Kamala Harris has a 45.9% chance of winning the Oval Office in the November 5 presidential election, according to the latest Polymarket election odds, Cointelegraph reported.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen donated 1,754,815.29 XRP to the Harris-Waltz 2024 presidential campaign, worth about $1 million at the time.
FEC filings show the donation was made on August 14, 2024, to the Future Forward political action committee (PAC), which supports Harris. According to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, this marks the first recorded cryptocurrency donation to Harris' campaign.
In September, a Future Forward spokesperson told CoinDesk that the PAC was accepting cryptocurrency donations from Harris, following erroneous reports that the campaign was accepting cryptocurrency donations directly.
As of October 2024, Future Forward has raised more than $200 million in donations, according to the FEC.
Larson and business executives support Harris
The Ripple Labs co-founder and 87 other business executives pledged their support for Harris in a September letter. The letter reads:
“With Kamala Harris in the White House, the business community can feel confident that it will have a president who wants American industry to prosper.”
The letter's signatories also claimed that "Vice President Harris has a strong record of driving investment in American business."
Harris tries to win over crypto industry
That same month, a group of crypto industry advocacy groups and executives announced they were raising $100,000 for Harris’ campaign in an effort to influence the vice president’s stance on U.S. digital asset policy.
Industry executives hope the donations will prompt Harris to change her administration’s current hostility toward cryptocurrencies.
After industry pressure and outreach, Harris eventually broke her silence and issued her campaign’s first statement on encryption policy. The Harris campaign released the following response in late September:
“Together, we will invest in American competitiveness and invest in America’s future. We will encourage innovative technologies like artificial intelligence and digital assets, while protecting our consumers and investors.”
However, the statement does not represent a departure from current administration policy. Portions of the response quote almost verbatim from an earlier statement from the Biden administration in May 2024, which was issued before the veto of the bipartisan SAB-121 repeal bill at the end of the month.
