American voters placed cryptocurrencies at the bottom of a list of their highest priorities for the upcoming midterm elections.
Only 1% of respondents said they ranked crypto as their top concern, according to a survey of 1,000 randomly selected registered US voters, although other responses revealed a broader view of the technology as an important political issue.
The survey was conducted in late April by Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of CoinDesk as part of CoinDesk’s coverage of the 2026 US midterm elections. The survey was evenly split between Republican and Democratic respondents (41% of respondents identified with each party to some degree), with a confidence interval of plus or minus 3.53%.
Crypto won’t be on the ballot this year, but the industry still has an interest in who wins. The Market Structure Bill, one of the most important pieces of legislation, is seen as the top priority for crypto. Although the bill known as the Clarity Act still has a path to becoming law before the end of the year, it has taken far longer than expected and still needs to clear a number of hurdles. Other bills, including expected tax reform legislation, are likely to end up before Congress in the coming months. Ahead of the election, the crypto industry has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars meant to support friendly candidates, having been the single largest donor industry in the 2024 election.
This article is part of a CoinDesk series on voter views of the 2026 midterm elections.
As of press time, the most likely outcome of the 2026 election is for Democrats to become the majority party in the House of Representatives, while the Senate is more likely to remain dominated by Republicans. A generic question in POS’s poll for CoinDesk about whether voters would choose the Republican or Democratic candidate gave a slight edge to Democrats (44% to 41%); that +3 margin is roughly in line with a number of other polls, according to a tracker hosted by The New York Times.
Prediction market provider Kalshi has the Senate on an even split. But Democrats have a much more difficult path to a majority there, the Cook Political Report said in April.
This poll also showed US President Donald Trump with a net negative approval rating, with 40% of respondents saying they somewhat or strongly approved of his performance, while 60% disapproved.
And not surprisingly, respondents said the cost of living (36%), jobs and the economy (13%), and Social Security and Medicare (11%) were their top single issues. Other issues, such as immigration and border security, health care, national security, government spending and more, all saw single-digit percentage responses. Crypto ranked at the bottom, mainly among voters who lean toward the Republican Party. Artificial intelligence came in only slightly higher, with 2% of respondents calling it their single most important issue.
Views on crypto
Crypto itself does not have a positive image among survey respondents. While GOP-leaning respondents had a slightly more favorable than unfavorable view of cryptocurrency (41% to 39%), base GOP (33% to 39%), independents (27% to 48%), Democratic voters (26% to 54%) and base Democrats (25% to 58%) all had an unfavorable view.
Just over a quarter of participants (27%) said they had invested, traded or used a cryptocurrency, while another 27% said they had not, but might one day. Of those who had invested, 2% currently have over $10,000 in digital assets, 9% said they owned between $1,001 and $10,000, and 12% said they had $1,000 or less in crypto.
Regarding the November election, 49% of participants who said they were “much more interested” in this year’s election than in the 2022 election said they owned $1,000 or more in crypto.
According to the data, 47% of respondents said Republicans were more supportive of cryptocurrencies, compared to just 14% who said the same about Democrats. However, these numbers do not necessarily indicate whether respondents saw it as a good thing. Interestingly, Democrats maintained a slight edge in voter confidence in crypto, with 27% of respondents saying they trusted the party, compared to 25% who said they trusted Republicans more. A larger proportion of respondents – 40% – said they did not trust either party.
About 40% of respondents also said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who shared their views on crypto, although the survey did not ask if this was linked to positive or negative views on crypto.
Crypto also had lower favorability (30%) than Republicans (39%) or Democrats (43%). Meanwhile, DeFi – also known as finance on the blockchain – had 17% of respondents saying they had a positive attitude, although only 60% of respondents overall said they had heard of it themselves.
Artificial intelligence had more favorable numbers – 46% of respondents had a positive view, while 45% had an unfavorable view.
Despite all that — and in somewhat of a contradiction to not flagging crypto as their top issue — when asked directly how important crypto was to the 2026 election, 3% of respondents said it was the “most important” issue, and another 22% said it was an important issue. It represents a much higher awareness of digital assets than voters had several years ago.
CoinDesk will release data from this survey on Tuesday at Consensus Miami.
