Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the crypto industry’s heavier political spending in favor of Republicans has weakened the bipartisan coalition needed to enact durable U.S. market-structure legislation. Speaking alongside OKX CEO Star Xu at TOKEN2049 in Singapore on October 7, Cuomo argued that concentrating political support on one party risks alienating lawmakers whose votes remain necessary for federal crypto legislation. TOKEN2049’s official event schedule confirms Cuomo’s participation in the “Building Markets for the Intelligence Age” panel.
Cuomo linked that argument to the Senate’s failed attempt to advance the CLARITY Act, although the spending imbalance itself cannot be established as the cause of the vote. The official Senate record shows that cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 failed 49-50 on September 15. The procedural defeat prevented formal floor consideration rather than rejecting the legislation on final passage. Sen. Thom Tillis subsequently entered a motion to reconsider.
Crypto Political Spending Tilts Toward Republicans
Political-spending data cited alongside Cuomo’s remarks shows a substantial partisan imbalance during the 2026 election cycle. Crypto-focused groups tracked by Tech Influence Watch had spent approximately $54.3 million supporting Republican candidates and $26.2 million supporting Democrats, while another $23.2 million had been spent opposing Democrats. Those figures measure political spending in support or opposition to candidates, not direct campaign contributions from crypto companies.
“When you invest heavily in the Republican Party, by definition, you’re going to alienate Democrats,” Cuomo said, urging the industry to cultivate lawmakers from both parties. His argument is strategic rather than a demonstrated explanation for individual Senate votes. CLARITY negotiations had also been constrained by substantive disagreements over government ethics, stablecoin rewards, consumer protections and other provisions, even after Senate Republicans released a revised package incorporating more than 100 requested changes. That negotiation history preceded the CLARITY Act’s eventual procedural defeat.
The earlier congressional record also supports Cuomo’s narrower point that crypto legislation has previously attracted Democratic votes. In July 2025, 78 House Democrats joined 216 Republicans to pass the CLARITY Act 294-134, according to the House Clerk. A month earlier, 18 Democratic senators joined most Republicans to pass the GENIUS Act 68-30. Those votes demonstrate bipartisan participation without implying consensus across either party.
Fairshake Returns to a Bipartisan House Strategy
Crypto-backed Fairshake has already moved toward a visibly bipartisan House strategy ahead of the November midterms. The group announced support for 32 House candidates, including 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats, with six candidates receiving $1 million each. The latest allocation includes equal $1 million commitments to three Republicans and three Democrats, although Fairshake has simultaneously made much larger expenditures against particular Democratic candidates.
That shift is reflected in Fairshake’s latest 32-candidate spending slate, which concentrates support on lawmakers who backed the industry’s legislative priorities. The organization still had more than $100 million available at the end of August, giving crypto-funded political groups significant capacity to influence individual races through independent expenditures. Bipartisan recipient lists therefore coexist with a broader spending pattern that has favored Republicans during the cycle.
Cuomo’s larger concern is durability. Following the Senate setback, immediate crypto policy has shifted back toward SEC and CFTC action under existing statutes, a dynamic examined as the CLARITY defeat returned regulatory initiative to federal agencies. Agency rules and enforcement priorities can generally be altered more readily than legislation enacted by Congress, making statutory market structure more durable across changes in political leadership.
That does not mean political spending determined the fate of CLARITY or that Democrats uniformly oppose digital assets. The voting record shows support and opposition inside the broader legislative process, while unresolved policy differences contributed directly to the September impasse. Cuomo’s argument is ultimately that crypto’s political strategy should match its regulatory objective: if the industry wants legislation capable of surviving electoral changes, it needs a coalition broad enough to enact it in the first place.
