The crypto industry is dumping $30 million into a campaign against Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio just days after Senate Democrats sank the industry’s top legislative priority.
Fairshake, the crypto sector’s dominant super PAC and one of the best-funded outside groups in this year’s midterms, confirmed the ad and mail campaign to the New York Times, marking its most aggressive move against a single candidate so far this cycle.
The group, along with two affiliated committees, is sitting on a combined war chest of $120.4 million, according to federal filings released Sunday.
Fairshake already spent $41 million attacking Brown in 2024, when he chaired the Senate Banking Committee and was one of the industry’s most outspoken critics.
He lost that race, and Republicans have credited crypto money as a factor.
Brown is now attempting a comeback against Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who already holds a financial edge in a race where GOP ad spending in the state is projected to outpace Democrats by roughly $30 million even before Fairshake’s new money arrives, according to tracking firm AdImpact.
The trigger for this round of spending was last week’s Senate vote blocking the Clarity Act, legislation that would have locked in favorable regulatory treatment for crypto firms against any future Democratic administration.
Every Senate Democrat voted against it, including two candidates Fairshake had backed in 2024, Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) — a defection that appears to have shattered whatever bipartisan restraint the group had shown.
Industry executives didn’t hide their frustration, with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse writing on X that “the politics of the democrats (the anti-crypto army) was elevated over good policy.” Winklevoss twins backer Tyler Winklevoss posted, “Not a single Democrat voted for Clarity. There’s a lesson in that.”
Brown, for his part, has notably softened his public tone on the industry since his 2024 loss, telling the Times last month, “I’ve not moderated. I’m simply saying that crypto has a part, a role, in our economy.”
Fairshake says it will announce additional spending in House and Senate races on both sides of the aisle in the coming weeks, though the Ohio blitz signals where its priorities — and its anger — currently lie.
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