Photo: Matt Rourke/AP Photo
During the past two election cycles, the giants of cryptocurrency emerged as some of the biggest money players. Sam Bankman-Fried’s PAC spent $70 million on donations in 2022, and Fairshake, a super-PAC formed to support pro-crypto politicians, spent a whopping $245 million in 2024. In just a few years, their bipartisan donations helped reshape the Senate, with cash going to support swing-state Democrats like Ruben Gallego, who pledged to play ball with industry-friendly legislation, while stymieing the election of swing-state Democratic crypto skeptics like Sherrod Brown.
For the 2026 midterms, it looks like the artificial-intelligence companies are the new players with startling amounts of cash to spend. Bloomberg reports that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (of the eponymous AI-leaning venture-capital firm) and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman are among the leading donors to a super-PAC called Leading the Future, which looks to spend $125 million this cycle. Also in the mix is Public First, a PAC that received a $20 million pledge from Anthropic PBC, the OpenAI rival behind the AI assistant Claude.
Leading the Future is already spending on primary races to boost Democratic and Republican candidates who are friendly to the AI and tech sectors, with appropriately named cutout PACs for both parties. (Take a guess which party is getting funding from American Mission and which is benefiting from Think Big.) In Texas, Leading the Future is supporting pro-AI Republican Chris Gober in the congressional race for the Tenth District outside of Austin, while in New York, it has spent $1.1 million dinging the AI-skeptic state assemblyman Alex Bores, who is running in the crowded primary to replace Jerry Nadler. A spokesperson for Leading the Future told Bloomberg that the PAC is “committed to supporting policymakers who want a smart national regulatory framework for AI.” If the crypto model is any indication, that most likely means industry-friendly regulation written or co-sponsored by lawmakers from both parties who received bags of campaign cash from crypto donors.
Like the crypto-ad blitz of 2024, it may be hard to tell which ads are paid for by the AI PACs. For example, the Gober spots cite his record as a “MAGA warrior” but say nothing about the fact that one of his platforms is to ensure “America’s AI dominance.” The ads condemning Bores, who has proposed consumer-friendly AI regulation, mostly refer to his record working with the defense contractor Palantir. If only AI executives were voting, this might be a good association; Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel and is a close partner of the industry titan NVIDIA. But in New York’s progressive 12th District, where Bores is running, the contractor’s connections to Palantir (and by association, ICE) could weigh him down.
While PACs, by their very nature, try to conceal where the money is coming from, there might be another reason why Leading the Future is running ads that obscure a focus on AI: The industry’s obscene energy demand is increasing the cost of electricity in many regions throughout the country. Maybe a cost-of-living election isn’t the best time for a politician to admit that they’re running on AI donations.
