Crypto-focused super PACs spent more than $176 million across 100+ races in the 2026 US midterms. Their biggest campaign failed when Democrat Sherrod Brown beat Republican Jon Husted in Ohio's Senate race.
Democrat Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Jon Husted in Ohio's Senate contest, despite a $64 million crypto-industry effort to stop him. It was the biggest campaign of the crypto-focused super PACs, which spent more than $176 million across 100+ races in the 2026 US midterms.
Brown beats Husted despite $64M crypto campaign
According to NBC figures, Brown received 2.24 million votes, about 49.7% of the total, while Husted received 2.06 million, or 45.5%, with 97.3% of the vote counted.
Crypto groups had spent more than $64 million trying to prevent that outcome. Fairshake, the industry's flagship super PAC, accounted for $56.5 million, and the Digital Freedom Fund, supported by Gemini co-founders the Winklevoss twins, contributed another $7.5 million.
Brown frequently criticized the crypto sector while chairing the Senate Banking Committee. During the campaign, however, he seemed to have somewhat softened his stance, telling the New York Times that crypto has a role in the economy. Still, he pledged to take on what he called the crypto/data center crowd.
A reversal of Ohio's 2024 result
In 2024, Brown lost to Republican Bernie Moreno, garnering 2.59 million votes (46.4%) to Moreno's 2.8 million (50.2%). That race was the biggest single target of crypto money at the time, and the digital asset industry backed Moreno with a $40 million war chest.
This time, the spending did not produce the same outcome. Researcher Molly White, who tracks crypto and AI players' political spending, described the result as a "HUGE loss for crypto super PACs."
Source: CryptoPotato
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