Two rival networks of super PACs, each backed by a major AI company, are spending tens of millions of dollars to shape the 2026 midterm elections. Leading the Future, funded in part by OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, had $39 million on hand at the end of 2025 and plans to spend over $100 million boosting candidates who favor a light federal framework for artificial intelligence. Public First, backed by $20 million from Anthropic, has pledged $50 million to support candidates from both parties who favor stricter AI oversight.
The money is already flowing into the year’s earliest primaries. In Texas and North Carolina, 20 candidates received AI-affiliated funds; only one lost. Both networks operate bipartisan structures: Leading the Future runs Think Big for Democrats and American Mission for Republicans, while Public First runs Jobs and Democracy PAC and Defending Our Values along the same split. Meta has separately launched its own super PAC focused on state-level AI regulation.
Neither side’s ads mention artificial intelligence.
The strategy mirrors the crypto industry’s 2024 playbook, when the super PAC Fairshake spent over $130 million to help elect more than 50 candidates without centering its ads on cryptocurrency. Leading the Future is co-led by Josh Vlasto, a former Fairshake adviser and press secretary for Senator Chuck Schumer, and Zac Moffat, a former adviser to Mitt Romney. The ads instead lean on immigration, health care, and partisan wedge issues calibrated to each district.
The most prominent early target is Alex Bores, a New York state legislator and former Palantir data scientist running to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. Bores co-sponsored the RAISE Act, one of the first state-level AI safety laws, which Governor Kathy Hochul signed in December despite Leading the Future’s opposition. Think Big, a Leading the Future affiliate, has spent more than $1.5 million attacking him over his former employer’s work with ICE, even though Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale is a Leading the Future backer. Jobs and Democracy PAC, a Public First affiliate, is spending in his defense.
In North Carolina, Public First has spent more than $1.6 million supporting Rep. Valerie Foushee, a member of the Bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, in a primary where a proposed data center has become a local flashpoint. The pro-Foushee ads frame her as a progressive fighter on immigration and accountability — not AI policy.
Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman who leads Public First, said the concerns driving voters are inseparable from AI. “They’re worried about cost of living, about corruption, about whether the economy is working for regular people or just for tech billionaires,” Carson said. Leading the Future spokesperson Jesse Hunt said the group will support candidates who establish “a clear, consistent national framework” and oppose those who would “open the door for China to dominate artificial intelligence.”
