Political leanings: Professional-cryptocurrency
2024 Spending: $195.8 million
Fairshake, its website says, is an excellent PAC that “helps candidates dedicated to securing america as the house to innovators constructing the subsequent technology of the web.” Usually, it helps politicians who again insurance policies favorable to the cryptocurrency trade.
The group registered with the Federal Election Fee in 2023, and it’s financially supported by a number of the most influential corporations and executives within the digital forex sector.
FEC records establish Brandon Philipczyk as Fairshake’s treasurer and Josh Vlasto is the group’s spokesman. Philipczyk has labored on varied campaigns for Democratic candidates, together with former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for president. Vlasto beforehand served as press secretary for Sen. Chuck Schumer and former New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, each Democrats.
As a super PAC, Fairshake can obtain limitless monetary contributions from donors, who should be disclosed periodically in studies to the FEC. As of June 30, it had acquired almost $137 million within the 2026 election cycle and nonetheless had about $127 million readily available, in line with its newest FEC submitting in July.
Its largest contributors embrace Coinbase, an organization that operates a cryptocurrency alternate; Ripple Labs, which focuses on a blockchain expertise used to make digital funds; and AH Capital Administration, also called Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, a enterprise capital agency. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the co-founders of Andreessen Horowitz, stay two of the tremendous PAC’s largest particular person donors.
The tremendous PAC has already spent roughly $13.3 million this election cycle on independent expenditures, that are commercials and different communications that expressly advocate for or in opposition to candidates for workplace. In February and March, it opposed a trio of Illinois Democrats in congressional primary races, together with the state Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who received the Democratic nomination within the Illinois Senate race; state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who received the Democratic nomination for the state’s seventh Congressional District seat; and state Sen. Robert Peters, who did not win the Democratic nomination for the state’s 2nd District seat.
Final yr, Ford and Peters voted for a 2025 state regulation that put in place new guidelines for the digital property trade. In the meantime, certainly one of Stratton’s major opponents, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, could have been seen as extra of an trade ally, since he had forged votes for federal laws described as “very professional-crypto” by a nonprofit known as the Stand With Crypto Alliance.
For the 2026 midterms, Fairshake has additionally contributed a minimum of $51 million to 2 affiliated tremendous PACs, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, which have spent tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} supporting certain Home and Senate candidates.
Through the 2024 elections, Fairshake spent about $195.8 million in whole. It donated greater than $86 million to Defend American Jobs and Shield Progress. It additionally put almost $40.7 million into unbiased expenditures supporting or opposing candidates. According to the web site OpenSecrets, which tracks marketing campaign spending, Fairshake spent about $14 million for Democrats, about $13.5 million in opposition to Democrats and roughly $13.1 million for Republicans.
FactCheck.org Undergraduate Fellow Angela Lin contributed to this text.
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