Stand With Crypto endorsed five candidates on Wednesday, naming three senators and two House members 34 days before the 2026 US midterm elections. The Coinbase-linked advocacy group announced support for the following contenders:

• Jon Husted (R-Ohio)
• Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa)
• Chris Pappas (D-New Hampshire) for the Senate
• Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) for the House
• Shomari Figures (D-Alabama) for the House

Bloomberg first reported the Senate slate. Husted, the sitting Ohio senator, is defending his seat against Democrat Sherrod Brown, who lost to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024 after outside groups spent more than $300 million contesting the state. That sum established the scale of crypto-aligned political spending entering the 2026 cycle.

The bipartisan picks signal a race-by-race approach even as polling tilts against the GOP nationally.

What drove the timing?

The endorsements landed two weeks after the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act failed a cloture motion in the Republican-controlled Senate on September 15. The market-structure bill had cleared the House with bipartisan support in 2025, exposing a thin Senate coalition on digital-asset policy.

After that defeat, Stand With Crypto warned of "consequences" for lawmakers who declined to back the bill. The group, launched by Coinbase in 2023 to pursue "clear, common-sense regulations for the crypto industry," has treated the CLARITY Act as a litmus test for friendly legislators.

How is the industry spending?

Fairshake PAC, funded largely by Coinbase, Ripple Labs and Andreessen Horowitz, has served as the industry's principal spending vehicle. The PAC pledged an initial $30 million to support Husted over Brown and reported $82 million in candidate expenditures nationwide as of June.

Stand With Crypto endorsed 32 House candidates in August, calling the slate "proven digital asset policy champions." The organization's endorsements are advisory rather than financial, but they coordinate with PAC spending and direct donations to campaigns from crypto executives and firms.

The Ohio race alone illustrates the stakes. Outside groups spent more than $300 million there in 2024, with crypto-aligned PACs now positioned as repeat players. Fairshake's $30 million pledge to Husted signals how the industry's 2026 spending infrastructure will deploy.

What hangs in the balance?

A change in majority control of either chamber would redraw the legislative path for the CLARITY Act and a stack of related digital-asset bills. Polling shows Democrats favored to reclaim both the House and Senate, a scenario that would seat a new Congress in January 2027 with the potential to revisit market structure from a different starting point.

Stand With Crypto's Husted endorsement cuts against that current. The group did not respond to a request for comment on its reasoning, but its post-CLARITY messaging and Fairshake's spending patterns point to an industry intent to defend incumbents who backed the market-structure framework.

The 34-day countdown to the November vote will determine whether the next Congress revives the CLARITY Act, redrafts it, or leaves digital-asset market structure in regulatory limbo through the end of the decade.