Midterms: the races Wall Street, crypto and AI investors are watching

Investors aren't only watching which party wins Congress on November 3. Reuters reports that a few unusually close races could decide policy on crypto, credit cards, financial regulation and the AI investment boom, and ten governors' races may matter most for AI.

For AI, the number to remember is $2.5 trillion. That's how much planned investment Beacon Policy Advisors says the ten contests will steer.

Governors hold the data centre permits

State and local authorities oversee data centre planning and permitting, so investors are paying unusual attention to state races. Reuters adds that public opposition to data centres has become a flashpoint in the campaign, and that a strong Democratic showing could slow a buildout that has lifted stocks.

Beacon singled out Texas, Georgia and Ohio as the most competitive: the candidates there disagree most on the issue and the project pipelines are biggest. Morgan Stanley strategists flagged those three plus Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Public sentiment is probably the biggest risk here. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only one in three Americans approve of the fast pace of data centre construction.

The Senate races with money attached

Four Senate races carry most of the financial-industry interest, going by the Reuters factbox. The prices below are from prediction markets on Friday, so treat them as a snapshot.

I think Ohio is the big one. If Democrats take the Senate and Brown gets seniority from his earlier 18 years, Reuters says he could again lead the Senate Banking Committee, or take a prominent Agriculture Committee role that touches crypto policy.

On the House side, Financial Services chair French Hill of Arkansas is in a tight race, and Illinois Democrat Sean Casten, a vocal critic of the Trump administration's crypto ties, is also on the crypto industry's radar.

Who pays, and who gains

Crypto is paying the most visibly. Reuters says crypto groups have spent more than $50 million against Brown alone. Across the country, Americans for Financial Reform (an advocacy group that backs tougher rules) counts eight crypto and AI PACs that spent over $100 million on more than 70 congressional races in 28 states between January 2025 and July 2026. It says Andreessen Horowitz and its co-founders have given $74 million to the major PACs.

CNBC's analysis found that seven of the 20 largest donors and donor groups it studied have major ties to crypto, AI or online gambling.

The gains depend on the outcome. A Republican hold would, in JPMorgan strategists' words, give AI and infrastructure the most supportive federal backdrop, through continuity, deregulation and faster permitting. Reuters adds that the risk of new AI rules and congressional probes would be low.

I think that's the part to take seriously. The spending looks like a bet on exactly that outcome, and it only pays off for crypto and AI firms if the candidates they backed actually win.

A Democratic win and AI stocks

Reuters says current forecasts point to Democrats winning the House, with the Senate less clear. If they win both chambers, investors expect tougher AI oversight, which could weigh on markets.

Raymond James analyst Ed Mills wrote that probes could speed up efforts to require safety standards for frontier AI models, independent evaluations and incident reporting, and make data centre developers more accountable. Reuters also notes the S&P 500 has gained about 27% since Trump returned to the White House, helped by AI capital spending.

History looks calmer than the headlines, as far as I can tell. Ned Davis Research found that in eight midterm cycles since 1930 where the president's party lost the House, the S&P 500 rose for the rest of the year five times, with a median gain of 1.4%. Its strategist Ed Clissold called a Democratic House takeover a modest drag on a year-end rally at most.

The calendar ahead

Results arrive after voting on November 3. Several of these races are close, so I'd expect some of them not to be called quickly, but that's a guess, not a forecast.

If you hold AI or data centre stocks, I'd watch the governor results in Texas, Georgia and Ohio before reading anything into Senate headlines. Honestly, I wouldn't trade on prediction-market odds alone: Nebraska is listed as a toss-up in polls even though the market favours Ricketts at 71.7%.

Source note: the original summary came from Modern Diplomacy, which repeats the Beacon figure. The underlying reporting is Reuters, and I couldn't find a second independent source for the $2.5 trillion estimate.