Crypto PACs Spent $168M, Won 78 Seats and Still Lost Ohio

Crypto's five biggest super PACs backed 78 candidates who won seats in Congress, according to a CryptoSlate review of $168 million in reported outside spending across the 2025-2026 cycle. The roster is heavy on veterans: 57 winners are returning to the same chamber, five are jumping from the House to the Senate, and three are former members coming back. Only 13 are first-time entrants, roughly one-sixth of the group.

The single costliest fight flopped. Defend American Jobs and Digital Freedom Fund reported $40 million backing Jon Husted and $24 million opposing Sherrod Brown in Ohio's Senate race. Brown won. That $64 million swallowed about 38% of the five-PAC total — nearly matching the roughly $64 million spent supporting all 78 eventual winners combined. Brown was one of seven candidates who won despite opposition spending against them.

Money flowed early, not late. Fifty of the supported winners got no general-election backing from the committees at all: 47 were funded only in 2026 primaries or runoffs, and three only in 2025 special elections. Every one of the 13 newcomers was backed during a primary or runoff — spending that can shape which candidate a party puts on the November ballot. Under FEC rules, these are independent expenditures for or against a candidate, not donations handed to campaigns.

Two newcomers drew the biggest checks. Adrian Boafo pulled $5 million and Jasmine Clark $4 million, all from Protect Progress during their primaries — together 67% of the $14 million spent on the entire newcomer class. They inherit districts with a skeptical record: Steny Hoyer, whom Boafo succeeds in Maryland's 5th, voted against both the CLARITY market-structure bill and the GENIUS stablecoin bill in July 2025. David Scott, who represented Clark's Georgia district, voted against both too.

Boafo arrives with state-level work behind him, having sponsored Maryland's blockchain and digital-currency task force, created by a law approved in May with recommendations due October 2027, plus a separate staking-services bill that got a hearing but no enactment. Clark's documented commitments come from a December 2025 Stand With Crypto questionnaire summary describing support for personal-wallet custody and broad stablecoin availability. Clark's immediate predecessor was Everton Blair, who filled Scott's unexpired term after his death.

The incoming class splits evenly by party — 39 Democrats, 39 Republicans — but not by chamber. Seven of the eight supported Senate winners are Republicans; Virginia's Mark Warner is the lone Democrat in that group. Democrats' victories in both chambers will decide who controls committees and which legislation moves forward, leaving the industry with experienced allies, fresh faces and one very expensive loss.