Sherrod Brown is returning to the U.S. Congress after receiving more votes than Republican Jon Husted in the Ohio Senate race, according to election results released late Tuesday. Husted’s defeat was a rare setback for the crypto industry, which otherwise secured several victories after making major political expenditures during the midterm cycle.

The Ohio contest had been a top priority for crypto-backed groups, which committed tens of millions of dollars to prevent Brown’s return to Capitol Hill. Brown has long criticized the industry and could soon lead a committee with jurisdiction over digital assets and prediction markets.

Crypto-backed groups spent at least $52.6 million opposing Brown

As Cryptopolitan reported in October, Brown faced a $52.6 million campaign war chest assembled by crypto-backed committees. A Federal Election Commission filing showed that Defend American Jobs, an affiliate of Fairshake, the crypto industry’s main super PAC, accounted for more than $46 million of that amount.

The final spending total aimed at keeping Brown out of the Senate exceeded the $30 million minimum that Fairshake said in September it was prepared to commit to the Ohio race.

Brown had also been a major target of the crypto lobby in 2024, when his defeat by Bernie Moreno was supported by approximately $40 million in spending for his opponent. During his tenure as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Brown attracted industry criticism after describing crypto as a tool for money laundering and sanctions evasion and pursuing measures targeting those uses. This year, the same playbook produced a different result.

Crypto-backed groups also supported Democratic victories

Although Husted lost in Ohio, crypto-backed political groups supported successful candidates from both parties, including several who appeared to face difficult races.

Democrats Chris Pappas and James Talarico, who received support from Stand With Crypto, the Coinbase-backed advocacy group, won in New Hampshire and Texas, respectively. Talarico, a supporter of Texas’s strategic Bitcoin reserve, defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton, who ran as a Republican.

Two other Democratic senators involved in discussions over crypto legislation, Cory Booker and Mark Warner, also won their races. Their continued presence keeps experienced voices in the room as digital-asset legislation moves to a Democratic-led Senate.

Data-center debate hurt Husted

Affordability was a major concern for voters during the cycle, and Brown’s campaign focused heavily on the effect of data centers on electricity costs. His campaign ran advertisements portraying Husted as responsible for rising power bills linked to data centers that he had helped bring to Ohio, as Cryptopolitan previously reported. States have spent years courting data-center projects for the investment and jobs they bring, and the debate has increasingly turned on who pays for the power they consume.

The strategy appeared to resonate in Tuesday’s results. CBS News exit polls found that Brown drew strong support from younger voters, independents, Ohio residents concerned about the economy and voters who opposed establishing additional data centers in their communities. The CBS News exit poll report documented those findings.

CNN reported, citing an August memo circulated by the Republicans’ campaign arm, that party strategists had identified data centers as “the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.” Senate Democrats had also opposed Husted’s Ratepayer Protection Act in September. The legislation was intended to prevent data-center energy costs from being passed on to ordinary Americans. CNN’s report described the issue’s role in the race.

Brown could oversee digital assets and prediction markets

Brown’s return affects more than the Senate’s seat count. Democrats took control of the chamber after flipping races in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa, reaching 51 seats. The majority gives Democrats control of committees overseeing the crypto industry, along with the power to set hearing schedules and decide which bills reach the floor.

Brown could chair the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over digital assets and prediction markets through its oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator of futures and derivatives markets. In that role, he would be unlikely to advance a crypto bill, while Senate Banking Democrats spent the fall seeking public scrutiny of rapidly expanding prediction-market platforms such as Kalshi, where users trade contracts tied to the outcomes of real-world events. Cryptopolitan reported on those Senate discussions.

The election result also creates uncertainty for the CLARITY Act, an industry-backed effort to establish rules for digital assets that cleared the House in July 2025 before stalling in the Senate. The bill failed a Senate procedural vote by 49 to 50 in September. If it does not pass by January, the next Congress will have to begin the legislative process again.

Brown’s formal committee assignments will be settled as Democrats organize their new majority in January. Until then, the outlook for market-structure legislation and prediction-market oversight rests with a chamber that crypto-backed groups spent tens of millions of dollars attempting to shape.