Ripple Labs has donated $1 million to help defeat prominent crypto critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) this November.
A company spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt on Tuesday that it made the payment to the Commonwealth Unity Fund, a super PAC set up to support the campaign of one of Warren’s Republican challengers, crypto attorney John Deaton.
The spokesperson declined, however, to comment on whether Ripple plans to spend additional funds on the race. They also did not clarify how the company’s leadership makes decisions about funding political campaigns.
So far, it appears that Ripple is the Commonwealth Unity Fund’s primary source of funding. The company’s gift accounted for over 95% of donations to the PAC last quarter.
Though the crypto industry has already put its weight behind numerous political races across the country, defeating Elizabeth Warren would likely constitute the greatest prize among them all. The senior senator from Massachusetts has long been a vocal detractor of crypto, and is widely considered to be one of the key forces behind President Joe Biden’s hostile stance on the industry.
To underscore how much crypto firms loathe Warren: in March, a super PAC funded by Ripple, Coinbase, and Andreessen Horowitz spent some $3 million to defeat a California candidate for U.S. Senate who wasn’t even vocally anti-crypto, but was seen as a Warren ally.
That crypto-focused PAC, Fairshake, meanwhile, has gone on to raise some $178 million this election cycle, making it one of the most formidable forces in the 2024 election.
Ripple is plenty incentivized to attempt to shake up government leadership at the federal level. For years, the crypto firm has been engaged in a bitter legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Lawyers for the government regulator told a judge in May that they want to see Ripple hit with a fine of at least $2 billion.
But the road to defeating Warren may be steep. Massachusetts leans heavily Democratic, and polling in late May showed the senator defeating all of her would-be Republican challengers, including Deaton, by over 20 points.
The Republican Senate primary for Massachusetts will be held on September 3. Deaton will need to win that race to then head off against Warren in November.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.