Crypto Pours More Than $200 Million Into the Midterms, and Ohio's Sherrod Brown Race Is Its Biggest Test

The crypto industry heads into Tuesday's US midterm elections as the biggest single-issue spender in American politics. Crypto-tied groups have contributed more than $200 million this election cycle, CNBC reported on Saturday, citing the watchdog group Public Citizen.

Much of that money is aimed at a handful of races, and one stands above the rest: Ohio's Senate contest, where former Senator Sherrod Brown, a longtime crypto critic, is trying to win back a seat. The polls are close, and the result on 3 November will be read as a verdict on whether crypto's political machine still works.

How much crypto has spent

The totals vary because they measure different things. Reuters counted roughly $176 million spent across more than 100 midterm races through 20 October. Fairshake and its affiliate PACs accounted for about $150.8 million of that, and other crypto groups for around $25 million.

On Sunday, CoinDesk reported that Fairshake and its affiliates have devoted $154 million to their favoured candidates this cycle, according to a spokesman. The network still has a $56 million reserve to carry into the next cycle, much as it did two years ago.

Public Citizen's wider tally, cited by CNBC, puts crypto-tied contributions above $200 million. It says crypto groups now form the largest cohort of single-issue super PACs in US history, ahead of online betting and data-centre groups in federal corporate political spending.

For comparison, crypto super PACs spent about $250 million to elect friendly lawmakers in 2024, CNBC noted. Fairshake alone spent $196 million in that cycle, according to Reuters.

Who is paying for it

Fairshake's main financiers are Coinbase, Ripple and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, Reuters reported. Coinbase gave $25 million to Fairshake's midterm effort in 2025, and Ripple gave another $25 million, according to the super PAC's figures cited by CNBC.

Two smaller PACs joined in the final stretch. The Digital Freedom Fund, backed mainly by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, committed more than $8 million in October to stop Democratic challengers from winning Senate seats in Ohio, Texas and Iowa, CoinDesk reported from Federal Election Commission filings.

The Fellowship Fund, funded by Cantor Fitzgerald and closely tied to stablecoin issuer Tether, gave $3.8 million to Republican candidates earlier in the year, including Ken Paxton in Texas. It later added $600,000 for three Democratic incumbents, half of it for New York Rep. Ritchie Torres.

Most voters will never see the word crypto in these ads. Reuters found that Fairshake's spots are mostly sponsored by affiliates with names like Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress, and tend to focus on taxes or immigration.

Ohio is the race that matters most

Fairshake spent about $40 million to unseat Brown in 2024, when he chaired the Senate Banking Committee and had stalled a House-passed market-structure bill. This time the PAC told CNBC it has already spent $55 million opposing his comeback against Republican Senator Jon Husted.

CoinDesk put Fairshake's commitment at almost $56 million, plus $7.2 million from the Winklevoss PAC, for an industry stake of about $63 million on the Ohio vote. AdImpact data cited by Reuters puts total crypto spending on the race above $68 million, making it one of the most expensive on record.

It may still fall short. A Marist poll taken from 15 to 18 October showed Brown four points ahead of Husted among likely voters, inside the 4.5-point margin of error, CNBC reported. CoinDesk called the race a tossup.

A Brown win would return a declared opponent of the industry to the Senate. CoinDesk noted that some in crypto already see the scale of spending against one man as a strategic mistake that could make him an even more determined adversary.

A bipartisan pitch, a Republican tilt

"We back pro-crypto candidates who support American innovation in both parties, and look forward to continuing to build on the largest pro-crypto caucus in American history," Fairshake spokesman Geoff Vetter said in a statement quoted by both Reuters and CoinDesk.

In House races the network backs 33 candidates, 19 Republicans and 14 Democrats, CNBC reported. Six incumbents get at least $1 million each: Republicans Bryan Steil, French Hill and Bill Huizenga, and Democrats Janelle Bynum, Derek Tran and Steven Horsford.

In the Senate, though, Fairshake decided to back only Republicans after Senate Democrats blocked the CLARITY Act from reaching a final vote, Reuters reported. CoinDesk wrote that all three leading crypto PACs have favoured Republicans, tying the industry to the party most polls expect to take a heavy hit.

Why it matters: the CLARITY Act

The industry's top goal is the CLARITY Act, a market-structure bill that would put most crypto oversight under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote in May, then stalled in September after Democrats argued it did too little to stop top officials profiting from crypto ventures, CNBC reported.

Without a law, rules set by agencies under President Trump could be reversed by a later administration, JPMorgan analysts said, according to Reuters. The industry already has the GENIUS Act, the 2025 stablecoin law that regulators are now turning into detailed rules, as with the OCC's final stablecoin rule.

Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, now a board member at exchange OKX, told CNBC that new crypto laws are unlikely if Congress changes hands in January. If CLARITY does not advance before the end of the year, Congress will have to start a new market-structure bill from scratch.

What to watch on 3 November

Ohio is the headline race. Beyond it, watch the six House incumbents with $1 million or more in Fairshake support, and the Texas and Iowa Senate contests where the Winklevoss PAC spent. Fairshake says 53 of the 58 candidates it backed in this year's primaries and special elections won, Reuters reported.

The industry is publicly calm about the outcome. "Regardless of who is elected in Congress, we're going to continue to see more regulatory clarity in this space," Coinbase vice chairman Ryan VanGrack told CNBC.

If pro-crypto candidates hold their ground, CLARITY gets another shot in the next Congress, something Kevin O'Leary predicted back in September. If Democrats take a chamber and Brown returns, the industry's $200 million bet will look very different on Wednesday morning.