Crypto owners evenly split between Harris, Trump: Poll

Americans who own cryptocurrency support Vice President Harris and former President Trump in equal numbers, according to new Morning Consult polling conducted on behalf of crypto exchange Coinbase. 

The polling, released Monday as part of Coinbase’s Q3 State of Crypto report, found that 47 percent of crypto owners plan to vote for Harris in November’s election, while another 47 percent plan to cast their ballot for Trump. 

Both Harris and Trump have sought to court the crypto community, as the industry has argued that crypto owners represent a key voting bloc in a particularly tight election. 

Of the 52 million adults in the U.S. that own crypto, about 6.5 million live in seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to Coinbase’s report. 

“Crypto owners, even though they’re a broad cross section of the population, there are big pockets of them in groups that matter electorally,” Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, told The Hill. 

Some 95 percent of crypto owners polled by Morning Consult said they plan to vote in November, and 75 percent said they believe policymakers should ensure the country remains a leader on digital assets. 

Separate polling conducted by Impact Research on behalf of Coinbase earlier this year found that 67 percent of crypto owners across five swing states — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — were “enthusiastic” to vote for crypto-friendly candidates. 

“Within this very large cohort, there are subsets of that population who are motivated by crypto as a voting issue and also are from demographic or geographic areas that really matter in an electoral cycle that will turn on razor thin margins,” Shirzad said. 

Trump, who once dismissed crypto as a “scam,” has fully embraced the industry this cycle, vowing to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” if reelected in November and launching a crypto project alongside his sons earlier this month. 

Harris has taken a more cautious approach toward crypto than her opponent. In one of her strongest statements on the issue yet, the vice president said last week that she would “encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets, while protecting investors and consumers.” 

Her openness to crypto stands in contrast to President Biden, whose administration has had a tense relationship with the industry due in part to frustrations with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler’s approach to crypto enforcement. 

The latest polling data comes from two Morning Consult surveys. The first was conducted Aug. 23-29 with 1,577 U.S. crypto owners and 10,771 U.S. adults and had margins of error between 1 percentage point and 2 percentage points.  

The second survey was conducted Aug. 28-31 with 789 crypto owners and 2,407 U.S. adults and had margins of error between 2 percentage points and 5 percentage points.