Super PACs turn AI regulation into a central campaign topic, spending millions in 2026 midterms

Anthropic-Backed Group Jumps Into New York Congressional Race

A political action committee backed by Anthropic PBC is spending $450,000 to boost a New York congressional candidate who favors safety regulations for artificial intelligence. The spending by Public First Action's Democratic arm ratchets up the fight in the central Manhattan congressional district, where a super PAC backed by AI billionaires has already spent $1.1 million on television ads and messages attacking Alex Bores. The latest spending highlights how New York's 12th congressional district has quickly become the first battleground for rival AI companies pushing their own agendas on how governments should handle the fast-moving technology. Anthropic last week announced it is donating $20 million to Public First Action, which backs congressional candidates who favor safety rules for AI. That donation strengthened advocates' fight against Leading the Future, which said it plans to spend $125 million this year to stack Congress with allies who support lighter regulation of the technology. The new ads present Bores, 35, as a fearless opponent of "right-wing billionaires," a reference to the GOP donors behind the AI super PAC that has been spending against him. That super PAC, called Leading the Future, is backed by donors including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, both of whom have given millions to President Donald Trump. Read: AI Kingpins Adopt Crypto's Playbook in Bid to Get Allies Elected "Right-wing billionaires think they can buy this congressional seat," says the ad's narrator, who speaks with a thick New York accent. "He's the only one who stood up to them before. They're attacking him because he will protect our rights, stand up to ICE, and fight against their abuse of power." Bores successfully led an effort to pass an AI transparency bill in New York state, though it was narrowed significantly before it was signed into law late last year. The ads from Leading the Future against Bores seize on Democrats' revulsion over Trump's immigration crackdown and target Bores for his past work at Palantir Technologies Inc., which contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Leading the Future's Democratic arm has circulated mailers and text messages citing Bores' work with Palantir, urging voters to "Reject Bores' hypocrisy on ICE." Bores has called the claims in the ads false and said he left Palantir in part due to the company's work with ICE. Jesse Hunt, a spokesperson for Leading the Future, last week said the group is "committed to supporting policymakers who want a smart national regulatory framework for AI," one that boosts US employment while winning the race against China. Public First Action and its Republican arm have begun running ads in favor of Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, who is running for governor of Tennessee, and Nebraska Republican Senator Pete Ricketts, who is running for reelection. Beyond New York, Leading the Future and its partisan arms are also spending to boost a Trump-allied candidate in Texas, two Democratic candidates in Illinois and a Republican candidate in North Carolina.

Dueling PACs take center stage in midterm elections over AI regulation

Assemblyman Alex Bores is interviewed on Monday, May 13, 2024, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. Two major AI PACs are facing off against each other in a New York congressional race -- an early battleground for AI regulation that is set to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the midterm elections. Jobs and Democracy PAC -- the Democratic arm of a pro-AI regulation group -- is launching a six-figure ad buy supporting Alex Bores, a New York assemblyman and driving force behind the state's new AI law. The measure, named the RAISE Act, requires large AI developers to publish safety protocols and report serious misuse of their technology. Bores is facing a crowded field in the Democratic primary for New York's 12th congressional district. Because of the makeup of the district, the winner of the Democratic primary is likely to win the general election. Bores was the target of another ad campaign launched last November from another AI PAC, Leading the Future, which is backed by venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, AI search-engine company Perplexity, SV Angel founder Ron Conway and numerous others. Jobs and Democracy is one piece of a larger, bipartisan effort from former lawmakers Brad Carson and Chris Stewart to boost candidates who will back increased AI regulation. The group, Public First Action, recently got a $20 million donation from Anthropic, which has broken from other AI giants in pushing for more regulation.

