Political groups on both sides of the AI debate spent millions attempting to influence Tuesday’s midterm elections and shape future AI regulation. That spending produced uneven returns: some heavily backed candidates lost, while others won.
Industry-aligned PACs and their outcomes
Two AI-focused political action committees (PACs) — American Mission and Building the Future — together spent $4.8 million to support South Carolina Senate candidate Darlene Graham; Graham lost. American Mission is the Republican spending arm of Leading the Future (LTF), a broader political group backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.
American Mission also spent more than $500,000 each to support Republican House candidates Aaron Flint in Montana and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina; both lost. LTF’s Democratic spending arm, Think Big, had better outcomes backing Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz, who won reelection.
Results for regulation-oriented groups
Groups pushing for stronger AI safeguards saw mixed results as well. Public First, which is backed by Anthropic, supported several Republican candidates through an affiliated PAC who ultimately lost, while enjoying more success with Democratic candidates. Public First also contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting California state Senator Scott Wiener, who was leading his race at the time of publication.
Guardrails Alliance, a group trying to make money from AI companies a political liability, spent more than $1 million apiece opposing two candidates who lost: California Representative Jimmy Gomez and Montana’s Aaron Flint. Guardrails Alliance also spent $300,000 supporting Angela Gonzales-Torres, who defeated Gomez.
The broader political context
It is difficult to disentangle the effect of AI-related spending from the wider Democratic wave that characterized Tuesday’s elections. Elon Musk reportedly spent about half a billion dollars supporting Republicans in the midterms, and many of his candidates lost. LTF also backed some competitors it expected to win but who nonetheless lost to Democrats.
LTF’s emphasis on primaries
For Leading the Future, the general election was not the primary focus. The group told TechCrunch ahead of Election Day that it believes primaries—races that determine each party’s nominee—are a more effective use of funds because spending there can build name recognition and help set AI policy agendas.
LTF spent $27.38 million in the primaries, including $8 million opposing New York Assembly member Alex Bores; Bores lost his congressional bid in June. When deciding whether to invest in a general election race, LTF evaluates how competitive the race is, whether spending could change the outcome, and whether to conserve resources for future contests.
Charlie Blaettler, political director of Guardrails Alliance, offered a different explanation for LTF’s lighter general-election spending. He said LTF does not want its money to become the story in competitive races, citing the Michigan Senate primary in which AIPAC spent close to $30 million backing Haley Stevens against Abdul El-Sayed; Stevens conceded the primary and El-Sayed won the Senate seat.
"AIPAC became the story in that race," Blaettler said. "We know people hate AI billionaires. They hate the people running these companies. They’re very distrustful and disgusted by the political spending and lobbying that the tech industry does. If they spend in a competitive race, they would just become an enormous liability for their candidates."
The central policy fight: national framework vs. state rules
The principal dispute among PACs—whether industry-aligned or regulation-focused—is whether Congress should establish a national AI framework that would override state laws, or whether states should retain the authority to impose their own safeguards.
Neither camp appears ready to back down. LTF, which supports a single national AI framework, told TechCrunch it plans to continue spending into the 2028 elections, while Guardrails Alliance says it will keep opposing candidates backed by the AI industry.
Blaettler noted that LTF’s ads rarely mention AI directly and instead focus on popular issues for each candidate, whereas Guardrails Alliance’s ads explicitly highlight who is taking money from the AI industry.
"Our goal is to make AI money politically toxic," Blaettler said.
Why this matters
The contest over AI-related political spending and regulation will influence whether the United States adopts a unified federal approach to AI oversight or leaves the patchwork of state-level rules intact. Millions spent in these elections and plans for continued investment ahead of 2028 could shape that outcome in the years to come.
