Protect Progress, an affiliate of the cryptocurrency-aligned Fairshake super political action committee (PAC), has reported spending $362,000 on advertising to support a Democratic incumbent in California's 14th congressional district — just weeks after she won a special election against the same opponent.

According to a Sunday filing with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), Protect Progress disclosed $362,000 in media spending backing incumbent Democrat Aisha Wahab in the Bay Area district against her fellow party member, Melissa Hernandez.

Super PACs, permitted under rules established by a pair of 2010 federal court decisions, may raise unlimited sums from individuals, corporations and unions to support or oppose candidates so long as they operate independently of the campaigns — and their expenditures must be disclosed in FEC filings, making each report a public window into how outside money is deployed in a race's final stretch.

Wahab defeated Hernandez in an Aug. 18 special election with more than 53% of the vote, raising questions about why the cryptocurrency industry-aligned PAC is backing her again ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Notably, both Wahab and Hernandez were rated “strongly supports crypto” after they went on the record with the digital asset organization Stand With Crypto to complete questionnaires ahead of the August special election. That contest was held to determine who would serve the remainder of Democrat Eric Swalwell's term, which ends in January 2027. Swalwell resigned in April amid sexual assault allegations. With both contenders holding the industry's top rating, the race shows how crypto-aligned spending now extends to reinforcing friendly incumbents, not only opposing critics.

Fairshake's expanding political footprint

Fairshake launched in 2023, backed largely by contributions from Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Andreessen Horowitz. Since the 2024 US elections, the super PAC has spent tens of millions of dollars on candidates the group considers “pro-crypto” as it works to fill Congress with lawmakers more likely to support policies favorable to the digital asset industry.

During an Oct. 7 debate, Wahab criticized Hernandez for not denouncing expenditures from corporate PACs aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), saying the spending “really deteriorated our democracy.”

Cointelegraph reached out to the Hernandez and Wahab campaigns, as well as Fairshake, for comment on the spending but did not receive immediate responses.

One notable change between the August special election and the November midterms will be the boundaries of California's 14th district. The current boundaries, which include parts of San Francisco's East Bay, will be expanded under Proposition 50, a state measure passed in 2025 that requires new congressional maps for the midterm elections.

Spending ramps up in Ohio and Nebraska

The crypto PAC reported in January that it had $193 million in cash on hand ahead of the elections, and it has already deployed tens of millions of dollars to support Democratic and Republican candidates in primaries and special elections.

With just over two weeks to go until the 2026 election, Fairshake reported additional media spending on Senate races in Ohio and Nebraska.

Defend American Jobs, a Fairshake affiliate that largely supports Republican candidates, reported spending more than $6.7 million to oppose Independent candidate Dan Osborn in Nebraska's Senate race. The affiliate also reported $8 million in media spending in Ohio, backing incumbent Republican Jon Husted against Democrat Sherrod Brown — a race in which it has spent more than $46 million so far.

Brown's race could serve as another bellwether for how the crypto industry may shape the 2026 midterms. The Democrat lost his seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024 after Fairshake and other interest groups spent a combined hundreds of millions of dollars on ads opposing him. Additional FEC disclosures filed between now and Election Day will show whether the network's spending broadens further in the race's closing weeks.