As vote counting starts across the United States, the crypto space is keeping a close eye on races beyond just who will take the White House.

The tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has dominated the conversation this election cycle, but all 435 seats in the House and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate are also on the ballot.

The new 119th Congress to be voted in today won’t take their seats until January, but they could be crucial to passing crypto bills currently stuck in the House and Senate if they aren’t passed in the “lame-duck” session.

Crypto isn’t a top-of-mind issue for most voters — the economy and immigration take that mantle — but the local industry has funneled around $240 million to back candidates in all three races.

According to the lobbying arm of US crypto exchange Coinbase, Stand With Crypto (SWC), these are some of the “critical” Senate races the crypto space is watching.

Ohio: Brown vs Mereno

Pro-crypto Republican challenger Bernie Moreno is hoping to unseat the incumbent Democrat Senator, Sherrod Brown, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee — key to writing rules for the industry.

Brown is marked as “strongly against crypto” by SWC for what it claims are multiple anti-crypto remarks while Moreno started the blockchain firms Ownum and Champ Titles and has long pitched to make the city of Cleveland a hub for blockchain and crypto firms.

Forever politicians like Sherrod Brown and Joe Biden don't understand the first thing about crypto and are totally unqualified to regulate it. They are obsessed with destroying crypto because they hate American innovation.

I'll lead the fight to defend crypto in the US Senate. pic.twitter.com/yiZvv3OiGl

— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) June 29, 2024

Moreno has promised to give “regulatory certainty” to crypto, but his campaign’s website makes no mention of digital assets. He’s received more than $40 million in support from the Fairshake-affiliated PAC Defend American Jobs, which primarily helps GOP candidates.

The latest polls taken on Nov. 3 show the race between Brown and Moreno is a coin flip.

Massachusetts: Warren vs Deaton

Arguably the most high-profile crypto critic, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren, faced off against the Republican John Deaton — a well-known crypto lawyer who advocated for XRP (XRP) tokenholders through Ripple’s court fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Deaton had big backing from the crypto space, with $2 million in funding from Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Ripple.

But the Associated Press called Warren’s reelection at around 1 am UTC on Nov. 6 —  polls showed Deaton was a longshot, with the latest from Nov. 1 giving Warren 60% of the vote compared to his 37%.

The AP called the race with less than 1% of votes counted, meaning it thinks Deaton never really had a chance. Source: The New York Times

Montana: Tester vs Sheehy

Incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Tester is marked as neutral on crypto by SWC but has called crypto “all bullshit” and said there’s “no reason why this stuff should exist” — but his spot on the Senate Banking Committee is key to why the industry wants to unseat him.

To that end, the pro-crypto GOP challenger Tim Sheehy has stepped in, calling crypto “the future of finance and the internet” and promising to ban a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC).

1/5 of Americans own crypto. Crypto represents the future of finance and the internet, and thousands of jobs for America.
 @JonTester meanwhile has called it “bulls**t” and joined with Joe Biden in trying to KILL IT and debank crypto founders.
 
Montana deserves better.

— Tim Sheehy (@SheehyforMT) June 4, 2024

He’s 11 percentage points ahead of Tester as of Nov. 3 polls.

Pennsylvania: Casey vs McCormick

Pennsylvania has taken the limelight as a key swing state to win in the presidential election for its massive 19 electoral college votes but the race for its available Senate seat is also seen as important to crypto.

Incumbent Democrat Bob Casey Jr is rated as neutral toward crypto by SWC, having voted against the SEC’s anti-crypto banking guidance but voting for the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2023, which the industry sees as anti-crypto.

Casey Jr holds a seat on the Senate Finance Committee — another key group that could influence crypto laws — and is up against the GOP’s Dave McCormick, who penned an op-ed on why the US “must lead” on crypto and was endorsed by Coinbase boss Brian Armstrong.

Polls from Nov. 3 show a tight race, with Casey leading by just 3 percentage points.

Wisconsin: Baldwin vs Hovde

Another tight race is with Wisconsin’s Senate seat, with GOP challenger Eric Hovde looking to oust Democrat Tammy Baldwin.

Nov. 3 polling has the pair neck and neck, with Baldwin leading leading by 1 percentage point.

SWC lists Hovde as “somewhat” supportive of crypto, giving him half marks for a statement where he said he supported DeFi and saw Bitcoin (BTC) as “an asset for the future” but didn’t support “thousands of different junk coins that have no value being created.”

Still, the industry likely views him as a better choice in the Senate than Baldwin, who voted against the earlier-mentioned SEC anti-crypto banking guidance.

At the time of writing, vote counts have just gotten underway for most Congressional races, and it could take days to get a final result due to the number of tight races.

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