This strategy of betting on the winners was partly to ensure loyal advocates in Congress, but it was also because the crypto industry’s spending was as much a show of force as it was about actually achieving their desired outcomes. They revealed this during the primaries, when they dumped $10 million in opposition spending against Katie Porter in California, $2 million against Jamaal Bowman in New York, and $1.4 million against Cori Bush in Missouri. Although none of these candidates were particularly outspoken against crypto, that wasn’t really the point. Instead, the crypto industry used those races to send a message: fall in line, or we might deploy our millions against you, too. It didn’t really matter if the industry spending directly caused their targets to lose their races, so long as there was a plausible argument that it played a role (in both Bowman and Bush’s races, crypto industry money made up only about 20% of the opposition spending). We can expect the industry to do the same in the future elections: claim responsibility for the outcomes of all the races where they spent money, even if those outcomes were likely not impacted much by crypto industry involvement.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/489/676/451/975/838/original/900c90856bef65a3.png