Crypto-backed political committees scored their most consequential electoral win of the 2026 cycle on May 27, helping remove Representative Al Green from Congress while a new Republican-only super PAC layer signaled a shift in how the industry deploys campaign money.

Fairshake, the industry's dominant bipartisan super PAC, spent $6.5 million to advance Houston Democrat Christian Menefee over Green in the Democratic primary runoff for Texas's 18th Congressional District — an unusual incumbent-versus-incumbent contest forced by Republican-led redistricting that dismantled Green's longtime seat. Green had earned an "F" rating from crypto advocacy group Stand With Crypto after opposing key industry-backed legislation, voting against crypto policy bills, and co-sponsoring a measure to ban President Trump from personal crypto business interests. He also sat on the House Financial Services Committee, making his removal a structural priority for the industry. Menefee is widely expected to win November's general election in the heavily Democratic district.

"Rep. Green's defeat proves that anti-crypto hostility carries real electoral consequences," Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter told CoinDesk. "Fairshake was the difference-maker in this race, and we will continue to aggressively back leaders like Rep. Menefee across the country."

The Blockchain Leadership Fund, established with inaugural donations from Anchorage Digital and Chainlink, also endorsed and donated to Menefee.

On the Republican side, the Fellowship super PAC — associated with Tether and Cantor Fitzgerald — spent $500,000 backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's primary victory over incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Paxton is viewed as more aggressively pro-deregulation than Cornyn. Fellowship's involvement in a Senate race is structurally significant: Fairshake's carefully maintained bipartisan identity prevents it from entering partisan primaries like a Republican-vs.-Republican Senate contest.

Fairshake's Republican affiliate, Defend American Jobs, separately backed four other Texas House candidates who all won: Alex Mealer, Tom Sell, Carlos De La Cruz, and Jon Bonck. Combined with the $6.5 million on the Green race, total crypto spending across Texas primaries exceeded $9 million.

The Texas results extend a broader Fairshake sweep this cycle. The PAC spent roughly $20 million backing candidates in Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia primaries, winning all of them. The industry suffered one notable setback: Fairshake spent more than $10 million in Illinois attempting to defeat Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, who won the Democratic Senate primary in March anyway.

The Fellowship PAC's Texas debut illustrates a structural shift underway. Fairshake operates through a bipartisan architecture — Protect Progress for Democrats, Defend American Jobs for Republicans — that limits which races it can enter. Newer PACs backed by Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald, and Winklevoss-linked groups run exclusively Republican, building a parallel political layer that can operate where Fairshake cannot. The result is an expanding, redundant infrastructure that covers ideological ground the flagship PAC's model forecloses.

The political wins feed a broader regulatory tailwind thesis for the industry. Jefferies projects a coming wave of crypto IPOs — Kraken/Payward, Blockchain.com, Gemini, and Securitize among them — that could create a $1 trillion public market. Removing critics from key committee seats and installing allies accelerates the path to the favorable regulatory environment those listings would require.

[politics]

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