Crypto-funded pandemic prevention PAC shuts down after spending $24 million

• Protect Our Future, backed by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, spent more than $24 million this year.
• The Super PAC is part of a broader effort to support pandemic prevention advocates in Congress.
• Now, after bolstering candidates including the likely first Gen Z member of Congress, the spending is over.

Protect Our Future, a cryptocurrency billionaire-backed super PAC that bolsters Democrats who champion pandemic prevention, quickly became a major player in this year’s primaries after its creation in January.

As of this week, the group has spent more than $24 million in 18 Democratic House primaries across the country — mostly on television ads — to promote upstart candidates spanning the party’s ideological spectrum while ruffling many feathers along the way.

In total, 15 of the candidates the group spent significant sums of money on have emerged victorious from the primaries, the latest being Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old gun violence prevention advocate who will become the first Generation Z member of Congress after winning the party’s nomination for a deep blue seat in Florida.

“He’s a great example of a number of progressive champions that we’ve supported,” Michael Sadowsky, president of Protect Our Future, said of Frost. “We think pandemic prevention is an issue that can appeal across the ideological spectrum, and can have a broad coalition for it.”

Funded almost entirely by FTX cryptocurrency exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Protect Our Future has been the third most prolific cross-party external user this year, putting it on par with other major players like the Democratic-run Senate Majority PAC and the United Democracy Project, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s new super PAC.

Perhaps the PAC’s most famous investment was in Oregon’s newly drawn 6th Congressional District this spring, where it spent a whopping $11 million in an effort to elect Carrick Flynn, an “effective altruist” and academic researcher with a background in pandemic prevention.

But that effort largely paid off. Flynn lost the primary by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, and the scale of the spending generated anger that the seat was “bought” along with suspicions about whether the spending served Bankman-Fried’s financial interests in cryptocurrency, which Sadowsky has denied. .

“I think there was kind of a narrative that was created around us that was about crypto,” Sadowsky said. “And we should have done a better job of making our focus on pandemic prevention clear.”

With a successful but tumultuous first primary season coming to a close, key players involved in Protect Our Future and the burgeoning, bipartisan pandemic prevention movement told Insider that their high-dollar experiment is winding down, at least for now. As the PAC winds down its operations this summer, the people behind its crackdown on political spending reflected on both victories and some controversy.

Gabe Bankman-Fried — the younger brother of the cryptocurrency billionaire and director of the nonprofit organization Guarding Against Pandemics (GAP) — says he wants to avoid being seen as partisan and believes his group and others can have a bigger impact in the primaries than generally. choice. He said GAP, whose affiliated PAC has donated small sums to both Democrats and Republicans, plans to spend the coming months “setting our priorities for the next session of Congress.”

“I think over time people will understand that we’re another public interest group, like the climate movement or something else,” said Gabe Bankman-Fried, whose nonprofit supports candidates who pledge to “champion” pandemic prevention in addition to lobbying and advising lawmakers about the problem.

“It’s too early to say what we’re going to do next cycle,” Sadowsky said. “We have to look at what happens next Congress.”

“Let’s Put a Million Behind This Guy”

Frost serves as a key example of a successful progressive candidate supported by the pandemic prevention movement. Alongside major issues like Medicare for All and tackling the climate crisis, Frost included an entire section devoted to the issue on his website.

“As an organizer, something I always think about is how do we win hearts and minds,” Frost told Insider in May, citing his support for pandemic-proof buildings. “I think now is the time to cure public opinion, and get people excited about research and retrofitting buildings. I think it will become more difficult as time goes on.”

In mid-May, Protect Our Future committed to spending $1 million on Frost, most of which went to a TV advertising campaign.

“I made the pitch: I thought, let’s put a million behind this guy, I think he’s going to be a real champion,” said Sean McElwee, founding CEO of the left-leaning polling firm Data for Progress and an adviser. to protect our future. McElwee provided Insider with a memo making his case, which included previously unreleased polling data showing Frost’s name recognition was at just 3% in the Orlando area in May, before the group began running over $700,000 in TV ads.

While touting the impact of the ad campaign — which he said was most effective at fending off pro-Israel super PACs that have been particularly hostile to progressive candidates this cycle — McElwee made it clear that Frost’s own unique talents and qualities were key to make that campaign successful.

