TL;DR
- The crypto PAC Fairshake spent $3.6 million in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming primaries, achieving victories for four of the five candidates it backed.
- Protect Progress directed over $2 million in negative advertising against Oliver Gilbert in Florida, who nonetheless won with 34.4% of the vote.
- Fairshake reported a reserve of $193 million in January and has already accumulated over $82 million spent on the 2026 midterm election campaign.
The political action committee Fairshake and its affiliated PACs Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs posted mixed results in the Tuesday, August 19 primaries, though they maintain that the electoral cycle is just getting started.
The PAC allocated a total of around $3.6 million in legislative races in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming, with both Democratic and Republican candidates among its beneficiaries. Four of the five candidates backed by the organization advanced in their respective primaries, a performance that committee leaders interpret as a signal of the crypto industry’s strong influence on the American political system.
A $2 Million Stumble in the Florida PAC
The exception was Florida. Protect Progress invested over $2 million in negative advertising against Oliver Gilbert, the Democratic candidate for the state’s 24th district, without securing his defeat.
Gilbert defeated his rivals Shevrin Jones and Kendrick Meek and won with 34.4% of the vote. During the campaign, Gilbert had described the advertisers as “crypto scam artists trying to buy a Democratic primary,” linking the funds to Donald Trump‘s tech allies.
The Miami Herald reported on August 12 that the ads included fake headlines from the newspaper itself that misrepresented the candidate’s positions, though a PAC spokesperson defended the accuracy of the underlying facts. Gilbert made no mention of the crypto industry or the ads in his acceptance speech.
As for the successes, Defend American Jobs spent a combined $1.5 million on advertising to support Nick Begich in Alaska, Sydney Gruters in Florida’s 16th district, and Representative Harriet Hageman for Senate in Wyoming. Gruters and Hageman won their primaries, while Begich has favorable prospects for advancing. Meanwhile, Protect Progress disbursed over $150,000 in support of Democrat Lois Frankel, who prevailed in Florida’s 23rd district.
Congress Will Define Crypto Regulation
The electoral performance of candidates backed by Fairshake reflects the country’s significant legislative moment. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are in recess until September, when the upper chamber will need to vote on the CLARITY Act, designed to establish comprehensive regulation of digital assets.
The bill already passed the House in July 2025 with 294 votes in favor and 134 against, but faces resistance from Democratic senators who demand stricter ethical provisions tied to the Trump family’s crypto investments. Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter stated that the PAC is “just beginning to build the most pro-crypto Congress in history.”
