Crypto Industry Steps Up Fight for Influence in High-Stakes Midterms
Coinbase-backed Stand With Crypto endorsed 32 incumbent House lawmakers on Aug. 24, widening an election strategy designed to turn cryptocurrency policy into a voting issue ahead of the November midterms.
Summary:
- Stand With Crypto is expanding its bipartisan campaign ahead of November’s midterms.
- The group is concentrating resources on races where crypto voters could affect narrow margins.
- Industry political spending is approaching $200 million this election cycle.
- The Senate remains critical as broader crypto market-structure legislation remains unresolved.
The campaign comes as the broader crypto industry approaches $200 million in political spending and seeks to protect congressional support for legislation that could determine how digital assets are regulated in the United States.
The Endorsements Reward Lawmakers Who Already Voted for Crypto Rules
According to Reuters, Stand With Crypto’s latest endorsements span both parties, including Republicans Tom Emmer and Bill Huizenga and Democrats Ritchie Torres and Josh Gottheimer. The common denominator is legislative rather than partisan: all 32 backed the Clarity Act when it passed the House.
That voting record makes the endorsements more targeted than a broad list of politicians who have made favorable statements about digital assets.
The Clarity Act addresses one of the industry’s longest-running policy disputes by establishing a federal market structure for crypto and clarifying regulatory responsibilities. Although the House approved the legislation, progress has stalled in the Senate, leaving regulators to advance parts of the administration’s crypto agenda through agency rulemaking instead.
For crypto companies, congressional legislation carries an advantage that regulatory action cannot fully provide. SEC or CFTC policies can change under a future administration, while legislation creates a more durable framework.
That helps explain why the industry’s political campaign continues even as the current regulatory environment becomes more favorable.
Stand With Crypto Is Testing Whether Crypto Owners Can Become a Voting Bloc
Stand With Crypto operates differently from the industry’s large super PACs.
Rather than concentrating primarily on campaign contributions, the organization is attempting to mobilize crypto owners around candidates’ records on digital-asset policy. It now claims more than 3 million registered U.S. advocates, up from the 2.7 million it reported when launching its midterm program in March.
Its voter hub tracks candidates’ positions using public statements, legislative history and responses to a crypto policy questionnaire. The organization also plans digital advertising, direct mail, SMS campaigns, email outreach and local organizing through state and college chapters.
The strategy addresses a question that campaign donations alone cannot answer: will Americans who own crypto actually change their votes because of crypto policy?
Stand With Crypto’s own survey of 1,000 crypto owners and advocates in battleground states found that 59% of crypto owners do not consistently vote for one party. Nearly half said they could support a candidate who agrees with them on cryptocurrency even when they disagree on other issues.
Those figures come from the advocacy organization itself, so they should not be treated as independent measures of voter behavior.
They do, however, explain how Stand With Crypto is deciding where to deploy resources.
Eight House Races Will Provide a Better Test Than 32 Endorsements
The overall endorsement count may ultimately matter less than what happens in a much smaller collection of competitive districts.
Stand With Crypto identified eight House battlegrounds earlier this year where it believes crypto voters represent a potentially meaningful portion of the electorate. They include races in Iowa, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Among the initial targets were Iowa’s 3rd District, Nevada’s 3rd, New York’s 17th, North Carolina’s 1st, Ohio’s 1st and Pennsylvania’s 8th. The organization also identified Ohio’s 9th and Pennsylvania’s 10th as priorities.
That concentration creates a useful way to judge the campaign after November.
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A crypto endorsement in a safe congressional district says relatively little about electoral influence. A close race is different. If an organized group can identify supporters, increase turnout and influence enough persuadable voters to affect a narrow margin, lawmakers have a stronger reason to treat that constituency seriously.
This is where Stand With Crypto’s 3 million advocates become more relevant than its national membership total. What matters politically is how many are registered in competitive districts, whether they vote and whether digital-asset policy influences their choice.
Crypto’s 2024 Playbook Explains the Nearly $200 Million Bet
The industry enters 2026 with evidence that targeted political spending can produce results, although separating the effect of crypto money from broader electoral forces remains difficult.
