Defend American Jobs, a crypto-backed PAC linked to Fairshake, has spent more than $500,000 to support a Republican incumbent in Indiana ahead of the state’s primary.
Summary
- Defend American Jobs spent about $514,000 on media to support Representative James Baird in Indiana’s 4th District, according to an FEC filing.
- Stand With Crypto has rated Baird as strongly supportive of digital assets after his votes on the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act.
According to a filing submitted Saturday to the US Federal Election Commission, the PAC allocated about $514,000 for media backing Representative James Baird in Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, placing the spend among a series of Fairshake-aligned moves tied to the 2026 election cycle.
Baird, who has held office since January 2019, supported both the GENIUS Act, which focuses on stablecoin payments, and the CLARITY Act, a digital asset market structure bill that passed the House in July 2025 but has stalled in the Senate. Stand With Crypto, a digital asset advocacy group backed by Coinbase, has rated him as “strongly supports crypto,” according to its public listings.
Fairshake, along with its affiliated groups Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, has signaled plans to direct millions toward candidates it identifies as supportive of digital assets. Federal filings show the PAC spent more than $130 million during the 2024 election cycle, including roughly $40 million in Ohio’s Senate race, where voters unseated Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown.
Current filings indicate Fairshake held $193 million as of January and has already deployed about $8.6 million in Illinois contests covering the governor’s race and legislative seats, alongside more than $1 million in Texas races.
Indiana’s Republican primary places Baird against state representative Craig Haggard, while the outcome feeds into a broader midterm landscape where all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats will be contested in November.
Political scrutiny grows around crypto-linked funding
Recent reporting from Axios has shown that crypto-backed political spending has drawn attention from party leadership in other races. In April, Republican officials contacted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick after Fellowship PAC, another crypto-linked group, disclosed plans to spend $1.75 million in support of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton during a contested Senate runoff.
Axios reported that the planned ad buy did not proceed, and media-tracking data showed no political ads from the group during the cycle, though the filing prompted concern among Republican leaders monitoring the race.
Fellowship PAC, chaired by Jesse Spiro, Tether’s head of government affairs, received $10 million in funding from Cantor Fitzgerald, according to filings cited by Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance. Additional contributions included $1 million from Anchor Labs, a crypto infrastructure firm linked to Cantor, while earlier reports indicated the group had aimed to raise $100 million for the 2026 cycle.
The scale of activity aligns with data cited by Axios showing crypto groups spent roughly $120 million to $130 million during the 2024 elections, including contributions from Fairshake, as industry-backed organisations continue to engage in federal races while lawmakers debate digital asset legislation.
