Democratic candidate Yassamin Ansari, a crypto advocate, secured a primary election victory in Arizona's race for the 3rd Congressional District.
Ansari ultimately took the seat by only 39 votes from a candidate who had been backed by staunch crypto critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Another crypto fan is likely to arrive in Congress next year, with Yassamin Ansari winning her Democratic primary race in Arizona by a scant 39 votes, a result confirmed Tuesday after an automatic recount. Ansari, a former vice mayor of Phoenix, will move on to the general election in a district that strongly favors Democrats, so her chances are good to join the growing list of members of Congress who favor friendly regulations for the U.S. digital assets sector.

In the days after the July 30 primary in that state, her lead over her Democratic opponent – Raquel Terán, who was backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) – slid from a 67-vote advantage to 42 and finally came in at 39 after the tally was checked again under court supervision. Read More: Crypto Industry Tries to Tally Final Wins As U.S. Congressional Primaries Wind Down

The crypto industry's leading political action committee (PAC), Fairshake got behind Ansari with about $1.4 million in advertising – a relationship that drew strong criticism from her opponent.

"We were proud to support a leader who will come to Congress and work across the aisle and embrace innovation to grow our economy," said Josh Vlasto, a Fairshake spokesman.

Fairshake and its affiliated super PACs have now turned to the November general election, committing money in as many as 21 congressional races so far. The most prominent is its plan to spend $12 million to derail Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee who has resisted movement on Senate legislation to oversee the crypto industry.

UPDATE (August 20, 2024, 20:48 UTC): Adds comment from a Fairshake spokesman.

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Jesse Hamilton

Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.