AI executives and companies are betting that spending millions in the 2026 midterm elections will allow them to influence AI bills being developed in Congress.
Since the end of June, the two major political intelligence committees have dropped at least $44 million to 40 House and Senate candidates, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission data. That’s an early taste of how the parties will spend the more than $200 million they raised in the remainder of the primary season and the general election, according to fundraising figures provided by the parties.
Spending on the burgeoning AI industry makes it an increasingly powerful player in Washington’s sphere of influence. Companies – through their PACs – are gearing up to shape how the first national legislation to regulate the use of AI begins.
Brad Carson, who leads Public First Action, a nonprofit with several PACs, said he has seen many bills introduced and debated. about AI legislation, especially as concerns about the potential and risks of powerful AI models such as Mythos and Claude Fable have come to light. While any legislation is unlikely to pass this year, given the limited number of days lawmakers are in session, both parties have signaled that AI will continue to be a priority for years to come.
“They have a lot of benefits. They have a lot of risks. And you can’t just release them into the wild without government concern,” Carson told CNBC. “Everybody from the right to the left, from pro-Trump to anti-Trump sees that.”
Josh Vlasto, one of the leaders of Leading the Future, said that coming up with the right regulatory framework is important for lawmakers.
“It’s very important that we do this now and urgently, because it’s still the early innings of the technology, but it’s being adopted quickly, at scale,” he told CNBC.
The largest number of candidates supported by both PACs won their primaries. Of the 28 candidates for Leading the Future, 25 have won their primaries, two have yet to run and only one – Jesse Jackson Jr. The group also ran against Alex Bores, who lost the Democratic primary in New York’s 12th district.
Public First Action has supported candidates in 11 races. Except for Bores, all the candidates it supported won. Carson said the team plans to spend 50-60 races at the end of the middle stage.
The playbook AI companies are using is not new. In the 2024 election, the crypto-backed PAC Fairshake made $200 million in the election, supporting crypto candidates on both sides of the aisle. The result: The stablecoins bill became law, and significant progress was made on the digital assets bill favored by major crypto companies. Coinbase and Ripple.
So far, Leading the Future has spent more than $24 million in primary races through the end of June, according to data filed with the Federal Election Commission. The group said it has raised $125 million by late 2025, in part from backers including private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz, Open AI founder Greg Brockman, Palantir founder Joe Lonsdale, SV Angel founder Ron Conway and AI software company Perplexity.
Public First Action, launched last year, has spent $20 million so far, and announced last month that it had raised $80 million by the end of June. The group has received $20 million from Anthropic, though the money is limited to educating the public about AI policy and not for political purposes, according to a PAC spokesperson.
Pubic First Action does not disclose its donors; Anthropic disclosed its own offering. But Carson said the team has received contributions from employees at OpenAI, Google, DeepMind and X.
Two AI parties spend big on politics
The two parties have faced each other several times in races, spending time competing in the Manhattan Democratic primary and trading swipes in debates.
However the policy difference between the two is much different than “pro” or “anti” regulation. Both groups back some level of surveillance and even overlap in areas such as the need to protect children online.
The biggest difference concerns one of the stickiest issues in Washington — whether a single federal standard should override state laws surrounding AI. But even on that matter, the parties are not completely on opposite ends.
Leading the Future advocates for a “comprehensive, national, consistent regulatory framework governing AI,” Vlasto said in an interview with CNBC. He denied that the group was against state laws, pointing to its support of New York’s landmark AI law, the RAISE Act., Bores helped lead the New York convention.
But the RAISE Act shows just how difficult the group’s situation is. Leading the Future spent nearly $8 million in opposition funds in large part because of its push for a stronger RAISE Act than was eventually signed into law.
Before the bill was signed into law, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul successfully pressured lawmakers to agree to changes to weaken AI companies’ reporting requirements and the severity of penalties — making New York’s law more in line with California’s. Those changes led Leading the Future to support the final legislation while still opposing one of the legislators who supported an earlier version of the bill.
Public First Action strongly supports state laws and has fought efforts to repeal them, although Carson said if Washington could come up with “a state-wide approach to these problems, then liberalism is a natural part of our constitutional system.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill have tried, and failed, many times to pass state laws. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told CNBC that the state’s laws “hurt innovation” and repealing them “will be the cornerstone of anything we do.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., co-chairman of the AI commission established by House Democrats, said that while there is “absolute bipartisan disapproval before taking anything,” he noted that many Democrats recently sponsored a children’s online safety bill that sets the federal standard for privacy standards as low.
