The crypto industry has put roughly $176 million into more than 100 midterm races this cycle, according to a Reuters review of campaign spending, making it the largest corporate spender in federal races in 2026. Fairshake, the sector's biggest super PAC, and its affiliates accounted for about $150.8 million through October 20, with other crypto groups adding around $25 million. The goal isn't a single bill. It's a Congress that can protect the industry after President Donald Trump leaves office.
Where the money went
Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz are the primary financiers behind the effort. Fairshake spent heavily in the 2024 cycle — $196 million — and is running strategy again now. The PAC says 53 of the 58 candidates it backed in primaries or special elections won, and all 58 will appear on the November 3 ballot.
<The watchdog group Public Citizen confirmed the industry's top-spender status for federal races this year. Super PACs can raise and spend without limits but are barred from coordinating with campaigns, which is why Fairshake's ads run through affiliates with names like "Defend American Jobs" and "Protect Progress." Many of those spots focus on taxes and immigration rather than crypto itself.
The Solana Policy Institute has put $4.9 million into the midterms. Its head of government relations, Colin McLaren, described the spending as "an investment in the future."
The Sherrod Brown rematch
Fairshake helped defeat Sherrod Brown, then chair of the Senate Banking Committee, in 2024. The industry has since spent more than $68 million on his rematch against Republican Jon Husted, according to AdImpact. Fairshake's ads against Brown don't mention crypto at all. Brown's campaign manager, Patrick Eisenhauer, said "the special interests are panicking."
The spending hasn't been uniformly effective. In Illinois, Fairshake spent over $10.1 million attacking Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton and $2.5 million against state Representative La Shawn Ford. Both are still expected to win on November 3.
From Library of Congress to the Senate floor
The industry's political footing has shifted sharply since 2018, when lawmakers couldn't secure a room in the House or Senate office buildings for the first bipartisan crypto roundtable and met at the Library of Congress instead. Under the Biden administration, the SEC levied more than $6 billion in penalties across 98 cases, according to a Georgetown University Law study.
Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad helped launch Stand With Crypto and Fairshake in 2023. The number of lawmakers rated "A" by Stand With Crypto has risen to 332 from 96 at launch. The GENIUS Act, enacted in 2025 with broad bipartisan support, created the first federal framework for stablecoins.
The Clarity Act, which would shift oversight to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, stalled this session. Senate Democrats blocked it from a final vote over an ethics provision that would have forced the Trump family to sell its crypto holdings.
The crypto vote that may not exist
Stand With Crypto's leadership argues the crypto vote will decide the midterms. The polling is murkier. A September survey of 1,545 U.S. adults by Ipsos for the DeFi Education Fund found 22% have owned or used crypto, up from 18% in 2025. Only 19% believe the U.S. financial system is secure.
When asked whether it's important for candidates to support building the next generation of financial technology in the United States, 35% said yes. When the same question named blockchain, crypto or DeFi, that dropped to 13%. That gap is the industry's central messaging problem heading into November 3.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss each gave about $13 million this cycle, most of it to MAGA Inc. Whether that spending and Fairshake's $150 million translate into a durable bipartisan coalition won't be clear until the votes are counted — and until the next Congress decides whether Clarity gets another run.
