- Crypto and swing states are a growing buzzword in DC circles.
- Swing states for the 2024 November Presidential elections have small win margins (sometimes thousands of votes), and are vital to the outcome of the November 2024 election.
- Given the increasing popularity and mainstreaming of crypto – its on the Republican Party Platform – sentiment around the technology has the potential to decide who makes it to the White House.
- This suggests that the crypto sector and its supporters offer an opportunity to those running for election, pointing to the need for both parties to spend time and effort understanding the critical role this emerging technology plays.
Why Trump is courting crypto and what does this mean for the Democrats?
Presidential candidate Donald Trump, scored another first in July when he spoke at bitcoin’s annual conference in Nashville, delivering a pro-crypto speech designed to appeal to crypto owners and voters.
Some in the mainstream media might dismiss this as electioneering on the peripheries, but a March poll revealed that Trump’s decision to throw his support behind crypto is securing him votes. A total of 13% of Republicans who were not planning to vote for Trump said that his support for crypto made it more likely they’d vote for him. At the same time, 38% of non-white Republican supporters described Trump’s support for crypto as making them more excited to vote for him.
But crypto voters are such a small minority that it will make no difference, right? Wrong. Of the more than 161 million Americans registered to vote, over 11 million own more than $1,000 in crypto. The same March poll suggested that of these, 48% are planning to vote for Trump (up 9% on 2020), 39% (down 4% on 2020) were planning to vote for Joe Biden (polls have yet to update with values for Kamala Harris), and 13% remain undecided.
These numbers become even more important if we look at the razor-thin margins in the swing states. Overall, the situation underscores how important this issue has become to the political mainstream.
Will crypto swing states?
Swing states are characterized by two things – having small vote margins and voting for different parties, rather than remaining Democrat or Republican. Underscoring this, 30 states have voted for the candidate of the opposite party from the previous election at least once since 1992. Notably, in 26 of these states, the winning party won by less than 3 percentage points.
The swing states for the 2024 election include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In addition, Nevada and North Carolina also recorded narrow wins (of less than 3 percentage points) in the 2020 presidential election.
But how does this translate into numbers? Biden defeated Trump by just 0.2 percentage points in Georgia in 2020, which equates to 12,000 votes. In Arizona, the number of votes was lower – just 10,000. Biden took Wisconsin by 0.6 percentage points, or approximately 20,000 votes.
Currently, Harris leads Trump in four swing states – Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, by just 2 percentage points, and 11 percentage points in Michigan. Trump, meanwhile, is polling ahead in North Carolina (2 percentage points) and Pennsylvania by 4 percentage points. The pair tied in Georgia, underscoring the adage that every vote counts.
These narrow margins suggest that every vote counts, and a candidate’s position on the role tech and innovation plays in the US’s future can matter. Crypto swing states could emerge given the close nature of many of the races.
The return of split voting – Congressional and Presidential votes
Adding a further layer of complexity, there are signs of ticket-splitting between the presidential ballot and Congress. Ticket-splitting means that a voter might vote for one party candidate for Senate and the other party for President. This suggests that Congressmen and Congresswomen look set to win because of their track record in office or simply because of their ability to distinguish their own brands and messaging from that of their national party.
A poll released in January broke this down among crypto owners. A total of 78% (85% of whom identify as Democrats and 74% as Republicans) think it’s at least “somewhat important” that the president and Congress deal with the issue of cryptocurrency.
Breaking down voting intentions, 51% of the crypto community suggest they would vote for Trump, against 41% for Biden, while in the Congressional vote, this shifts to 42% for the Republican party and 46% for the Democrats.
What do crypto voters want?
US crypto owners are a diverse group so there is no ‘one size fits all’. For some crypto offers greater financial inclusion, for others it’s the future of finance and money, or a litmus test for a candidates position on all innovation. The March poll referenced above revealed that 19% of registered US voters say they’ve bought crypto. During 2024, 33% of African-Americans and 32% of Hispanic voters say they own, have traded or used crypto. Crypto ownership is highest among college graduates, 26% of whom own crypto assets.
January’s poll suggested that, in general, crypto voters want politicians to set clear rules for cryptocurrency, providing investors with choices and allowing the sector to continue to grow and create jobs. Unsurprisingly, they also seek politicians who take a genuine interest in the sector and have a good understanding of what they’re talking about. A poll released in May suggests that 30% of voters would be more likely to support a candidate who was friendly to the crypto sector.
Many crypto supporters and users are frustrated with the hard-line attitude that Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, has taken, and it’s notable that one of the two facets of Trump’s address to the bitcoin event that secured the most interest and support were his pledge to fire Gensler; the other being his announcement that he’d use the crypto assets that the federal government has confiscated to create a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile”.
That said, May’s poll suggests that crypto voters see value in regulation. Between 20%-25% of voters and 33% of crypto-positive voters state that they want officials to focus on regulation and protection for investors.
Outlook – make crypto votes a bi-partisan issue
Evidence from March’s poll suggests that 49% of voters trust neither party when it comes to crypto. At a wider party level, 40% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans don’t trust either party, and when it comes to supporters of Trump and formerly Biden, 45% reiterated this sentiment.
This lack of trust suggests that the parties stand to gain a great deal if they focus time and effort on developing comprehensive crypto policy proposals. Interestingly, Trump’s bitcoin speech prompted a recent high for the cryptocurrency, which was valued at almost $70,000 on July 29. Furthermore, the Trump campaign’s decision to announce its full support for the crypto industry has reaped dividends. Trump has said that his campaign has so far received more than $25 million in crypto donations.
In an ideal world, crypto should be a bi-partisan issue, with all politicians of all hues providing clear, transparent policy that supports the wider development of the sector and offers protection to its users. In a less than ideal world, this absence of clarity and support for the crypto community may prove decisive in voting in the US’s swing states where every vote counts.
