# Fairshake PAC The largest single-sector political spending vehicle of the 2024 U.S. election cycle — a pro-cryptocurrency super PAC that raised $260M across a family of three committees and spent roughly $195M to reshape Congress around crypto-friendly policy. Registered with the FEC on March 23, 2023 (FEC ID: C00835959), Fairshake is the canonical example of how a single industry can buy legislative leverage in a single cycle. In the [[California Tech Exodus Ecosystem]] context, it represents the stay-and-fight political vehicle for crypto-aligned operators who chose policy combat over geographic exit. ## Structure Fairshake operates as a three-entity family designed to intervene in both parties' primaries: **Fairshake** is the flagship federal super PAC, bipartisan-neutral in framing. **Defend American Jobs** (~$57M spent in 2024) targets Republican primaries. **Protect Progress** (~$34.5M spent in 2024) targets Democratic primaries. The treasurer is Brandon Philipczyk, who previously worked on [[Hillary Clinton]]'s 2016 campaign — a detail that underscores the PAC's bipartisan posture. Spokesman is Josh Vlasto. The legal structure relies entirely on the [[Citizens United v. FEC]] and *[[SpeechNow v. FEC]]* rulings permitting unlimited independent expenditures. ## Funding Approximately 94% of Fairshake's contributions trace to just four entities. [[Coinbase]] is the single largest donor at roughly $75–100M across all cycles, with CEO [[Brian Armstrong]] contributing $1M personally on top of corporate donations. [[Ripple]] gave $50M in the 2024 cycle. [[Andreessen Horowitz]] (via [[Marc Andreessen]] and [[Ben Horowitz]] personally, plus the firm) contributed $47–60M. Jump Crypto gave $5M; the Winklevoss twins gave $4.9M; Kraken gave $750K. Armstrong publicly announced each major Coinbase contribution, framing the spending as a campaign to "vote anti-crypto politicians out of Congress." His public statement on the October 2024 $25M pledge: "We're not slowing down." The day after the election, Coinbase President [[Emilie Choi]] went further, posting the *New York Times* headline "The Crypto Industry Spent Over $130 Million on the Election. It Paid Off." with the caption "We’re just getting started…." ([[Emilie Choi - We're just getting started]]). ## 2024 Races Fairshake's primary intervention record was devastating: **33 wins in 35 races** entered. The PAC spent over $37M on primary ads alone. The highest-profile targets were Democrats who opposed crypto industry priorities. Fairshake/Protect Progress spent more than $10M running ads against [[Katie Porter]] in the California Senate Democratic primary — Porter lost to Rep. [[Adam Schiff]]. Fairshake spent roughly $2M against Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the NY-16 Democratic primary — Bowman lost to George Latimer. The intervention in Democratic primaries drew intense criticism from progressive observers who argued a corporate super PAC should not be determining which Democrats appear on general election ballots. In the general election, Fairshake spent nearly twice as much supporting Republican candidates as Democrats. Post-election, [[Stand With Crypto]] and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse reported that nearly 300 pro-crypto lawmakers were elected to the 119th Congress. ## Stand With Crypto Connection [[Stand With Crypto]] is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy organization launched by [[Coinbase]] in August 2023. It maintains a public scorecard grading politicians from A to F on crypto-friendliness — the scorecard effectively determined where Fairshake spent money. By early 2026, Stand With Crypto reported nearly 700,000 members. The division of labor: Stand With Crypto does advocacy, grassroots organizing, and scoring; Fairshake does the hard-money independent expenditure work. Both emerged from the Coinbase ecosystem. ## 2026 Cycle As of January 2026, Fairshake and its affiliates reported **$193M in cash on hand** — nearly $60M more than the group spent in the entire 2024 cycle. New contributions include $25M from [[Coinbase]], $25M from [[Ripple]], and $24M from [[Andreessen Horowitz]]. Early spending includes $5M backing Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) in the Alabama Senate race, plus targeting Rep. [[Al Green]] (D-TX) for removal. ### 2026 general-election spending — the first eight-figure buy On **2026-10-01** the network's Republican-primary arm, **Defend American Jobs** (FEC committee **C00836221**, treasurer Lisa Lisker), disclosed **$12,121,214.69** supporting **[[Jon Husted]]** in [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]] — the largest crypto-industry independent expenditure recorded in this vault, and the first time its January 2026 war chest can be traced to a specific Senate race. Recorded at [[Defend American Jobs 12.1M Ohio Senate IE]]. | Item | Detail | |---|---| | Notice | Form 24 (F24N), file **2016127**, received 2026-10-01 20:30:38 | | Expenditure date | 2026-09-29 | | Structure | **Three lines, 100% support** — $11,343,601.80 · $756,341.44 · $21,271.45 | | Vendors | Main Street Media Group · RBC Media LLC · Dockside Strategies LLC | | Aggregate on the filing | $23,582,821.24 election-to-date | Two features distinguish it from how the party committees spend. **It is entirely positive** — no line opposes [[Sherrod Brown]] — where almost every other large committee in that race split its buy to the cent between supporting the Republican and attacking the Democrat. And **its single largest line, $11,343,601.80, is one of only a handful of individual Schedule E lines above $10M anywhere in the 2026 cycle.