advertising blitz. “They are spending millions of dollars on dishonest black money advertising against me because they are afraid of people who scream corporate greed.”
She also quickly sent out a fundraising email about “crypto billionaires” attacking her.
The crypto investors behind FairShake and its two affiliates, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, have been quite open about their agenda. It's about securing a favorable set of regulations as the federal government considers how to regulate the industry, and using political capital to benefit the industry. that.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who personally donated $1 million in September, told Axios that same month: For better or worse, that's how our system works. ”
“If you look at the oil and gas lobby, the banking lobby, etc., they spend something like $100 million a year, I don't know,” Armstrong said at the time. Interestingly, in a statement, FairShake said it was some of the same industry that supported Mr. Porter.
This new crypto megagroup and its affiliates are attracting prominent Democratic and Republican consulting firms.
FairShake has previously paid pollster Impact Research, which worked for President Biden in 2020, and ad production firm Jamestown Associates, which produced a commercial for former President Donald J. Trump in the same year. There is. Records show the group also used two other prominent polling firms, Schoen Survey Research, founded by Doug Schoen, and Global Strategy Group, which works on behalf of a wide range of congressional Democrats. It is shown that there is.
On Capitol Hill, Mr. Porter was a close ally of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a former professor at Harvard Law School. According to cryptocurrency news tracking site Bitcoin.com, Warren has been an outspoken critic of lax regulations surrounding cryptocurrencies, and Porter once shared a letter with Warren to Texas regulators regarding cryptocurrencies. I have signed.
Schiff has been campaigning for Garvey over Porter in the general election, posting a statement on his policy page about the cryptocurrency industry and the need to foster such an innovative industry. There is. He said, “We need to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework to ensure these businesses and jobs stay here and grow here,” the page says.
FairShake and its affiliates were already working on behalf of candidates including Rep. Patrick McHenry (North Carolina), the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, even before he announced his retirement last year. It has spent relatively small amounts of money on other elections.
The largest expenditure to date by its cryptocurrency group Protect Progress was to support Democrat Shomali Figures, who is running for the Alabama House of Representatives. On his website's issues page, Figures emphasized the importance of supporting cryptocurrencies, saying, “We embrace the new landscape around digital assets like cryptocurrencies to stimulate innovation and technological progress. “I will try my best to do so,” he wrote.
Figures has benefited from nearly $750,000 in cryptocurrency spending since late January, reminiscent of the massive sums Bankman Fried and others have poured into 2022 parliamentary elections. .
Bankman Freed's cryptocurrency trading company FTX went bankrupt at the end of 2022, and he was arrested and charged with fraud following a multibillion-dollar bombing. He was convicted in November.
