Crypto campaign fund Fairshake faces $2 million setback in Florida primaries

The crypto industry's top political action committee, Fairshake, spent more than $2 million trying to defeat Oliver Gilbert in a Florida Democratic primary to replace the retiring Democrat who endorsed him.

Gilbert, who served as a Miami-Dade County commissioner, won the Tuesday primary vote over a crowded field, despite an aggressive campaign from one of Fairshake's affiliate super PACs, Protect Progress, in which its ads cited faked Miami Herald headlines.

Gilbert had campaigned in opposition to the policies of President Donald Trump and criticized his crypto ties. Fairshake's affiliate supported two other candidates in that race, including one that came in a close second behind Gilbert. But the district's Democratic dominance would make it likely that Gilbert will be advanced to Congress after the November general election, potentially adding another lawmaker to Capitol Hill that was strongly opposed by the industry.

However, most of Fairshake's chosen candidates, which received lesser financial commitments than the contest involving Gilbert, won their races in this week's primaries in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming, bringing the super PAC's congressional primary record to 49 wins out of 53 elections, according to spokesman Geoff Vetter.

Fairshake's candidates won "four of five last night, and we're just getting started building the largest pro-crypto Congress in history," Vetter said.

Fairshake also supported Republican Sydney Gruters and Democratic Representative Lois Frankel in their Florida primaries. In Alaska, it backed Representative Nick Begich, a Republican, and in Wyoming, it spent on the Senate race to replace departing crypto advocate Senator Cynthia Lummis, supporting Republican Representative Harriet Hageman in her dominant primary victory to try to take Lummis' seat.

The super PAC and its affiliates have walked a line between the parties in this year's elections, just as it did in the last cycle. They buy advertisements independent of campaign involvement, and they don't focus on crypto as a political issue.

As for the anti-Gilbert advertising that included mocked-up Miami Herald headlines, the group was unapologetic.

"The facts are the facts, and, as the Miami Herald stated, the underlying facts in our ad are true," Vetter said in a statement. The Herald's own coverage of the situation said the three faked headlines misrepresented the newspaper's stories.