The United States will hold its midterm elections in one month, on Nov. 3, 2026. Midterms fall halfway through a president's four-year term, and this one will put every seat in the 435-member House of Representatives and roughly one-third of the Senate on the ballot. The results will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the House and the Senate, and that in turn will shape what next year looks like for the crypto industry and other sectors.

As of Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, polls suggested Democrats were positioned to flip the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Senate remained a tossup. The assessment appeared in State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter that examines the intersection of cryptocurrency and government.

Polling and Prediction Markets

One month out from election day, polling and recent headlines point to Democrats on the upswing. A consensus poll on the site 270toWin suggests Democrats will flip the House of Representatives, though it is difficult to tell where the Senate may land.

Prediction markets lean the same way. As of 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, bettors on prediction market provider Kalshi suggested Democrats would flip both the House and the Senate. The picture was the same on Polymarket, another major prediction market platform. These venues let traders take positions on real-world events, so their odds reflect the crowd's collective positioning rather than a guaranteed outcome, and both polling averages and market prices can still move as campaigns enter their final weeks.

Why the Outcome Matters

While much of the crypto industry is focused on what federal regulators will do in the wake of last month's collapse of the Clarity Act, Congress will still play important roles next year. Lawmakers are now looking more deeply at crypto tax legislation, and hearings are likelyn
The makeup of the next Congress will shape how regulators are overseen, whether any further crypto legislation advances in the near term, and what crypto companies will need to do to maintain relationships with the majority parties. Majority control also decides who chairs the committees that handle crypto matters and sets their hearing agendas.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Treasury Department and other agencies will be working on rulemaking efforts over the next year. Congress, however, has a significant role in overseeing those regulators. The Clarity Act was intended, in part, to define how these agencies could interact with crypto, and Congress will also need to approve the regulators' budgets next year.

Where Congress lands on legislation remains to be seen. Lawmakers may take up a new market structure bill, though its prospects are unclear. What is more certain is that Congress will work on tax legislation: the House Ways and Means Committee, the chamber's tax-writing panel whose approval is an early step toward a floor vote, passed a crypto tax bill last month on a strongly bipartisan basis, and Sen. Steve Daines introduced a crypto tax bill in the Senate last week, giving the effort parallel tracks in both chambers. The details of those bills would shape how digital asset transactions are reported and taxed, making committee calendars and any scheduled hearings worth tracking once the new Congress is seated.

This article is based on State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter.