AI PACs spent millions shaping Congress; several heavily backed candidates lost

Mixed returns for AI money in the midterms

Political action committees tied to the AI industry, along with groups campaigning against it, spent millions of dollars trying to influence this week's US midterm elections, and the payoff was uneven at best, according to TechCrunch. Several of the candidates who received the heaviest AI-related backing went down to defeat.

The results offer the first concrete picture of how a new class of tech-focused political spenders performs at scale, and both sides of the fight say they intend to keep spending.

Where the industry money went

TechCrunch reports that two AI-focused PACs, American Mission and Building the Future, collectively spent $4.8 million backing South Carolina Senate candidate Darline Graham, who lost. American Mission serves as the Republican spending arm of Leading the Future (LTF), a broader political operation backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The same PAC spent more than $500,000 each supporting Republican House candidates Aaron Flint in Montana and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina, and both lost as well. LTF's Democratic spending arm, Think Big, had better luck: its support for Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz coincided with his reelection victory.

Pro-safeguard groups also split their results

Organizations pushing for stronger AI safeguards had similarly mixed outcomes. Public First, which TechCrunch describes as backed by Anthropic, saw several of the Republicans it supported lose, though it had more success with Democratic candidates. It also contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting California state Senator Scott Wiener, who was leading his race when the story was published.

Guardrails Alliance, a group working to make accepting AI-industry money a political liability, spent more than $1 million each opposing California Representative Jimmy Gomez and Montana's Aaron Flint — both of whom lost. It also spent $300,000 supporting Angela Gonzales-Torres, who defeated Gomez.

Money versus the Democratic wave

TechCrunch cautions that it is difficult to isolate the effect of AI-specific spending from the broad Democratic surge that ran through this year's elections. Elon Musk, who the outlet says poured roughly half a billion dollars into Republican races, also watched many of his favored candidates lose. LTF itself reportedly backed candidates it considered probable winners, only to see them fall to Democrats.

Primaries were the real battleground

For LTF, the general election was never the main objective. The group told TechCrunch it views primaries as a more efficient use of money, since spending there can build name recognition and help candidates develop AI policy platforms before they face the wider electorate. LTF spent $27.38 million during the primaries, including $8 million opposing New York Assembly member Alex Bores, who lost his congressional bid in June. Before entering a general election race, the group weighs how competitive the contest is, whether its spending could shift the outcome, and whether to preserve resources for future cycles.

Guardrails Alliance political director Charlie Blaettler offered a blunter explanation for LTF's relatively light general election spending: "They don't want their money to become an issue in these elections." He pointed to the Michigan Senate primary, where the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC spent nearly $30 million backing Haley Stevens, only for Abdul El-Sayed to win the nomination and the seat — with AIPAC's spending dominating the coverage. "Our goal is to make AI money politically toxic," Blaettler told TechCrunch.

The two sides also advertise differently. According to TechCrunch, LTF's ads rarely mention AI at all, instead focusing on issues that poll well for each candidate, while Guardrails Alliance's ads center squarely on who is accepting AI-industry money.

The fight ahead

The underlying dispute is whether Congress should create a national AI framework that overrides state laws, or whether states should keep the power to impose their own safeguards. Neither side is standing down. LTF, which favors a single national framework, told TechCrunch it plans to continue spending into the 2028 elections, and Guardrails Alliance says it will keep opposing AI-industry-backed candidates.

Why it matters

These midterms were the first major test of organized AI-industry political spending, and the outcome complicates the assumption that money reliably buys influence. Heavy investments produced losses on the industry side, while the most effective anti-industry strategy appears to be attacking the spending itself. With federal preemption of state AI laws emerging as the central fault line, both camps now have real electoral data to shape their playbooks — and billions in industry money still on the sidelines — heading into the 2028 cycle.