Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI Inc., during a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Move over crypto: AI looks poised to be the issue that draws major campaign donations in the next election season.
With a year to go, AI's battle lines are being drawn for the 2026 midterms. On one side is a nascent network of super PACS that's poised to endorse Republican and Democratic candidates who support stiffer AI regulations, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. It's set to be helmed by Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. Carson told the Times that the group aims to initially raise $50 million.
On the other end is Leading the Future, a super PAC set up in August by tech moguls set to support candidates perceived to be friendly towards the AI sector. It has raised $100 million from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, along with Greg and Anna Brockman. Greg Brockman is the co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
The brewing AI spending battle carries echoes of the flood of campaign cash from crypto-related interests in the 2024 election. The crypto industry spent $130 million in last year's Congressional races through a network of political groups led by Fairshake, the pro-crypto super PAC.
The blitz of spending helped pave the way for a Congress that's friendlier to crypto interests. In July, lawmakers in both parties approved a package that set up new federal regulations for stablecoins, a digital asset pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Leading the Future in particular is attempting to case aside AI skeptics who believe that the technology risks the survival of humanity. Other tech companies are making their political bets to shape AI regulations at the state level as well. In August, Meta $META launched a new super PAC called the American Technology Excellence Project to back state lawmakers considered allies of the AI industry.
