Katie Porter

California is home to six bellwether U.S. House races that analysts say could help determine which party controls Congress in 2025.Why it matters: Latinos make up roughly one in four California voters this year — and hold an even larger share in some of the most competitive districts, meaning they're expected to play a crucial role in the six key races.The four main PACs devoted to House races — two Republican and two Democratic — have said they're planning to spend nearly $73 million on ads in California.Zoom in: A rematch between U.S. Rep. John Duarte (R) and former Democratic state lawmaker Adam Gray in California's 13th District in the Central Valley is drawing the most eyeballs since it was decided by just a few hundred votes in 2022.Another rematch pits longtime U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (R) against former federal prosecutor Will Rollins (D) in the 41st District in the state's Inland Empire.The 45th Congressional District in Orange Country has incumbent U.S. Michelle Steel (R) pitted against Democratic challenger Derek Tran in a plurality-Asian American district where Democrats have a registration advantage.Another closely watched rematch has U.S. Rep. David Valadao (R), a dairy farmer, facing up against Democratic former state lawmaker Rudy Salas in the San Joaquin Valley, the site of some of the most prominent Chicano farmworkers movements.In the suburbs north of Los Angeles, incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia (R) will compete with Democratic challenger George Whitesides, a former chief executive of space tourism company Virgin Galactic, to represent the 27th Congressional District.State Sen. Dave Min (D) and Scott Baugh, a former GOP state Assembly leader, are facing off to replace U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D) in the 47th District, south of Los Angeles. Between the lines: The races are being closely watched because many of them lean Democratic and are districts President Biden won in 2020, according to an Axios analysis. Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno, tells Axios that turnout in the races, especially among Latinos, will be crucial.Yes, but: Some Democratic-leaning Latino voters, especially in the Central Valley, don't have strong ties to the Democratic Party, making the races even more unpredictable, Holyoke says."The main reason they have leaned Democratic" is because of the party's pro-immigrant stance, but now issues in agriculture, such as access to water, are top priority — and many see Republicans as owning that issue, he adds.What we're watching: Holyoke says Vice President Kamala Harris, a former California attorney general, could give Democrats in close House races a minimal but decisive jolt after entering the presidential race.Subscribe to Axios Latino to get vital news about U.S. Latinos and Latin America.

Reproduced from Public Citizen; Chart: Axios VisualsThe crypto industry accounts for almost half the money contributed by corporations to political action committees so far in 2024, according to a new report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.Why it matters: Crypto is pioneering a strategy for direct corporate election spending that could usher in a new era of spending by big companies to get the outcomes they want in elections, the organization argues.By the numbers: Blockchain companies have supplied 48% of the $248 million of corporate money donated to influence federal elections this cycle, according to the research.Fairshake, the crypto industry's dominant political action committee (PAC), has raised a whopping $202 million.And though some of that money comes from wealthy individuals, Fairshake's been a magnet for business dollars, with nearly $114 million coming from corporate backers.Contributions have come primarily from Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, and Ripple, the company behind a stablecoin called XRP. Both companies have been at the forefront of crypto's battle with regulators for legitimacy.Zoom out: The crypto sector is breaking with the tradition of industries primarily siding with one party or another. Fairshake has been backing or opposing candidates on both sides of the aisle, based on whether or not a candidate is viewed as helpful or harmful to cryto.It endorsed equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in House races this year (for a total of 18). And its decision to back two Democrats and one Republican in the Senate races (so far) has drawn ire from partisans on both sides. How it works: When it has engaged in paid media, Fairshake has not spent its money to make cryptocurrency itself an issue in elections. It ran ads against Rep. Katie Porter in California's Democratic Senate primary, and incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary for New York's 16th Congressional District. The ads were designed to smear the targets' reputations, without mentioning digital assets. (Both Porter and Bowman lost their primaries.)In the general election, Fairshake's most high-profile pick is endorsing Republican Bernie Moreno in the Ohio Senate race — a move likely designed to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Banking Committee chair and a crypto critic.What they're saying: "No industry has ever before so wholeheartedly embraced raising as much directly from corporations and openly using that political war chest...to discipline lawmakers toward adopting an industry's preferred policies," the report's author, Rick Claypool, writes."The crypto sector strategy seems to be: give crypto corporations what they want, or your political career gets it."💭 Our thought bubble: The industry's politics look to be in the same spirit as former British Prime Minister Henry John Temple (better known as Lord Palmerston), who said in 1848:"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual."

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