** On that expenditure date the industry outspent [[Senate Leadership Fund]]'s Ohio channel **24 to 1** ($12,121,214.69 against $494,725.82). Ohio is the first race on SLF's eight-state April reservation list where an outside industry became the dominant pro-Republican spender rather than a supplement to the party. It is also the second crypto vehicle in that seat: the Winklevoss-seeded [[Digital Freedom Fund]] spent $2,970,198.67 on Ohio mail the day before. ### 2026-10-08 — a second eight-figure Ohio buy, and a bipartisan House notice on the same day On **2026-10-08** the network filed **two** Form 24 notices in the same tranche. **Defend American Jobs**, file **2018533** (`F24N`, received 18:16:08): **$11,019,087.01**, two lines, **100% supporting [[Jon Husted]]** in [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]] — **$10,262,745.57** to Main Street Media Group (the largest single Schedule E line anywhere in the tranche) and $756,341.44 to RBC Media LLC. Recorded at [[Defend American Jobs 11M Ohio Senate IE October 2026]]. **Combined with file 2016127 eight days earlier, the arm has put $23,140,301.70 into that one seat and not one dollar against [[Sherrod Brown]].** **Fairshake** itself, file **2018439** (`F24N`, received 16:08:07): **$6,115,866.36**, twelve lines, **six House races, every line positive** — below the §7.4a Deal floor and logged on the race files. | District | Candidate | Party | Primary line | Vendor | |---|---|---|---|---| | [[WI-01-2026]] | Bryan Steil | R | $1,011,985.12 | Main Street Media Group | | AR-02 | French Hill | R | $1,007,214.48 | Main Street Media Group | | [[MI-04-2026]] | [[Bill Huizenga]] | R | $1,007,096.76 | Main Street Media Group | | [[OR-05-2026]] | Janelle Bynum | D | $1,000,000.00 | Targeted Platform Media | | [[NV-04-2026]] | Steven Horsford | D | $1,000,000.00 | Targeted Platform Media | | [[CA-45-2026]] | [[Derek Tran]] | D | $1,000,000.00 | Targeted Platform Media | 🔴 **The budget is bipartisan; the buyers are not.** The three Republicans' **$3,026,296.36** went through **Main Street Media Group** and the three Democrats' **$3,000,000.00** through **Targeted Platform Media**, with **Dockside Strategies** on all six. The six primary lines land within **$11,985.12** of one another — one budget divided six ways, placed by two partisan vendors. **Targeted Platform Media has no prior appearance in this vault.** > [!note] Defend American Jobs > "Defend American Jobs" is treated on this site as an **alias of this page**, so `[[Defend American Jobs]]` > resolves here. Its filer-stated election-to-date aggregate on file 2018533 is **$34,810,531.85**, up from > an earlier $23.58M. > > **Committee identity, for the avoidance of doubt:** Defend American Jobs is its own FEC registrant — > **C00836221**, type **Super PAC (Independent Expenditure-Only)**, designation **Unauthorized**, no > connected organisation, **first filed 2023-03-29**, treasurer of record **Lisa Lisker**, state **VA**. > That is a different registrant and a different treasurer from the Fairshake committee itself, whose > treasurer is Brandon Philipczyk. The alias is a deliberate filing decision about where the vault keeps > the network's analysis, **not** a claim that the three committees are one registrant. > > 🔴 **Correction, 2026-10-13.** The 2026-10-12 `rwkb-midterm-money-daily` digest carried a "Do now" > recommendation to build `Organizations/Defend American Jobs.md` on the grounds that four > `[[Defend American Jobs]]` wikilinks on [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]] were broken. **They are not broken** — > Obsidian resolves a bare wikilink against frontmatter aliases, and this page carries the alias. Building > that page would have created a duplicate and split the alias. The recommendation is retired; the > committee-identity facts it was reaching for are recorded above instead. ## Controversies In August 2024, Public Citizen and researcher [[Molly White]] filed an FEC complaint alleging [[Coinbase]] violated campaign finance law by donating $25M to Fairshake while in active negotiations over government contracts with the DOJ — a potential violation of the prohibition on contributions from prospective federal contractors. Coinbase's chief legal officer disputed the complaint. DL News published analysis arguing Fairshake has been reported as raising roughly 20% more than it actually has, because transfers between the three affiliated committees get double-counted in headline figures. ## See Also - [[Coinbase]] — Largest funder - [[Brian Armstrong]] — Coinbase CEO, public champion - [[Emilie Choi]] — Coinbase President/COO; "We’re just getting started" (Nov 6, 2024) - [[Stand With Crypto]] — Coinbase-launched 501(c)(4) scoring arm - [[Ripple]] — Second-largest funder - [[Andreessen Horowitz]] — Third-largest funder - [[Decentralization]] — The ideological brand Fairshake markets - [[California Tech Exodus Ecosystem]] — Policy-combat vs. geographic exit - [[America PAC]] — [[Elon Musk]]'s parallel super PAC (tech-aligned, different sector) - [[Leading the Future]] — the AI industry's copy of the Fairshake playbook (2026 cycle) - [[Defend American Jobs 12.1M Ohio Senate IE]] — the network's first eight-figure 2026 general-election buy - [[Digital Freedom Fund]] — the second crypto vehicle in the Ohio Senate special - [[OH-Sen-2026-Special]] · [[Jon Husted]] · [[Sherrod Brown]]