“Maxwell hustled like I’ve never seen before,” McElwee said. “Like, just always on the phone to call, always looking to build stronger relationships, and I think his endorsement speaks for that.”

Frost’s campaign declined to comment for this story.

Broadly speaking, this year saw unprecedented levels of super PAC intervention in Democratic primaries, fueled largely by the growing appeal to shape the direction of the party through political spending.

As Protect Our Future has become a player in that space, it has faced a number of questions about what its true intentions are. Critics point to the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried has testified before Congress on cryptocurrency regulation and has given $2 million to an explicitly pro-crypto PAC.

“You just can’t help but think, well, they’re weighing in to curry favor with members of Congress and to influence the regulations that are being proposed right now,” said Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia told NBC News in April that Protect Our Future spent nearly $2 million bolstering her primary opponent, incumbent Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath.

But pandemic prevention advocates reject that claim. Gabe Bankman-Fried sarcastically compared the idea to “the five-dimensional chess we play,” and both he and Sadowsky told Insider that Sam Bankman-Fried plays little role in the day-to-day decision-making process of their organizations.

“You can talk to any of the candidates that I’ve supported at GAP,” he told Insider. “I haven’t mentioned cryptocurrency to a single one of them.”

Sadowsky and others were also eager to highlight that among Protect Our Future’s supporters are progressives — including Robert Garcia of California, Becca Balint of Vermont and Jasmine Crockett of Texas — who may not be particularly friendly to crypto interests.

“There’s this idea that Sam is doing this for crypto, Sam doesn’t like progressives,” McElwee said, referring to Bankman-Fried. “If Sam didn’t like progressives, why would he spend a million dollars to get a progressive elected?”

Develop the political muscle to prevent the next pandemic

For pandemic prevention advocates, the theory of the matter is as follows: on the heels of a once-in-a-century pandemic that brought astronomical economic, societal and human costs, now is the time to take the necessary steps to ensure the country can better withstand a future one biological disaster. But to achieve that, policymakers must be willing to devote the time and political capital necessary to review it—something they are not currently motivated to do.

“You can’t cut a ribbon in front of a pandemic that never happened,” Sadowsky said.

To advance this goal, the Bankman-Fried brothers have developed a political operation that seeks to elect candidates—and cultivate incumbents—who are willing to do just that.

“I want to build a coalition of members of Congress who care enough to do things on their own, and we’re going to have their backs,” Gabe Bankman-Fried said.

First, both Republican and Democratic candidates are vetted and endorsed by GAP, the group run by Gabe Bankman-Fried and largely funded by his older brother, Sam.

Gabe Bankman-Fried said he is broadly interested in working with candidates who can at least “feel some ownership” of the issue. “Most people running for political office are not biosecurity experts,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect them to be.”

Bankman-Fried provided Insider with one of GAP’s questionnaires, which asks the candidates to commit to supporting President Joe Biden’s pandemic preparedness plan, increased funding for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and strengthening regulations to minimize biosecurity risks around laboratories and research facilities.

Once the candidate gets GAP’s endorsement, they will likely receive significant outside spending support from a super PAC. If they’re a Democrat, it’s Protect Our Future.

But if they’re Republicans, they can get the support of American Dream Federal Action, a super PAC funded solely by Ryan Salame, a colleague of Sam Bankman-Fried at FTX. That PAC has spent over $11 million supporting its endorsed candidates in 14 GOP primaries this year.

By virtue of campaign finance rules, the PACs cannot communicate with GAP during the election cycle, although both super PACs acknowledge that they consider GAP’s endorsements, and Gabe Bankman-Fried noted that the groups can exchange information after the election cycle. concluded.

In a statement to Insider, Brinck Slattery, executive director of American Dream Federal Action, said his organization is looking for “policy expertise wherever it can be found, including the work of bipartisan organizations like Guarding Against Pandemics,” while cautioning that the group “acts independently of any other organization in carrying out its mission to elect Republicans committed to protecting America’s biosecurity.”

Thus, the growing pandemic prevention movement will soon count dozens of lawmakers among its ranks — setting the stage for what advocates hope will be a fruitful 118th Congress, even under a potentially divided government.

“When government is divided, politicians starve for the few things they can agree on,” said Gabe Bankman-Fried. “I think our problem is one that they can work together on and get something done.”