Kamala Harris knows crypto voters are up for grabs: New polls confirm

Vice President Kamala Harris is improving her politics around the complicated subject of US crypto policy, and new polling data suggests it could have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election. 

The nationwide and battleground state polling conducted by HarrisX and published today by Consensys, the software developer behind the MetaMask wallet and helmed by Joseph Lubin, shows that her path to victory in November is wider when crypto voters are courted rather than ignored.

The headline from the HarrisX polling is pretty simple. If your candidate is serious about winning, she needs to be pro-crypto. A remarkable 49% of those polled nationwide described a candidate’s support of pro-crypto policies as being “extremely” or “somewhat” important to them.

One out of every two Democratic voters say the same thing, as do half of all GOP voters. You get an increase to 85% saying it is important when looking at crypto owners (which comprise 19% of the US population) and 81% for those who will likely invest in crypto for the first time in the next 12 months (34% of the US population). It’s a policy area that really matters to the electorate.

Only GOP nominee Donald Trump has been capitalizing on this trend to date. While Trump has been loud and proud about his support for Bitcoin and the broader crypto community in the US, Harris has been conspicuously quiet. Political insiders understand that “crypto” — not just the topic but the very term itself — is a third rail for her campaign (touch it and get burned). This is unsurprising given that some of her political base are seasoned soldiers of the anti-crypto army.

But the tide appears to be turning. The Harris campaign has been meeting with the industry recently to reassure would-be supporters that a Harris Administration would be more open-minded, at the very least, and possibly even affirmatively supportive, of the US crypto industry. We are encouraged to believe that, come January 2025, the White House will no longer outsource its crypto policy to a political fringe hell-bent on killing it softly.

In the weeks following Harris’ rise to the top of the ticket, assertions that “things will be different” required blind faith from an industry that had good reason to distrust what it was hearing. But now, Harris is giving subtle but public hints that her policy stance will actually be distinguishable from the current antagonism. While she seems unwilling to actually say the word “crypto” prior to election day, she did reference “digital assets” during a luncheon fundraiser over a week ago and “blockchain” in a more formal speech on her economic policy just last week. The US crypto industry has responded positively to this.

That’s because crypto voters are still up for grabs despite Trump being far ahead in terms of support for the ecosystem. That’s the second big story from this polling. It shows that 74% of crypto owners are likely to consider voting for a candidate outside of their political party if they support pro-crypto policies, whereas only 16% are unlikely to do so. A net 58 percentage points benefit to a candidate with pro-crypto policy positions is eye-popping.

And remarkably, the polling also shows that 40% of all voters nationwide, not just those who own crypto or plan to, are more likely to consider voting for the other party’s candidate if she is pro-crypto, whereas only 27% are unlikely to consider crossing party lines toward a pro-crypto candidate. A net 13 percentage points gain is a big difference.

Whether Harris and her team’s strategy is aimed at stemming the bleeding of pro-crypto supporters to Trump, or perhaps stealing some pro-crypto GOP voters, is hard to say. But that it’s smart electoral politics is undeniable.  

Frankly, I was surprised that a strong track record of full-throated support from Trump and other Republicans hasn’t cemented the GOP as the well-established crypto party. Rather, the polling shows that voters are pretty evenly divided about a preferred party, with 40% of those polled nationwide trusting GOP with crypto policy more, 38% trusting Democrats more, and 23% being unsure. Out of crypto owners and likely crypto investors, Democrats are actually more trusted to set policies—with nearly half of those polled nationally favoring the blue team.

Harris’ recent hints at a policy shift, although hardly definitive, could capitalize on this opportunity to reframe the Democratic party in the public discussion around crypto policy issues, which has to date cast Democrats largely as crypto antagonists. This shift would be well received by some Democrats who have been stalwart proponents of pro-innovation crypto policy, like Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Ron Wyden, and Representatives Ro Khanna, Darren Soto, Ritchie Torres, and Wiley Nickel.

Simply making her stance on crypto policy more clear would be good for Harris. 54% of those polled nationally said it was important for her to have a clear position. 68% of Democrats and 50% of independents felt the same. 

But it’s far better for her to be pro-crypto. Nationally, 33% are more likely to vote for Harris if she is pro-crypto, and crypto owners, potential investors, and independents would be more motivated in particular. If she were to announce that she was opposed to the SEC’s current scorched earth enforcement in favor of smart regulation that protected technological innovation, she’d find 55% of voters would support that position, as well as 82% of Democrats and majorities of voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

The polling makes clear that Harris can make up lost policy ground against Trump, who so far has outpaced her in connecting with voters with his pro-crypto message. His vow to create a federal Bitcoin reserve and to fire SEC Chairman (and infamous anti-crypto army Field Marshall) Gary Gensler has been popular, with 56% of voters nationwide supporting those positions as well as half of voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Trump enjoys a net nine percentage points more voter support for him because of his pro-crypto stance. A generic candidate (i.e., not Trump) would find that she gains on net 20 percentage points more voters likely to vote for her on account of being pro-crypto.

The story this polling tells is that the impact of what was previously an irrelevant policy issue looks to be meaningful in an election this close. No wonder the Harris campaign is now working to ensure it isn’t just a boon for Trump.

Earlier this year, believing that crypto policy issues could really matter in this campaign cycle was largely wishcasting. I’ve been here since 2017 and have heard it all before, but the expectation that this space had political weight always seemed more dream than reality. But I’m happy to say that the ground appears to have shifted. With an estimated 30 million voting crypto owners (based on 2020 voting totals), and considering the slim margin of victory for President Biden in 2020, votes influenced by crypto policy could really turn the tide. Crypto voters are persuadable and passionate about the issue and intend to influence policy through the ballot box. Harris would be doing herself an even bigger favor if she continued to engage with the crypto industry and solidified a pro-crypto stance in time for it to matter in the biggest political battle of her life.

Bill Hughes is a guest columnist for Cointelegraph, the senior counsel and director of global regulatory matters at Consensys and a board member at the Blockchain Association. He served in the Justice Department as associate deputy attorney general from 2019-21, and as deputy director in the Executive Office of the President from 2017-19. He obtained an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University before obtaining a law degree from the University of Virginia.