Political groups tied to the artificial intelligence industry spent millions of dollars trying to influence Tuesday’s midterm elections and shape the future of AI regulation in the United States. The early results, assessed by TechCrunch on 4 November, were mixed — and some of the most heavily backed candidates lost their races.
The outcome matters beyond one election night. The central fight in Washington is whether Congress will set a single national AI framework that overrides state laws, or whether states will keep the power to impose their own safeguards. The groups spending the money fall on both sides of that argument, and both sides claimed lessons from the results.
The industry-backed bets that lost
On the industry side, two AI-focused political action committees — American Mission and Building the Future — collectively spent $4.8 million backing Darline Graham, the Republican candidate for the US Senate in South Carolina. Graham lost.
American Mission is the Republican spending arm of Leading the Future, a broader political group backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. It also spent more than $500,000 each supporting Republican House candidates Aaron Flint in Montana and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina. Both lost.
Leading the Future’s Democratic spending arm, Think Big, had better luck. It backed Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz, who won re-election.
The pro-regulation side also had mixed results
Groups advocating stronger AI safeguards saw a split picture too. Public First, which is backed by Anthropic, supported several Republicans who lost through its affiliated PAC, but had more success backing Democratic candidates. It also contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting California state Senator Scott Wiener, who was leading his race at the time TechCrunch published its assessment.
Meanwhile, the Guardrails Alliance, a group that has sought to make taking money from AI companies a political liability for candidates, spent more than $1 million each opposing California Representative Jimmy Gomez and Montana candidate Aaron Flint. Both of those candidates lost. The group also spent $300,000 supporting Angela Gonzales-Torres, who defeated Gomez.
Why the general election was not the main focus
For Leading the Future, the general election was not where most of its money went. The group told TechCrunch ahead of Election Day that it sees primaries — the contests that choose each party’s nominee — as a more effective use of its money, because spending there can build name recognition and help candidates set out AI policy agendas early.
The numbers support that account of its strategy. Leading the Future spent $27.38 million in the primaries, including $8 million alone opposing New York Assembly member Alex Bores, who lost his bid for Congress back in June.
Charlie Blaettler, political director of the Guardrails Alliance, offered a different explanation for the comparatively modest general-election spending. He argued that the industry groups did not want their money to become the story in competitive races, pointing to voter distrust of AI companies and their political spending. In his account, spending heavily in a close race could turn into a liability for the candidate it was meant to help.
The wider money picture
It is difficult to separate the effect of AI-related spending from the broader Democratic wave that swept Tuesday’s elections. TechCrunch noted that Elon Musk, who reportedly poured half a billion dollars into supporting Republicans in the midterms, also saw many of his candidates lose. That figure is reported, not independently confirmed here, and the article does not treat it as a verified total.
A separate postmortem covering crypto and AI spending together reached a similar verdict on competitive races: of twelve competitive races called so far, the side backed by crypto and AI super PACs lost nine, with $74.7 million spent on the losing side compared with $28.3 million on the winning side. Those figures combine crypto and AI money, so they should not be read as an AI-only total.
What happens next
Neither side appears ready to step back. Leading the Future, which favours a single national AI framework, told TechCrunch it plans to keep spending in the 2028 elections. The Guardrails Alliance says it wants to keep opposing candidates backed by the AI industry, with the stated goal of making AI money politically toxic.
That sets up the same argument for the next cycle: a national rulebook versus state-by-state safeguards, fought out first in primaries and then, if the money returns in force, in the general election. The 2026 results suggest that money alone did not decide the competitive races — but they do not suggest the spending is going away.
What is confirmed — and what is not yet known
Confirmed: the spending figures and race outcomes above are as reported by TechCrunch on 4 November, with the wider crypto-plus-AI figures from the separate postmortem clearly labelled as combined totals. Still unknown: final results in any races that remained uncalled at publication, the full Federal Election Commission filings behind the totals, and whether the 2028 spending plans described to TechCrunch materialise as stated.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AI PAC? A political action committee that raises and spends money to support or oppose candidates, in this case around AI policy — either favouring a lighter, national framework or pushing for stronger safeguards.
Who is behind Leading the Future? It is a broader political group backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz, operating through arms including American Mission for Republicans and Think Big for Democrats.
Did AI money decide the midterms? On the evidence of the races assessed so far, no. Several heavily backed candidates lost, and the results unfolded during a broader Democratic wave, making it hard to isolate the effect of AI spending alone.
Sources
- TechCrunch, “AI PACs spent millions trying to shape Congress — here’s how they fared”, 4 November 2026: https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/04/ai-pacs-spent-millions-trying-to-shape-congress-heres-how-they-fared/
- Citation Needed / Tech Influence Watch, “Crypto and AI’s $250 million election goes sideways”, 2026 election results postmortem: https://www.citationneeded.news/2026-election-results/
