The Midterm Races Wall Street Is Watching: Crypto Money in Ohio, a Fight in Kansas, and $2.5 Trillion in AI Plans Riding on Governors
Financial firms are tracking a handful of unusually competitive races, Reuters reports — a Senate comeback bid in Ohio that crypto groups have spent more than $50 million to stop, a surprisingly close Kansas Senate race, and governors' races that will steer data-center investment, including the buildout centered in Northern Virginia.
Wall Street is watching Tuesday's midterms for more than which party controls Congress. According to a Reuters survey of the races financial firms and investors are tracking most closely, a handful of unusually competitive contests could determine the fortunes of some of the industry's biggest political allies and adversaries, and shape policy on cryptocurrency, credit cards, financial regulation and the artificial-intelligence investment boom — most of it decided, one way or another, in Washington.
The marquee Senate test is in Ohio, where Democrat Sherrod Brown — a veteran Wall Street critic and crypto skeptic who served 18 years in the Senate before losing his seat in 2024 — is seeking a return against Republican Senator Jon Husted. Cryptocurrency groups have spent more than $50 million to defeat Brown, Reuters reported, making the race one of the most expensive tests of the industry's growing political clout; recent polls show Brown leading by as many as 5 points or tied, and prediction markets on Friday priced a Brown victory at 69.5 percent.
Kansas, rarely a battleground, has become one: Republican Senator Roger Marshall faces Democrat Adam Hamilton, a recent poll has Hamilton leading narrowly, and prediction markets priced a Marshall victory at 55 percent. A Democratic victory in one or both chambers, Reuters noted, would hand Democrats powerful tools to probe financial companies and their regulators — one reason the industry is following individual races, not just the national map.
The second front is in the states, and it runs straight through this region. Surging public opposition to data centers has become a flashpoint of the midterms, and because state and local authorities control data-center planning and permitting, Beacon Policy Advisors counts 10 governors' races that will determine the course of $2.5 trillion in planned investment, highlighting Texas, Georgia and Ohio as the most competitive; Morgan Stanley strategists flagged those states as well as Pennsylvania. For Northern Virginia — the world's largest data-center market, just across the Potomac from the capital — which way governors lean on the AI buildout is not an abstract question.
