Crypto Holders Disproportionately Favor Trump for U.S. President, New Academic Poll Shows
Donald Trump’s outreach to the crypto community seems to be paying off.
Updated Aug 30, 2024, 4:47 p.m. Published Aug 30, 2024, 4:45 p.m.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to court the cryptocurrency industry this election cycle seem to be paying off, according to the results of a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
The poll results, released Friday, found that crypto holders are disproportionately likely to say they will vote for Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Half of all crypto-holding survey respondents said they planned to vote for Trump, while only 38% of crypto owners preferred Harris.
Among non-crypto owners, the statistics were flipped, with Harris leading by 12 points: 53% of voters who’ve never owned crypto said they would vote for Harris, and 41% planned to vote for Trump.
“Trump has been reaching out to the crypto community, and it seems to have paid off,” said Dan Cassino, professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson and executive director of the poll, in a Friday press release. “It might be easy to dismiss them as insignificant, but I don’t think people realize exactly how widespread crypto ownership is.”
In Fairleigh Dickinson’s poll, which captured responses from over 800 registered voters nationally earlier this month, 15% of respondents said they owned or had owned cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The percentage of respondents who say they own crypto is roughly comparable to findings of other recent surveys.
Read more: Most People Cringe About Crypto But Enough Care to Warrant Politicians’ Attention
The poll found that crypto owners tend to disproportionately be young men and members of racial minority groups, with 13% of White voters saying they’ve owned crypto compared to 17% of Black voters and 22% of Hispanic voters.
“Historically, Republicans have had a hard time reaching young people and people of color,” said Cassino. “Support for cryptocurrencies is very much a wedge issue that could win over voters that otherwise look more like Democrats.”
The crypto industry has spent lavishly on political contributions this election cycle, with one study finding that nearly half of all corporate contributions to political action committees (PACs) this year had come from crypto companies like Coinbase – the top corporate spender in the 2024 cycle – and Ripple.
Cheyenne Ligon
On the news team at CoinDesk, Cheyenne focuses on crypto regulation and crime. Cheyenne is originally from Houston, Texas. She studied political science at Tulane University in Louisiana. In December 2021, she graduated from CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she focused on business and economics reporting. She has no significant crypto holdings.
