According to CoinDesk, the leading political action committee in the crypto industry, Fairshake, has announced its intention to significantly influence three U.S. Senate races in Ohio, Arizona, and Michigan. The committee plans to allocate substantial funds to support candidates who are favorable to the crypto sector.
In Ohio, Fairshake is setting aside $12 million to back Republican candidate Bernie Moreno, a blockchain businessman, against the current chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Democrat Sherrod Brown. Brown has been a vocal critic of the digital assets sector and has shown reluctance to advance crypto legislation in his committee.
In addition to Ohio, Fairshake is also targeting the Senate races in Arizona and Michigan. The committee plans to spend approximately $3 million each to support U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Elisa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in their respective Senate races. Fairshake's spokesman, Josh Vlasto, emphasized the group's mission to support candidates who embrace innovation, protect American jobs, and work across party lines to achieve bipartisan consensus on responsible crypto and blockchain regulation.
This move follows Fairshake's recent announcement of backing 18 incumbent members of the House of Representatives in the upcoming November elections, all of whom have records of supporting crypto. The group's ads during the primaries have largely avoided mentioning the crypto positions of the candidates being supported or opposed.
Fairshake, along with its related PACs – the Democrat-oriented Protect Progress and the Republican-focused Defend American Jobs – will also invest in digital ads specifically targeting crypto users. The crypto industry's PACs are among the largest by dollar amount in the 2024 elections, rivaling other major U.S. industries and the parties' own funding. Fairshake has so far concentrated on congressional races and has avoided involvement in the presidential contest, carefully dividing its support across party lines. The $10 million it spent to derail the Senate bid of Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) was previously its largest single-race expenditure.