AI Industry Pours Record Money Into 2026 Midterms, Aiming to Write Its Own Rules

By Jose E. Navarro | The Navarro Report | National Affairs | July 9, 2026

Artificial intelligence companies and their financial backers have committed more than $200 million to super PACs ahead of the 2026 midterms, betting that campaign spending can accomplish in the ballot box what months of lobbying failed to achieve in Congress: a single, industry-friendly national framework for AI regulation that preempts a growing patchwork of state rules. As of the end of June, the two largest AI-aligned super PACs had already placed at least $44 million behind 40 House and Senate candidates, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, with far more expected to flow before November.

The spending splits along two competing tracks. Leading the Future, backed by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, has emerged as an industry-wide umbrella in the mold of the crypto sector’s Fairshake network, which spent roughly $133 million reshaping Congress’s approach to digital assets in 2024. On the other side, Public First Action — funded in part by a restricted $20 million contribution from Anthropic earmarked for public education rather than direct political spending — has backed a competing slate of candidates. Of the 28 candidates Leading the Future has supported, 25 have already won their primaries; Public First Action has gone undefeated in the 11 races it has entered.

The clearest test case so far played out in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District, the Manhattan seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. After Assemblymember Alex Bores entered the race as a sponsor of New York’s RAISE Act, an AI safety law the industry opposed, groups tied to Leading the Future spent roughly $8 million attacking his candidacy while Public First Action countered with about $11 million in support. Independent researcher Molly White, who tracks the sector, said the fight over one comparatively junior House seat was less about that seat’s legislative weight than about sending a message to other lawmakers weighing whether to back stricter AI rules.

Watchdog groups describe the spending as part of a broader pattern rather than an isolated skirmish. A Public Citizen analysis found that cryptocurrency, AI, Big Tech, and online betting corporations have collectively put $294 million behind federal elections so far in the 2026 cycle — 57 percent of all disclosed corporate election spending this cycle, and a record pace compared with the $461 million corporations spent across the entire 2024 cycle. The Brennan Center’s Daniel Weiner said the current campaign finance landscape, which places few real limits on this kind of spending, has created a clear opening for industries with a defined legislative agenda to shape who sits at the table when new rules are written.

The stakes in Congress are concrete. The Senate has already stripped a federal preemption provision from one AI-related bill, leaving states free to keep advancing their own rules — more than a thousand AI-related bills were introduced across statehouses in 2025 alone. Industry groups argue that a single federal standard would spare companies from navigating fifty different regulatory regimes; critics counter that the same push would gut state-level consumer and safety protections before federal alternatives are in place. Notably, the industry is not unified: Anthropic has publicly argued that governments should retain the ability to restrict genuinely dangerous AI systems, a position that puts some of its own affiliated spending at odds with the deregulatory thrust of rival PACs.

For voters, the practical effect is that a technology most Americans still associate with chatbots and search results is now among the largest forces in congressional campaign finance, operating through PAC structures that in many races disclose spending totals but not always the individual donors behind them. Whether the money translates into durable legislative wins — as it arguably did for the crypto industry in 2024 — or instead triggers a backlash serious enough to invite the very regulation the industry is spending to avoid, is likely to become clearer only after votes are counted in November.

— Jose E. Navarro, The Navarro Report / Human-Directed AI Journalism: Research, analysis, and editorial direction by the author. Drafted in partnership with Claude AI (Anthropic).