Election Day has 435 House seats, 35 Senate races and one crypto lobbying heavyweight

U.S. voters will decide all 435 House seats and 35 Senate races in the 2026 midterms, potentially shifting congressional control and altering the outlook for cryptocurrency regulation. Crypto industry groups have spent roughly $176 million across more than 100 races this election cycle, according to an Oct. 27 Reuters report, with Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz among the main financiers of the Fairshake political network.

Republicans enter Tuesday’s election controlling 219 seats in the House of Representatives and 53 in the Senate, according to the Blockchain Association’s election dashboard. Democrats are seeking to overturn those majorities, and prediction markets were favoring the party to win the House and Senate, according to Kalshi data at the time of publishing. Control of Congress could affect the stalled CLARITY Act, committee leadership and scrutiny of Trump-linked crypto businesses and regulators’ decisions, while control of the Senate would also influence confirmation of future presidential nominees to regulatory posts.

Three Senate races have drawn particular attention from the crypto industry. In Ohio, Republican Jon Husted faces Democrat Sherrod Brown after industry groups reportedly spent more than $50 million opposing Brown, a longtime crypto critic who could return to a senior Senate committee role. In Nebraska, Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts faces independent Dan Osborn; Ricketts, a Senate Banking Committee member who has supported crypto-friendly legislation, has benefited from nearly $11 million in Fairshake spending, according to the Washington Examiner. In Texas, Republican Ken Paxton faces Democrat James Talarico in a closely contested Senate election, with the Winklevoss-backed Digital Freedom Fund spending money supporting Paxton.

The CLARITY Act faces challenges regardless of the election result. The crypto market structure bill would divide oversight of crypto markets between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and establish rules for intermediaries. The Senate failed to advance it in a 49–50 procedural vote on Sept. 15, falling short of the 60 votes required.

Republican sponsors said their final draft incorporated substantial ethics concessions sought by Democrats, while Democratic Sen. Mark Warner cited insufficient safeguards against Trump profiting from his administration’s crypto policies. The election will determine which party controls Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s second term and which lawmakers lead committees overseeing the industry.