Crypto PACs Drop $176M on Midterms, Still Lose the Races That Mattered

Crypto's political machine opened its wallet wide in the 2026 US midterms — and still walked away bruised. Super PACs tied to the digital asset industry dumped more than $176 million into over 100 races, according to cryptopotato.com, yet their marquee target survived the onslaught.

That target was Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown. Crypto groups poured more than $64 million into stopping him, with Fairshake, the industry's flagship super PAC, supplying $56.5 million and the Winklevoss-backed Digital Freedom Fund adding $7.5 million. It didn't land. Brown pulled 2.24 million votes, about 49.7%, to Republican Jon Husted's 2.06 million, or 45.5%, with 97.3% counted, per NBC figures cited by the outlet.

Brown has hardly been a friend to the sector — he hammered crypto hard while chairing the Senate Banking Committee. But on the trail he sounded a softer note, telling the New York Times that crypto “has a part, a role, in our economy,” even as he vowed to take on the “crypto/data center crowd.” There's a bitter echo here: Brown lost his 2024 race to Republican Bernie Moreno in what was then crypto's biggest single spending target, with roughly $40 million behind the GOP side.

The losses stacked up beyond Ohio. Industry-backed candidates also fell short in Texas, Alabama, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, and crypto researcher Molly White, who tracks where digital-asset and AI money flows, called the night a “HUGE loss for crypto super PACs.”

Not every bet flopped. In Colorado's 8th District, Democrat Manny Rutinel — backed by groups including Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen's You Can Push Back PAC — beat incumbent Gabe Evans by a wide margin. In Nebraska, Republican Pete Ricketts, a Senate Banking Committee voice for industry-friendly crypto legislation, defeated independent Dan Osborn after Fairshake spent about $14.1 million on his behalf. Fairshake's cash comes mainly from Coinbase, venture giant Andreessen Horowitz and Ripple.

The bigger problem is the map. Democrats have seized control of both chambers, on track for 258 House seats and at least 54 in the Senate, flipping 29 and 7 respectively, per the outlet's estimates at the time of writing. Before the votes were in, CryptosRus warned a Democratic win could push the CLARITY Act even further down the road — the bill Democrats blocked back in September.