The two largest AI political action committees have spent at least $44 million on 2026 midterm candidates through the end of June, drawing from a combined war chest of more than $200 million as the industry positions itself to shape the first national AI legislation.
The two largest artificial intelligence political action committees have collectively spent at least $44 million backing 40 House and Senate candidates through the end of June, signaling a concerted push by the AI industry to influence the first national legislation governing the technology.
The figure represents early spending from a much larger war chest. The two groups — Leading the Future and Public First Action — have raised more than $200 million combined, according to fundraising totals provided by the organizations, and plan to deploy those funds through the remainder of primary season and into the November general election.
Leading the Future raised $125 million through the end of 2025, drawing from donors including private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, SV Angel founder Ron Conway, and AI software company Perplexity. The group has spent more than $24 million on primary races through the end of June, according to Federal Election Commission data.
Public First Action, which launched last year, has spent $20 million so far and announced last month it had raised $80 million through the end of June. Anthropic contributed $20 million to the group, though that amount is restricted to public education on AI policy and cannot be used for political purposes, according to a spokesman for the PAC. Public First Action does not publicly disclose its other donors; Anthropic disclosed its own contribution. The group's director, Brad Carson, said it has also received donations from employees of OpenAI, Google, DeepMind, and X.
The candidate win rates for both groups have been high. Of the 28 candidates Leading the Future backed, 25 won their primaries, two have not yet faced their elections, and one — Jesse Jackson Jr. — lost. Public First Action has backed candidates in 11 races and, with one exception, all of its supported candidates have won their primaries. Carson said his group plans to spend in 50 to 60 races by the end of the midterms.
The strategy mirrors a playbook employed by the crypto industry in the 2024 elections, when the Fairshake PAC spent roughly $200 million backing candidates on both sides of the aisle. That effort contributed to a major stablecoin bill becoming law and significant legislative progress on a digital assets framework.
Despite frequently opposing each other in individual races — including spending against each other in the Manhattan Democratic primary — the two AI groups are not as far apart on policy as their rivalry might suggest. Both support some degree of regulatory guardrails and share positions on issues such as child safety online.
The sharpest disagreement between the two concerns federal preemption — specifically, whether a single national AI standard should override state-level laws. Leading the Future advocates for what Josh Vlasto, co-leader of the group, described as "a broad, national, consistent framework for regulation governing AI," in an interview. Public First Action has been more supportive of preserving state authority, though Carson acknowledged that federal preemption would be "a natural part of our constitutional order" if Congress produced a sufficiently comprehensive federal approach.
The preemption debate has already played out in New York. Leading the Future spent approximately $8 million opposing state Assemblyman Alex Bores, in part over his push for a more stringent version of New York's AI law, the RAISE Act. After Gov. Kathy Hochul secured amendments weakening reporting requirements and penalty sizes, Leading the Future backed the final law — while still opposing Bores, who subsequently lost his Democratic primary.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters that state laws are "hurting innovation" and that overriding them is "going to be the foundation of anything we do." Carson, meanwhile, said the volume of AI-related bills introduced in Congress has risen sharply as concerns about the capabilities and risks of powerful frontier models have grown more prominent in public discourse.
Comprehensive federal AI legislation is unlikely to pass before the end of the current congressional session given the limited number of days lawmakers remain in session this year, but both parties have signaled the issue will remain a legislative priority into 2027 and beyond.
Jay Goldberg is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering technology, markets, and policy. He files the breaking news and deal coverage that move the publication's core desks.
More from Jay →Apple has begun testing DRAM chips from China's state-backed ChangXin Memory Technologies for devices sold in China, and is lobbying the U.S. government to permit broader use of CXMT's products, according to people familiar with the matter.
Federal and local agencies have deployed a $250 million surveillance network across U.S. World Cup host cities, combining counter-drone technology, facial recognition cameras, and expanded legal authorities — raising concerns the infrastructure will remain long after the summer's events conclude.
Reps. Dan Meuser and Gil Cisneros are the first members of Congress known to have disclosed SpaceX stock purchases after the company's record $75 billion IPO in June, filings show, with more disclosures expected in coming weeks.
Written for readers who already know the basics — markets, AI, and the policy decisions that shape both.