American voters placed cryptocurrencies at the bottom of a list of their top priorities for the upcoming midterm elections.
Only 1% of respondents said they ranked cryptocurrencies as their top concern, according to a survey of 1,000 randomly selected registered American 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 extent), with a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.53%.
Cryptocurrencies won’t be on the ballot this year, but the industry still has a vested interest in who wins. The Market Structure Bill, one of the most important laws, is considered the top priority for cryptocurrencies. Although the bill known as the Clarity Act is still on track to become law before the end of the year, it has taken much longer than expected and still needs to overcome a number of hurdles. Other bills, including the long-awaited tax reform, 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 to supporting friendly candidates, after being the largest donor industry in the 2024 election.
This article is part of a CoinDesk series on voter opinions for the 2026 midterm elections.
At press time, the most likely outcome of the 2026 election is that Democrats become the majority party in the House of Representatives, while the Senate is more likely to remain dominated by Republicans. A generic question in the POS survey for CoinDesk asking whether voters would choose the Republican or Democratic candidate gave the Democrats a slight lead (44% to 41%); This +3 margin is roughly in line with other polls, according to a tracker presented by The New York Times.
Prediction market provider Kalshi has the Senate evenly divided. But Democrats have a much tougher path to winning a majority there, Cook Political Report said in April.
This poll also showed US President Donald Trump with a net negative approval rating: 40% of respondents said they somewhat or strongly approved of his performance, while 60% disapproved.
And, unsurprisingly, respondents said the cost of living (36%), jobs and the economy (13%), and Social Security and Medicare (11%) were their most important issues. Other topics, such as immigration and border security, health care, national security, government spending and more, garnered single-digit percentage responses. Cryptocurrencies came in last, largely among voters who lean toward the Republican Party. Artificial intelligence scored slightly higher, with 2% of respondents rating it as their most important issue.
Opinions on crypto
Cryptocurrencies themselves do not enjoy a favorable image among those surveyed. While participants leaning toward the Republican Party had a slightly more favorable view of cryptocurrencies than an unfavorable one (41% to 39%), the Republican base (33% to 39%), independents (27% to 48%), Democratic-leaning voters (26% to 54%), and rank-and-file Democrats (25% to 58%) had a more 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 do so. Of those who had invested, 2% currently have more than $10,000 in digital assets, 9% said they owned between $1,001 and $10,000, and 12% said they held $1,000 or less in cryptocurrency.
In terms of the November election, 49% of participants who said they were “much more interested” in this year’s election than in 2022 said they owned $1,000 or more in cryptocurrency.
According to the data, 47% of respondents said Republicans were more supportive of cryptocurrencies, compared to just 14% who said the same of Democrats. However, these figures do not necessarily indicate whether respondents saw it as a good thing. Interestingly, Democrats maintained a slight lead in voter trust in cryptocurrencies: 27% of respondents said 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 cryptocurrencies, although the survey did not ask whether this was related to positive or negative opinions on cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies also had lower favorability (30%) than Republicans (39%) or Democrats (43%). Meanwhile, DeFi, also known as blockchain finance, had 17% of respondents saying they had a favorable opinion, although only 60% of respondents overall said they had heard of it.
Artificial intelligence had more optimistic figures: 46% of respondents had a favorable opinion, while 45% had an unfavorable opinion.
Despite all that, and in some contradiction to not marking cryptocurrencies as their top issue, when asked directly how important cryptocurrencies were to the 2026 election, 3% of respondents said it was the “most important” issue, and another 22% said it was an important issue. That represents a much greater awareness of digital assets than voters had several years ago.
CoinDesk will publish data from this survey on Tuesday at Consensus Miami.
