Political groups on both sides of the AI debate spent millions of dollars trying to influence Tuesday’s midterm elections and shape future AI regulation. The spending produced mixed results, and some of the most heavily backed candidates lost their races.
AI-focused political action committees, or PACs, poured money into candidates, while groups backing stronger AI safeguards also spent heavily. The contests also exposed a larger argument over whether Congress should create a national AI framework that overrides state laws or leave states with their own authority to impose safeguards.
How the industry-aligned PACs fared
American Mission and Building the Future, two AI-focused PACs that raised and spent money to influence the elections, collectively spent $4.8 million backing South Carolina Senate candidate Darline Graham, who lost. American Mission is the Republican spending arm of Leading the Future, a broader political group backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz.
American Mission also spent more than $500,000 each on Republican House candidates Aaron Flint in Montana and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina. Both of those candidates lost. LTF’s Democratic spending arm, Think Big, had better luck with Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who won reelection.
Among the industry-backed groups, the results were mixed beyond those races too. LTF also backed some candidates it believed were likely to win, but they lost to Democrats. The group said it thinks primaries are a more effective use of its money because spending there can build name recognition and help candidates set up AI policy agendas.
What the regulation side spent
Groups advocating for stronger AI safeguards also saw uneven results. Public First, which is backed by Anthropic, supported several Republicans who lost through its affiliated PAC, but it had more success backing Democratic candidates. It also contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who was leading his race at the time of publication.
Guardrails Alliance, a group that has sought to make taking money from AI companies a political liability, spent more than $1 million each opposing California Rep. Jimmy Gomez and Montana’s Aaron Flint. Both lost. The group also spent $300,000 supporting Angela Gonzales-Torres, who defeated Gomez.
Why the general election mattered less to LTF
LTF spent $27.38 million in the primaries, including $8 million on opposing New York Assembly member Alex Bores, who lost his bid for Congress in June. Before Election Day, the group said it viewed primaries as a better place to spend because they can help shape candidate name recognition and policy agendas.
When deciding whether to enter a general election race, LTF said it weighs how competitive the race is, whether spending could make a difference, and whether it should save money for future elections. Charlie Blaettler, political director of Guardrails Alliance, offered a different explanation for why LTF spent relatively little in the general election.
He said LTF does not want its money to become an issue in the races. He pointed to the Michigan Senate primary election, where a pro-Israel lobbying group called AIPAC spent close to $30 million backing Democratic candidate Haley Stevens against Abdul El-Sayed. Stevens conceded the primary to El-Sayed, who later won the Senate seat.
Blaettler said AIPAC became the story in that race. He added that people distrust AI billionaires, the people running those companies, and the political spending and lobbying that the tech industry does. In his view, spending in a competitive race would make AI backers an enormous liability for their candidates.
A wider political test for AI money
It is hard to separate the effect of AI-related spending from the broader Democratic wave that swept Tuesday’s elections. Elon Musk reportedly poured half a billion dollars into supporting Republicans in the midterms, and many of his candidates also lost. LTF’s spending strategy therefore ran into a political environment that was already unfavorable to several Republican-backed candidates.
Neither side appears ready to stop spending. LTF told TechCrunch it plans to keep spending in the 2028 elections, and Guardrails Alliance said it wants to keep opposing candidates backed by the AI industry. Blaettler said LTF’s ads rarely mention AI and instead focus on popular issues for each candidate, while Guardrails Alliance’s ads focus on who is taking money from the AI industry. “Our goal is to make AI money politically toxic,” he said.
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