Crypto PAC Fairshake Claims Another Win Against Elizabeth Warren Ally With Bush Loss

Fairshake PAC, the digital asset industry’s leading political action committee, scored three victories in this week’s congressional primaries.

Cryptocurrency spending led to the defeat of many of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s allies in Congress, including prominent progressive Representative Cori Bush of Missouri.

Fairshake said it has secured ad time in 18 general election races for congressional candidates, where it will spend $25 million.

The crypto industry has poured a seven-figure war fund into opposing candidates backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and that spending may have contributed to some incumbent lawmakers losing their jobs, according to a prominent political action committee (PAC) funded by digital asset companies.

Bush, a progressive in the House of Representatives, lost his primary challenge to Democratic attorney Wesley Bell by a landslide after anti-Bush forces began spending millions on opposition ads — easily outpacing the money his campaign raised from supporters. The crypto opposition — despite its hefty $1.4 million price tag from the Fairshake super PAC — was overshadowed by the massive $9 million anti-Bush campaign from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which spent several million dollars to derail Bush in this week’s primary.

“Cori Bush has become the latest anti-crypto, Elizabeth Warren-backed legislator to lose her seat in Congress,” Fairshake spokesman Josh Vlasto said in a statement. “The crypto and blockchain community will continue to support candidates who believe in innovation and job creation.”

This mirrored a similar scenario to the previous campaign against Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), which also featured a heavily paid response from the pro-Israel lobby group and lesser (but still significant) opposition spending from the crypto sector.

In Tuesday’s primary, Fairshake and its affiliates notched two victories over hand-picked, pro-crypto candidates in Washington state and a separate race in Missouri.

In Washington state, PACs spent $1.5 million to support Democrat Emily Randall in the 6th Congressional District, and Randall won in the state’s top two primary systems. That means she will face the winner with the second-highest number of votes in the general election, but she beat the Republican’s vote total by more than 3,000 and is expected to win.

In Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District, crypto PACs poured money into supporting Republican state Senator Bob Onder, who easily won the Republican primary in the district that is expected to swing to Republicans in November.

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That makes 26 U.S. congressional races where the crypto industry has prevailed in electing or opposing a candidate it sees as a threat to the digital assets space.

Senator Warren and her allies have been a theme of crypto spending in 2024 that has outpaced many other industries in the U.S. The most prominent example was the $10 million allocated to defeat Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) in her bid for U.S. Senate. More recently, in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, crypto-choice Yassamin Ansari, a former Democratic deputy mayor of Phoenix and a proponent of digital assets, won a 42-vote lead in his race (now headed for an automatic recount) against a Warren-backed opponent.

With the U.S. congressional primaries nearing their end, Fairshake is focused on the general election races. The PAC announced Wednesday that it has begun offering ad time in 18 precincts and plans to spend about $25 million.

“We will continue to use our resources to support leaders in both parties and both chambers. These leaders are committed to getting things done and working with industry to pass responsible regulations that spur innovation, create jobs, and maintain America’s global leadership,” Vlasto said in a statement.