Defend American Jobs, a crypto-backed political group, spent more than $55 million supporting Republican Jon Husted and opposing Sherrod Brown in Ohio between Sept. 21 and Oct. 26, according to Americans for Financial Reform. Husted had already voted to advance the CLARITY Act.
Americans vote today, Nov. 3, in midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years. Republicans currently control both chambers.
Congress has to agree on crypto legislation, which means winning over enough lawmakers in both parties to get it passed.
The midterms will shape committee leadership, hearings and the path to a vote. Presidents appoint regulators and set enforcement priorities, but a later administration can change those policies.
Crypto-backed groups have poured money into congressional races, often backing candidates based on their crypto positions rather than their party.
Fairshake and its affiliated groups have become some of the biggest spenders in American politics, with a Reuters analysis estimating that crypto groups had spent roughly $176 million across more than 100 races by late October.
Ohio has become a major focus of that strategy.
Husted already voted in September to advance the CLARITY Act, a major proposal intended to establish clearer federal rules for crypto. The bill failed to clear a 60-vote Senate hurdle, leaving its supporters short of the backing needed to move forward. Brown, meanwhile, wasn’t even in the Senate when that happened, having lost his previous seat in 2024 before launching a comeback campaign against Husted for Ohio’s other Senate seat.
Keeping Husted in Washington would protect a vote the industry already has, while defeating Brown would prevent a prominent crypto critic from returning to Congress. Both outcomes would be politically valuable, especially with Senate control potentially at stake, but neither will resolve the disagreements that stopped the legislation in September.
That’s because lawmakers are still fighting over stablecoin rewards, banking risks and the protections customers should receive when crypto companies handle their money, and the industry’s expensive election campaign can’t settle those disputes on its own.
The Senate votes still missing
Republicans currently hold 53 seats, so even a united Republican caucus would need support from outside the party to reach the 60-vote threshold used in September.
Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, and Jerry Moran all voted against moving ahead. Thom Tillis recorded a no as well, but did so to preserve the option of asking the Senate to reconsider, a procedural step that would allow another attempt rather than an expression of opposition to the bill itself.
Collins wanted further study of whether community banks and credit unions could lose deposits used to support “loans for mortgages, small businesses, and other family needs.” The dispute centers partly on stablecoin rewards. Crypto platforms offer rewards to customers who keep stablecoins in an account, giving those customers another reason to leave their money there, so banks see those offers as competition for money that might otherwise sit in a deposit account. Banking groups argue that losing those deposits could make it harder to fund lending, and they have pushed lawmakers to restrict rewards that work like interest.
Why banks are worried about your money
The September proposal would restrict payments by third parties, such as exchanges, when those payments function like interest on bank deposits. It would still allow rewards tied to transactions or activity, which draws a distinction between paying someone to leave a balance untouched and rewarding them for actually using it.
Banking associations argue that the proposed distinction leaves ways to keep paying what is effectively interest, even when the payment is described or structured differently.
Under the September draft, Treasury could impose further restrictions if stablecoin yield caused substantial harm to community-bank deposits within 18 months of enactment. The sponsors presented that provision as protection for smaller banks and the businesses that rely on them.
Banking groups objected that waiting until significant damage had occurred would make the protection come too late. Their response called for tighter restrictions in the legislation itself, rather than relying on regulators to act after deposits had already moved.
Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto raised a different set of objections, saying the September version left unresolved problems involving illicit finance, prediction markets, and ethics. She supported the separate GENIUS stablecoin legislation, but said this proposal didn’t do enough to help law enforcement address crypto crime or resolve concerns about political conflicts.
The sponsors said they incorporated 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats and revised the restrictions governing public officials’ crypto interests. Cortez Masto’s response was that important problems remained and that Republican Senate leaders had ended negotiations before they were resolved.
Those objections would still need answers after a Husted victory, unless the sponsors could find enough support elsewhere.
Even after an agreement in the Senate, the House would have to approve the same legislative text before it could go to the president. Democrats could ask for different terms from those accepted by the current chamber if they won a House majority, including in a scenario where Republicans held the Senate.
Congress can also act after the election and before its current term ends on Jan. 3, 2027. That period gives lawmakers another opportunity to negotiate.
Bills that have not become law by the end of a Congress don’t carry over automatically. The legislation would need to be introduced again and work through the process, leaving the newly elected House and Senate to decide which parts of the September proposal they were willing to keep.