Ohio's Crypto Cash Clash: Buckeye Battle Heats Up as PACs Place Their Bets

Ohio's 2026 Senate race is shaping up to be a crypto playground. Sentinel Action Fund, the "only conservative Super PAC advancing pro-crypto candidates," has thrown its weight behind Republican Jon Husted—appointed to fill JD Vance's seat in January 2025. Basically, they're treating the Buckeye State like a beta test for legislative capture, and so far the vibes are immaculate.

Husted faces a May 5 Republican primary, with former Senator Sherrod Brown lurking on the Democratic side. Brown, notably, "stood in the way of pro-innovation policies when it comes to digital assets," according to Sentinel Action Fund President Jessica Anderson. Translation: Brown apparently committed the unforgivable sin of reading crypto legislation before rubber-stamping it. In this economy? Basically a war crime.

The PAC has pledged over $8 million in the Buckeye State, despite FEC filings showing zero disbursements for Husted as of Tuesday. The group raised roughly $9 million from January 2025 through March 2026, with $750,000 from Solana Policy Institute and $250,000 from Multicoin Capital. That's a lot of promises and not a lot of receipts—classic PAC energy. The Solana gang came correct with three-quarters of a million, while Multicoin threw in a quarter million. Meanwhile, actual spending for Husted reads like a blank space on a test.

This mirrors 2024, when crypto-backed PACs dropped more than $40 million trying to unseat Brown with Republican Bernie Moreno. Brown lost that round but announced his comeback bid in August. Forty million dollars and a Senate seat later, Brown said