Protect Progress, the super PAC affiliated with crypto industry flagship Fairshake, spent $5.5 million backing Adrian Boafo in Maryland's Democratic primary for the 5th Congressional District on June 23, a 24-candidate field for the seat vacated by retiring House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Boafo won. Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter put it plainly: "We went big, and we went early. We did our part to move Adrian Boafo from fifth place to the halls of Congress."
That is not a boast. It is a data point. Boafo entered the race without top-tier name recognition in a district crowded with stronger-profile rivals, including former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who carried Nancy Pelosi's endorsement. The crypto PAC's independent expenditure campaign changed the arithmetic of the race.
MD-05 is rated safely Democratic in the general election. Boafo's primary win is effectively his congressional seat.The execution event, crypto-backed members voting as a bloc on market structure legislation, comes next.
The Maryland result is a single data point inside a larger, faster-moving pattern. Crypto legislation is stacking up in Congress, and the industry has been explicit about its strategy: build the vote count before the bills arrive on the floor, not after. Fairshake and allied crypto PACs have raised $188.9 million for the 2026 cycle? an aggressive early pace relative to the $359.4 million they deployed across the entire 2024 cycle. The Maryland win is proof of concept, not a one-off.
The structural logic of primary targeting is straightforward: low-turnout primaries in safe seats are the cheapest legislative votes the industry can buy. A $5.5 million independent expenditure in a crowded Democratic primary, where winning margins can be decided by a few thousand ballots, delivers substantially more ROI than the same sum deployed in a competitive general election.
Protect Progress is the Fairshake network's affiliate vehicle for House races. The PAC began spending on Boafo well before the final push. Estimates from AdImpact and FEC data place early-cycle expenditures at $3.1 to $4.5 million by early June, including roughly $300,000 in a single week on TV and mail, before the final burst brought the total to $5.5 million.
This was a sustained intervention, not a last-minute rescue.
When AIPAC's United Democracy Project is included, total outside support for Boafo reaches approximately $10-$11 million, accounting for more than 80% of all pro-Boafo advertising. The ads themselves did not mention crypto as an issue? they ran on endorsements from Governor Wes Moore, Senator Angela Alsobrooks, and Steny Hoyer.