Crypto interests spent roughly $170 million supporting congressional candidates in 2024. One of the most consequential contests was Ohio’s Senate election, where crypto-backed spending helped support Republican Bernie Moreno against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a prominent industry critic. Moreno won.
The importance extended beyond replacing one senator. Senate committees exercise substantial control over which financial legislation reaches the floor, giving individual elections potential consequences for regulatory policy.
The industry’s political infrastructure has expanded again for 2026.
Crypto interests have committed nearly $200 million to the current midterm cycle, with much of the financial firepower centered around Fairshake and its affiliated organizations. Fairshake had raised more than $136 million by early August
Some individual races have already attracted substantial support. Reuters reported $9.43 million benefiting Republican Barry Moore in Alabama and $7.17 million supporting Republican Andy Barr in Kentucky, while Democratic candidates have also received millions from crypto-aligned groups.
The bipartisan distribution is significant. Rather than seeking conventional party control, the industry’s strategy is focused more narrowly on increasing the number of lawmakers willing to support crypto legislation.
Money and Voter Mobilization Serve Different Purposes
The industry’s 2026 political operation can effectively be divided into several functions:
- Stand With Crypto organizes voters, rates candidates and uses endorsements to highlight legislative records.
- Fairshake and affiliated PACs deploy large amounts of campaign spending in selected congressional races.
- Crypto companies and executives provide financial support to political organizations and candidates.
- Trade organizations and policy groups lobby lawmakers and regulators on specific legislation.
- The combination matters because money can influence the information environment surrounding a race, but it cannot
- demonstrate that crypto owners themselves represent a dependable electoral constituency.
- Stand With Crypto is attempting to supply that second component.
If candidates supported by the organization perform strongly in competitive districts where it has concentrated organizers and advocates, the industry would gain evidence that its influence extends beyond PAC spending. Weak results would suggest that millions of registered advocates do not automatically translate into a cohesive voting bloc.
That distinction may matter more over time than whether all 32 endorsed incumbents win.
The Clarity Act Gives the 2026 Election an Immediate Policy Target
The industry’s electoral push is occurring while Washington remains divided over comprehensive crypto legislation.
President Donald Trump called on Congress this month to approve a version of the Clarity Act during a White House event attended by executives from major cryptocurrency companies. The administration has simultaneously pursued regulatory changes through federal agencies.
The SEC, for example, proposed a new crypto framework on Aug. 18 that includes exemptions for certain token offerings and potential pathways for some digital assets to avoid securities classification when specified conditions are met.
Yet the industry’s preference remains legislation.
Without congressional action, future administrations retain greater ability to reverse regulatory policies. Control of Congress, and particularly the composition of committees responsible for financial regulation, therefore has direct implications for the durability of the current policy shift.
The election campaign is consequently tied to a specific legislative objective rather than a general desire for political access.
Senate Endorsements Could Be More Consequential Than the House List
Stand With Crypto has not yet revealed its Senate endorsements and says those decisions will come closer to Election Day.
That second round could provide a clearer indication of where the organization believes its voter network can materially affect crypto policy.
The House has already demonstrated sufficient support to pass the Clarity Act. The Senate is where the broader market-structure effort has encountered resistance, making the composition of that chamber especially relevant to the industry’s next legislative push.
The 2026 campaign also unfolds against a much larger shift in corporate political spending. Crypto, artificial intelligence and online-betting interests have collectively deployed more than $294 million through super PACs, affiliated organizations and other structures during the current election cycle.
November will therefore test something broader than whether crypto-friendly candidates can win. For Stand With Crypto specifically, the more revealing numbers will come from its eight battleground House races and eventual Senate targets, where turnout and margins can show whether a network of more than 3 million advocates has developed into an electoral constituency that lawmakers cannot easily ignore.
The information presented in this article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as financial, investment, or trading advice. Coinspress.com does not promote or advocate for any particular investment strategy, asset, or cryptocurrency project. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and unpredictable – always perform your own research and seek guidance from a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
