AI, crypto industries dump millions into Illinois primaries

A major crypto PAC suffered a blow after the Illinois Senate Democratic candidate it spent millions opposing won the Tuesday primary and will likely be sworn into office next year.

Fairshake, backed by Coinbase, Ripple Labs and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, spent more than $10 million on ads opposing Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in her Democratic primary race for Senate. Stratton has an “F” rating from Stand With Crypto, and took to social media to denounce the “MAGA-backed crypto bros” who were funding ads opposing her. Stratton is all but guaranteed to become the next Illinois senator in November in the state that leans heavily Democratic.

Another candidate opposed by Fairshake, La Shawn Ford, also won his primary to become the Democratic nominee for Illinois’s 7th Congressional District. The district heavily leans Democratic, putting Ford on the glide path to Congress.

But Fairshake also notched a trio of lower-level wins in Illinois. The group backed Democrats Rep. Nikki Budzinski and Melissa Bean, who won their respective primaries in deep-blue congressional districts. Fairshake also weighed in on Illinois’s 2nd Congressional District, opposing Robert Peters who lost to Donna Miller.

The results show the limits of pumping money into politics as a means of advancing an industry’s agenda. Fairshake is pressing for its favored regulatory structure of the nascent industry.

Like Fairshake, an AI industry PAC walked away with some wins in congressional primaries, which may translate to new lawmakers friendly to the regulations — or lack thereof — that crypto and AI companies are seeking.

AI PAC Leading the Future also backed Bean’s winning campaign. However, the group supported Jesse Jackson Jr., who lost the primary in Illinois’s 2nd Congressional District.

The group’s donors include Andreessen Horowitz, Open AI co-founder Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, SV Angel Founder Ron Conway and AI software company Perplexity.

The Illinois primaries are not the first races AI-aligned super PACs have poured money into.

Leading the Future backed Republican primary winner and former Department of Defense official Laurie Buckhout in a competitive race looking to flip North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. The group also spent $5 million in four GOP House primaries in Texas, with all of the preferred candidates either winning the primary or advancing to a runoff.

Rival PAC network Public First Action, which counts Anthropic among its major donors, also jumped into the early primaries, supporting Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee in fending off a progressive challenger in North Carolina’s 4th District as well as multiple pro-regulation candidates across both parties in the Texas primaries. 

— CNBC’s Caleigh Keating contributed to this article.