Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is returning to the political fray with a Senate bid at a moment when the crypto industry — which poured millions of dollars into ousting Brown last year — is emboldened by its recent political successes.
Brown launched a campaign for Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-Ohio) seat Monday, seeking to win back a spot in the upper chamber after losing the seat he held for three terms last fall.
The crypto industry has largely taken credit for Brown’s defeat by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) after spending some $40 million on the key race in the Buckeye State.
It appears poised to face off with the Ohio Democrat once again, fresh off several key wins in 2024. President Trump become a vocal proponent of the industry during his campaign back to the White House, while crypto-friendly Republicans took control of both chambers in Congress, paving the way for progress on digital asset legislation.
“It’s pretty clear that there’s going to be significant crypto money put against his campaign again like we saw last year, and I think that that will continue to pose an uphill challenge for Brown to overcome,” said Owen Tedford, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors.
However, he added, “I think that the larger political environment may end up being more decisive in the ultimate outcome of the race than crypto fundraising.”
Crypto super PAC Fairshake has already amassed a hefty war chest for the 2026 midterms, with $141 million on hand. Coinbase and a16z gave the super PAC $25 million and $23 million, respectively, for the next election before the votes had even been counted in 2024.
“Last year, voters sent a clear message that the Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren agenda were deeply out of touch with Ohio values,” Fairshake said in a statement. “We will continue to support pro-crypto candidates and oppose anti crypto candidates, in Ohio and nationwide.”
An affiliated super PAC, Defend American Jobs, spent $40 million to defeat Brown, who was seen as standing in the way of long-sought crypto legislation as the head of the Senate Banking Committee.
Brown ultimately lost to Moreno, a crypto enthusiast, in what was the most expensive Senate contest in the country, with both sides spending more than $500 million.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the chair of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm and the Senate Banking panel, credited the industry with Moreno’s win Tuesday and noted that the freshman senator now also serves on the Banking Committee.
“Thank you to all of y’all for getting rid of Sherrod Brown,” Scott said at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, adding, “Literally, the industry put Bernie Moreno in the Senate.”
The industry has received a warm welcome in Washington under Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress — a sharp departure from the chilly reception in recent years.
The president named venture capitalist David Sacks as his artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto czar, invited industry leaders to the White House and signed an executive order creating a bitcoin strategic reserve and digital asset stockpile.
Crypto-friendly leadership at the agency level has prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to close investigations and dismiss lawsuits against numerous crypto firms while agencies including the Federal Reserve and the Justice Department roll back various Biden-era policies.
Republican lawmakers have also made crypto legislation a high priority, passing a bill last month creating a regulatory framework for dollar-backed digital tokens known as stablecoins.
But Congress has yet to pass the centerpiece of digital asset legislation, a market structure bill that lays out regulation for the rest of the industry.
Brown has previously aligned himself with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on crypto policy, voicing concerns about potential consumer harms and the industry’s role in terrorist financing.
Warren, now the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has led the charge opposing industry-friendly legislation in the upper chamber this year.
Notably, Brown’s leadership of the panel coincided with the stunning 2022 collapse of FTX, which severely damaged the industry’s reputation.
The exchange’s sudden demise came after revelations about the firm’s questionable financial practices, which ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of crypto’s golden boy, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
While industry advocacy group Stand With Crypto deems Brown “strongly against crypto,” it suggested the former senator’s latest comments were “somewhat pro-crypto.”
“Cryptocurrency is a part of America’s economy,” Brown told Axios this week. “My goal is to make sure that as more people use cryptocurrency, it expands opportunity and lifts up Ohioans and they are not put at risk.”
The Hill has reached out to Brown’s campaign for comment.
When asked about Brown’s comeback bid, Stand With Crypto said it would “continue pushing every policymaker, regardless of party, to understand that supporting pro-innovation policies is not just smart politics—it’s the will of the people they represent.”
“Crypto voters are engaged, organized, and paying attention, and they want leaders who will protect their right to build, innovate, and participate in this new economy and ensure the United States is the crypto capital of the world,” Stand With Crypto community director Mason Lynaugh said in a statement.
However, some are skeptical of crypto’s electoral impact and suggest that other dynamics inherent to the state could be more significant.
Ohio Republican strategist Mark Weaver questioned how much the crypto industry’s involvement was determinative to defeating Brown in November, pointing more so to the realities of Ohio increasingly shifting right.
While Ohio voted for former President Obama twice and had been through the 2010s considered a prime swing state, Trump has improved his margins there in each of the three elections he ran. Brown was the last Democrat holding statewide office, and no Democrat has won one in several years.
“Donations are welcome, and everybody on the team deserves some credit, but the trend is Ohio is quickly moving red, which means that’s largely why our candidates are winning,” Weaver said. “We have good candidates, and they’re running in a Republican state.”
Brown’s race could also potentially be less of a target for the crypto industry in the 2026 midterms, as Democrats face an “uphill battle” to reclaiming control of the Senate, Tedford suggested.
“Even if Democrats flip the Ohio [seat], it still feels like an uphill battle for them to get back to 51 seats in the Senate,” he said. “So, is there a possibility that Brown maybe faces a little less pressure than he did in 2024, where his race was one of the key ones for Republicans to take control?”
While historical trends would suggest that Democrats will have the advantage in the midterms as the party out of power, getting back to a Senate majority as soon as next year will be a challenge. The party has two obvious pickup opportunities in Maine and North Carolina, but that would only get them 49 seats, presuming no Democratic seats flip either.
That would require winning in at least two states considered a bit more of a reach, like Ohio and Texas.
“How they pick and choose their battles I think is something that will be particularly worth watching,” Tedford said of the crypto industry.
