Until Tuesday, Raquel Terán, a former Arizona Democratic Party chair and minority leader in the state Senate, enjoyed a $1.37 million advantage in outside spending over former Phoenix Councilmember Yassamin Ansari. But in one fell swoop, the Protect Progress political action committee has changed that.
The PAC made an ad buy of more than $1.3 million in support of Ansari on Tuesday, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That ad buy single-handedly eliminated Terán’s advantage, which came mostly from Democratic-aligned PACs.
But Protect Progress doesn’t quite fit the same description. The PAC gets its money from another PAC called Fairshake, which is backed by a group of cryptocurrency firms and investors. As of its most recent FEC report on May 31, Fairshake had $106 million in cash on hand.
Since it was established in December, Fairshake has received donations of $45 million from Ripple Labs Inc., $40 million from Coinbase, $39 million from AH Capital Management, $44 million from crypto investors Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen and $4.9 million from the famed Winklevoss twins, according to FEC filings.
In turn, Protect Progress has received $5.3 million from Fairshake and at least $6 million from the firms and people who have donated to Fairshake. Protect Progress spends in support of Democratic candidates, but Fairshake and its funders also have pushed more than $16 million into Defend American Jobs, a PAC that supports Republicans.
Horowitz, Andreessen and the Winklevoss twins have all been major supporters of Republican candidates and PACs during this cycle, giving millions of dollars. Horowitz and Andreessen said this week they plan to make large donations to PACs that support Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Interestingly, the two pro-Ansari ads Protect Progress is running have nothing to do with cryptocurrency, focusing instead on protecting reproductive rights and fighting inflation. One of the ads is in Spanish, likely aimed at cutting into Terán’s support among Spanish-speaking voters in a district that is two-thirds Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Terán has also made support for reproductive rights one of her key messages to voters. On the campaign trail, she has frequently touted endorsements from Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Reproductive Freedom for All.
Raquel Terán, in a statement to New Times, claimed the money behind the pro-Ansari ad buy comes from "MAGA extremists."
TJ L'Heureux
The candidates trade shots
In a written statement emailed to Phoenix New Times, Terán characterized the ad buy as “spending from GOP donors” and “MAGA extremists” who are meddling in the primary. The Terán campaign also provided a statement in which Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat, called Fairshake a “Republican-funded corporate Super PAC.”“Democratic primary voters deserve to know who is doing this and why — they are clearly afraid of my record of fighting for working families,” Terán said in her statement. “Our coalition has come together before against the extremists, and we will come together again to take them on and win this race.”
However, Ansari campaign manager Pasquale Luz complained in an email to New Times that the Terán campaign is making a “misleading attack” by drawing attention to the outside spending. “This desperate strategy does nothing to serve the voters,” Luz said. “That is why Yassamin is focused on her progressive record of real accomplishments."
Luz also said Terán has “aggressively pursued support” from Protect Progress, pointing out that Terán’s issues webpage on her campaign site features a lengthy paragraph about “blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation.” Ansari’s website issues page features a similar line about blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Protect Progress is the third outside group to spend heavily in support of Ansari, after Democratic Majority for Israel and Save America Fund. Terán’s outside spending support comes from PACs tied to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Working Families Party, Medicare for All and a group called Care in Action that advocates for domestic workers. Each of those PACs has spent more than $100,000 in support of Terán.
Who’s funding who has been a hot topic in the race between the two progressive Democrats. Both have taken shots at the other for accepting money from donors with links to Republicans.
Before her outside spending boost from Big Crypto, Ansari’s campaign directly received money from at least one major Republican donor. Hushang Ansary, who is unrelated to Ansari, gave at least $700,000 to a Trump PAC in recent years and $6,600 directly to Ansari this election cycle — the most an individual can give to one candidate under federal law.
In June, the Terán campaign provided New Times with a list of 16 Ansari donors who it claimed had given major contributions to Trump or other GOP candidates and PACs. But it wasn’t quite a laundry list of MAGA Republicans like Terán had claimed. The donor list included a mix of Romney Republicans-turned-Biden supporters, people with Persian names whose giving was mixed and prominent businesspeople.
Conversely, Luz criticized Terán for taking $1,000 from Stan Barnes, whom Luz characterized as “one of Kari Lake’s closest advisors.” However, in a May report from CNN, Barnes distanced himself from Lake due to her frequent flip-flopping on abortion.
