What role did crypto voters play in the 2024 US election?

Political analysts are still analyzing the results of the 2024 United States elections on Nov. 5, but many candidates who said they would advocate for policies favoring the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry won their respective primaries and races.

According to reporting from the advocacy group Stand With Crypto, roughly 270 “pro-crypto” candidates won seats in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

Election Day polling from Paradigm suggested that roughly half of crypto voters waited until the eleventh hour to cast their ballots, leaned Republican, and likely contributed to Donald Trump winning the popular vote with 76.8 million votes — slightly less than 50% of all votes cast. 

“Democrats had a real opportunity to win over crypto voters into the last few days of the campaign but were not able to, likely in part due to internal division within the party over whether to be clearly pro-crypto,” said Paradigm.

In the leadup to the election, Trump continued to make crypto policy a central part of his campaign by speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference, posting about his promises to the industry on social media, and making public appearances at crypto-friendly venues like the New York City Pubkey bar.

Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris, in contrast, seemed to make only one official statement in September to support the industry, with her campaign instead largely focusing on Trump as a threat to US democracy.

How Harris’ and Trump’s positions on crypto played out

North Carolina Representative Wiley Nickel, one of the few Democrats in Congress who has been very vocal about supporting the industry, told Cointelegraph at the North American Blockchain Summit (NABS) on Nov. 21 that crypto policy played a “very significant role” among voters in the election, citing the Paradigm data. 

“In Nevada, in Michigan, in Arizona, you had Donald Trump winning, but pro-crypto Democrats winning also for the Senate,” said Rep. Nickel. “That’s one of the places where Harris really may have made a really big error in not fully embracing and speaking to voters on this issue.”

Arkansas Representative French Hill, a Republican who chairs the digital assets subcommittee and was in the running to chair the House Financial Services Committee in 2025, told Cointelegraph that crypto was a “galvanizing force” in the US election. The congressman said the Biden administration sent a “mixed message, at best” on supporting the industry.

“They could have made it an issue where they were positive,” said Rep. Hill on the US President and Vice President Harris supporting digital assets. “They didn’t, and it created an opening for President Trump to identify with […] this new emerging technology that had a lot of excitement around it.” 

Is crypto money influencing US elections?

Some US lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, have said support for crypto and blockchain technology should be a “non-partisan” issue in Congress. However, one of the dividing lines between political parties seemed to be how money from the industry could have influenced voters through ad spots and other media buys. 

For the 2024 election, Fairshake and other crypto-backed political action committees (PACs) spent an estimated $134 million to support candidates who had advocated for policies favoring the industry. These funds could have contributed to Democrat Sherrod Brown’s loss in Ohio for a US Senate seat. 

The Fairshake affiliate Defend American Jobs spent more than $40 million to support Republican Bernie Moreno in Ohio in what was one of the most expensive Senate races in US history. Rep. Nickel, echoing many in the Democratic Party, advocated for campaign finance reform, saying there was “way too much money in our politics.”

Related: Crypto industry smashes all lobbying records in 2024, influencing US election

Former Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican who left Congress in 2023, told Cointelegraph at NABS that the PACs’ spending in 2024 was a “terrific” action by the industry to weigh in on candidates. He suggested it was a response to a lack of regulatory clarity and lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

One of Fairshake’s biggest backers, Coinbase, has already pledged an additional $25 million for the PAC’s efforts to support candidates in the next US midterm elections. As of Nov. 4, Fairshake reported that it had raised $78 million for 2026 — roughly half what the PAC raised from 2023 to 2024.

Magazine: Crypto voters are already disrupting the 2024 election — and it’s set to continue