A new industry-funded poll underlines the rising role of crypto in the thinking of likely voters in the 2024 U.S. elections – and the mention of digital assets by the presidential candidates of both major parties suggests the campaigns are aware of that.
The latest look, conducted by Harris Poll and paid for by crypto firm Grayscale, shows a steady increase in voters saying they're taking a candidate's crypto knowledge and stance seriously when considering who to vote for. Of more than 1,800 likely voters, 77% said presidential candidates should be informed about innovative technology like artificial intelligence and crypto, and 56% said they're more likely to vote for candidates who are staying on top of crypto as an issue (though their top issues remain inflation, national security and foreign policy).
The perception among those surveyed is that Republicans have a slight but growing edge over Democrats in being favorable for crypto investors.
Grayscale has fielded a few similar polls since last year, and over that period, a growing number of respondents – now 46% – agree with the concept that crypto and blockchain represent the "future of finance."
An increasing share of the voters – ticking slowly up to 21%, or about one in five – hold some kind of cryptocurrency (usually bitcoin) as an investment, according to the poll. Over the series of three snapshots of voter sentiment, those who've purchased crypto are increasingly saying they're doing so because a financial adviser recommended it – 27% of them in this latest poll, which is up seven percentage points from the previous one earlier this year.
But since the first poll in December, the number of voters aware of crypto has risen from a minority of 47% to a slight majority of 53%. About half of those responding said they're waiting for regulations to kick in before they consider putting money into cryptocurrencies.
These insights into crypto voting arrive the day before the vice-presidential candidates are set to debate in New York, marking about five weeks remaining until the polls open on Nov. 5. While crypto has been especially prominent among Republican politicians – most notably former President Donald Trump and his sudden 2024 embrace of the industry – the Democrats have generally taken a more cautious approach. Vice President Kamala Harris made a brief mention of favoring crypto innovation but isn't expected to go much deeper than that.
Read More: Candidate Harris Unlikely to Make Full-Throated Crypto Policy Before Election: Source
The industry has spent unprecedented amounts of money to help its favored candidates win almost two dozen congressional primaries, and its well-known $169 million political action committees have recently spent $40 million in one of the highest-stakes Senate races in Ohio. But so far, the industry's leading super PAC (Fairshake) hasn't picked a side in the presidential contest.
However, crypto investors have a chance to make themselves heard in the race for the White House, according to an analysis released Monday by Coinbase Inc. A look at voter data in the election's battleground states, conducted by Morning Consult, said that the total number of cryptocurrency investors in the seven key states is about 16 times more people than the vote differentials in the 2020 election – when President Joe Biden beat Trump.
The analysis suggested crypto owners are typically younger and racially diverse, and 70% of them earn less than $100,000 a year. Right now, they're evenly split between favoring Trump and Harris, Morning Consult reported, though the crypto owners are slightly more likely to be Democrats or independents than Republicans.
The research firm determined some additional things about crypto owners: 18% are moms with at least one child at home, 41% listen to country music and 71% of Gen Z crypto owners say they ponder digital assets at least as much as they think about Taylor Swift. Also, potentially more on-point for politicians, 81% of crypto owners think the lack of U.S. regulations is getting in the way of wider adoption.
