How Crypto Catapulted An Unknown Candidate Into The Lead
A sleepy Democratic primary for Oregon’s new 6th District became a national flashpoint — and the most expensive primary in the country — after a cryptocurrency billionaire spent more than $11 million boosting a late entrant to the race. Whoever wins tonight is also likely to be the district’s next representative since it would have voted for Biden by 13 points, 55 to 42 percent, according to Daily Kos Elections.
Several well-known Democrats, including state Reps. Andrea Salinas and Teresa Alonso Leon and former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith, are running. But it’s political newcomer Carrick Flynn, a Yale- and Oxford-educated government contractor who just recently joined the fray, who’s made the biggest splash. That’s because Flynn was almost immediately boosted by spending from Protect Our Future PAC, a group funded primarily by cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who seeded it with $13 million.
In fact, Bankman-Fried’s largesse has catapulted Flynn to the top tier of the crowded field despite his anonymity just months ago, according to a recent poll from Salinas’s campaign. But it’s also ruffled plenty of feathers in the district given that Flynn is an unknown quantity, to say nothing of the suspicion engendered by both cryptocurrency and mega-donors in Democratic circles.
The dispute took on a new intensity when House Majority PAC, the super PAC affiliated with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, made the highly unusual decision to back Flynn in the primary — the group has never previously endorsed in a competitive primary before. The decision especially outraged Hispanic leaders and activists in the district and Congress, as the district is more than 20 percent Hispanic and appeared to be primed to elect the state’s first Hispanic member of Congress. Both Salinas and Alonso Leon are Hispanic while Flynn is white.