Crypto PAC Jumps Into Senate Race, Opposing Katie Porter in California

The biggest name and the biggest spender of crypto money in the 2022 election cycle is now awaiting his prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy. But new super PACs have sprouted up as the successors to the collapsed Sam Bankman-Fried empire, and they are making their first big bet of the 2024 election cycle: trying to crush Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat running in next month’s California Senate primary.

The biggest new crypto-focused super PAC, Fairshake, began reserving television and digital advertising across California in a multimillion-dollar buy late on Monday, and it could be a major player in the race’s final three weeks.

Fairshake revealed two weeks ago in federal filings that it and two affiliated super PACs had amassed a combined roughly $80 million in 2023, with most of the money coming from three major cryptocurrency players: Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Andreessen Horowitz.

The California Senate race pits Ms. Porter against Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat, and Representative Barbara Lee, another Democrat, as well as Steve Garvey, a Republican and a former baseball player. The top two finishers in the March primary will advance to November, even if both are Democrats.

In a statement, Fairshake accused Ms. Porter of taking campaign cash from other industries and misleading the state about her record, saying, “Katie Porter says one thing and does another.”

The group is planning a blitz of anti-Porter advertising and had begun booking time in markets statewide on Monday.