Fairshake PAC Advances 4 of 5 Candidates, Loses $2M Florida Race

Four of five candidates supported by ads from crypto-aligned political action committees won their primaries or advanced on Tuesday. Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, the two Fairshake-affiliated committees, spent about $3.6 million combined on House and Senate races across three states.

Fairshake's committees split along party lines. Protect Progress backs Democrats, and Defend American Jobs backs Republicans.

Democrat Lois Frankel won her primary in Florida's 23rd congressional district after Protect Progress spent more than $150,000 on supportive media.

Defend American Jobs spent $1.5 million on three Republican campaigns. Nick Begich, running in Alaska's at-large district, is expected to advance. Sydney Gruters won in Florida's 16th district. Harriet Hageman won the Senate primary in Wyoming. All four are likely to face general-election challengers in November.

Tuesday's one setback came in Florida's 24th district. Oliver Gilbert won the Democratic primary with 34.4% of the vote, beating state Senator Shevrin Jones and former Representative Kendrick Meek, according to the New York Times. Protect Progress had put more than $2 million into ads against Gilbert. The contest became a test of the industry's influence in Democratic primaries.

Gilbert made the spending an issue before Tuesday. He told the Miami Herald in August that "Trump's tech billionaire buddies" were behind "crypto con artists trying to buy a Democratic primary." The paper reported the ads included fabricated Miami Herald headlines misrepresenting his policy positions. A Fairshake spokesperson said "the underlying facts in our ad are true."

The ads went unmentioned in his Tuesday night acceptance speech.

Fairshake reported a $193 million war chest as of January. The committee funded more than $130 million in ads in the 2024 cycle, backing candidates it considered pro-crypto and opposing those who spoke negatively about the industry or voted against its interests. As of June, it had spent more than $82 million on races ahead of the November midterms.

Geoff Vetter, a Fairshake spokesperson, said the PAC was "just getting started" on spending. He said the group was building "the largest pro-crypto Congress in history."

Congress is on recess until September. The House passed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act, in July on a 294-134 vote with bipartisan support; the bill would establish comprehensive federal rules for digital assets. Senate Democrats have pushed for stronger ethics provisions tied to the Trump family's crypto investments.

Republicans hold the majority in both chambers. The November elections will decide which party controls the next Congress. If the current session does not address the bill before 2027, lawmakers elected then would take up the legislation in the next Congress. The Senate is scheduled to address a cloture motion on the CLARITY Act when it returns.