Voters head to a polling place in November 2022. Outside money is pouring into a Phoenix-area congressional district in a heated Democratic primary Tuesday.
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A Democratic primary race for a U.S. House seat in Phoenix, Arizona, has attracted a curious group of interests: the Winklevoss twins of Facebook fame, cryptocurrency industry forces and Republican donors.
The high-stakes case is the latest reminder of outside groups seeking to expand their influence in the U.S. House of Representatives, with control of the lower chamber on the line. Arizona, a crucial battleground that will play an outsized role in national elections this year, holds its primary election on Tuesday.
The three-way Democratic race for the state’s 3rd Congressional District features former Arizona lawmaker Raquel Terán, former city council member Yassamin Ansari and pediatrician Dr. Duane Wooten. Polls show the leading contenders are Terán, a Latina, and Ansari, an Iranian-American, both seeking to make history with their personal backgrounds. They are seeking to fill the seat of Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for the U.S. Senate.
“We’ve come a long way. We’ve built a really impressive, young, diverse team that’s knocked on over 150,000 doors,” Ansari told NPR. She left her seat on the Phoenix City Council in March to launch her campaign to become the first Iranian-American woman to serve in Congress.
However, Ansari has drawn controversy due to the support her campaign has received from outside donors, including the Winklevoss twins, a Republican-aligned crypto political action committee and a major donor to former President Donald Trump. She has stood up to Terán and others who question her Democratic credentials, an issue that also plagued Ansari during her 2021 city council campaign.
“It was outrageous then, it’s outrageous now,” she said, noting that she was considered a “progressive minority” on the Phoenix City Council. “So my record is clear. And I think voters can see through these kinds of misleading and desperate attacks.”
U.S. House candidate Yassamin Ansari, a former Phoenix City Council member, is pictured here at a climate rally in Phoenix in 2022.
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Terán, a former state senator and House member who is running to become the state’s first Latina to represent the state in Congress, doesn’t believe it.
“These individuals are funding Donald Trump,” Terán, a former Senate minority leader and Democratic Party chairman, told NPR. “They’re trying to silence our voices as Latino voters. They’re trying to interfere in the Democratic primaries, taking away the votes of many working families. And I think it’s important that we expose the fact that outside spending is coming into our district.”
Questions about links to cryptocurrencies
Terán, who was born in the United States but raised in Mexico, says her long political career — from liberal activist collecting signatures on a long list of issues to a leading Democratic state legislator — has made her campaign a target for Ansari’s Republican donors.
She also wonders why Ansari has attracted the interest of the cryptocurrency industry. This isn’t the first time that mysterious ties to cryptocurrencies have found their way into a Democratic House primary, as it became an issue in a 2022 race in Oregon, with disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried at the center.
“This is not the priority of the people of our district,” Terán said. “No one mentions cryptography when we knock on doors.
U.S. House candidate Raquel Terán, left, is seen here at a 2022 campaign event in Tucson, Arizona, with first lady Jill Biden and then-Senate candidate Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
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Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District includes parts of central, southern, and western Phoenix and is a 65% Latino majority district, marking a blue seat in the purple state.
Federal Election Commission filings show that Ansari’s campaign raised more than $1.3 million from the GOP-based crypto group Protect Progress PAC, which is backed by Trump supporters such as Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The group has supported Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and House Republican leadership team member New York Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Last year, Texas billionaire Hushang Ansary, no relation, gave Ansari’s campaign $6,600, the maximum allowed, according to FEC filings. The Republican donor to Trump and others in recent years has been convicted of fraud related to a massive Caribbean-based pension fund.
However, the candidate said he was part of a group of family friends energized by their shared heritage and groundbreaking campaign, Ansari said.
Donors like Ansary “hate my politics … but that’s not why they support me,” she said. “It makes them proud to see someone with their … background running for Congress and having … a strong chance of winning.”
Winklevosses Support
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who also donated to Protect Progress PAC, also contributed the maximum allowable to Ansari’s campaign: $13,200, according to an FEC filing.
Widely known as Republican donors, the Winklevoss twins, who have long accused Alphabet Inc.’s Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their social media idea, have become major players in crypto.
Days after Vice President Kamala Harris was elevated to the top Democratic candidate to replace President Biden, Tyler Winklevoss said she betrayed their industry.
“We will show no mercy in November,” he said in a July 24 message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Biden-Harris administration has been waging an all-out war on the crypto industry for the past 4 years. Despite all this, Kamala is still invited to the @TheBitcoinConf in Nashville and she’s given the opportunity to speak to our industry and reconnect. What does she do? She refuses. She can’t…
— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) July 24, 2024
Protect Progress Group, Ansary and Winklevoss Capital did not immediately respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
In 2022, crypto played a significant role in a new race for the Oregon House district with the state’s largest Latino population, backing a political unknown, Carrick Flynn, who got a huge boost from Bankman-Fried. Democratic Rep. Andrea Salinas defeated Flynn despite spending heavily on crypto the race.
Ansari said she has “no connection” to the Winklevoss twins and suspects she is focusing on Perhaps new emerging technologies have piqued their interest.
“We talked about being pro-innovation and really wanting to regulate the digital asset industry,” she said, “and figuring out how we can continue to innovate here.… and keep some of those jobs in the United States”
In an interview, Ansari sought to shift the focus away from her Republican donors, toward her work in the district and the support she has received from organizations such as labor and teachers unions.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Backs Teran
Terán has received support from Bold PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. She has also received support from a wide range of labor, Latino and equality-seeking organizations, as well as those focused on women’s reproductive issues, such as Planned Parenthood.
Congressional Democrats, including the leader of the House No. 3 Caucus, Rep. Upper House Sen. Pete Aguilar and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly also lent their support.
Bold PAC Chairwoman Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat, says outside donor groups are trying to erase the voices of more than 500,000 Latinos in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District.
“A massive effort to silence Latino voices in this crucial state therefore raises the question: Who does this outside group really answer to?” Sanchez asked in a statement.
The group’s executive director, Victoria McGroary, said the race was a reminder of the critical issues at stake for House Democrats, Latino voters and Arizona.
“In a state where we have such a huge Latino population, where the Latino population makes a difference in races up and down the ballot statewide and certainly in a presidential cycle and where the Senate is on the line – our community is going to make a difference,” she told NPR.
“And in reality, that center of power is concentrated in the Third District. That’s the legacy of Latino representation in the state of Arizona.”
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