Exclusive: Super PACs hunt for the ideal AI candidate

Why it matters: Millions of dollars are up for grabs ahead of the midterms for the politicians that get AI right -- and what that means depends on which rival super PAC you ask. Driving the news: Public First Action is not only looking to identify where candidates are on AI, but also wants to make AI policy a standard campaign topic and not an afterthought, the advocacy group told Axios. * The group is tied to three independent PACs for Republicans, Democrats and a bipartisan one. * Candidates for House, Senate, governor, and attorney general will be asked to state their positions in a questionnaire around transparency, protecting kids and workforce impacts. * The questionnaire also asks candidates for their stances on national security risks, whistleblower protections, and how federal and state policymakers should balance AI governance. Public First Action on Thursday launched its first ad in Tennessee supporting Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)'s Kids Online Safety Act and the TRUMP America AI Act, which seeks to codify the president's call for a national framework in an executive order targeting state AI laws. * The Republican PAC, Defending Our Values, launched ads in the Nebraska Senate race backing Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), who advocates for restricting foreign adversaries' access to AI chips. Catch up quick: Public First Action this week secured the backing of Anthropic and is positioning itself as the organization that supports AI safeguards and strong federal regulation. The other side: Leading the Future, a PAC focused on getting rid of a patchwork of state-level regulation, has the support of OpenAI's Greg Brockman, a16Z and other industry heavy hitters. * Leading the Future is funneling $5 million toward Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)'s run for Florida governor against incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis, who favors regulations focused on protecting consumers against AI harms. * The PAC is also backing Republican Laurie Buckhout in a North Carolina primary for the House and Democrats Jesse Jackson Jr. and Melissa Bean in Illinois House primaries. The bottom line: Regardless of where AI falls on voters' priority lists, rival super PACs are getting ready to reward, or punish, candidates based on how they approach the tech.

The candidate at the center of the brewing midterm AI war unveils his agenda

Alex Bores, a New York state lawmaker at the center of the political fight over the future of artificial intelligence, released an eight-point plan for a national AI framework Wednesday, wading further into the issue that is defining his campaign for Congress. Bores, one of about a dozen contenders seeking the Democratic nomination in New York's deep-blue, open 12th Congressional District, revealed the plan as he faces opposition from some of the biggest national players in AI, as well as support from some others. The dynamic has elevated him in his House contest, in which he has already faced seven figures' worth of attack ads from a super PAC funded by AI industry leaders -- and raised hundreds of thousands from workers at other AI companies. In an interview, Bores said that given how quickly AI is advancing, there's a chance most of the plan will need to be reworked. That's the reality of how different the state of the technology might be by then and a big reason he wanted to put his ideas on paper now. "But unless we put a stake in the ground and start engaging seriously on what the policies are needed," he said, "we're never going to have the chance to catch up." Bores' plan includes eight subsections of policy proposals, each with a series of bullet-pointed items. In a section about data centers, Bores calls for cutting red tape for structures that use renewable energy and cover the cost of electricity grid upgrades, an incentive aiming to tackle growing consumer frustration about the impact of the massive, power-hungry buildings on local communities. In a section about labor, Bores calls for requiring companies to report AI-related job losses and creating an AI dividend, funded by productivity gains, that would be paid to Americans. Bores is also calling for initiating a national version of the RAISE Act, his state-level AI safety legislation in New York. The legislation would mandate independent safety testing of AI models and "create accountability mechanisms for AI systems that cause demonstrable harm." He says the government must require large AI developers to inform regulators with confidential disclosures about their models' capabilities while building contingency plans for the effects of rapid AI advancements. The Defense Department "does war-game preparation for lots of different things that could come so that we understand how we would react and hopefully are not surprised," Bores said. "We do disaster planning on natural disasters. We have not given enough thought to the many different futures that AI might bring. None of this is preordained or predetermined." Bores' outline also includes new child safety standards for AI, including allowing parents to have access to their kids' AI interactions and requiring age verification to use AI tools. It also calls for passing a national data privacy law and creating standards that would allow viewers to trace the origins and editing histories of AI-generated images, video and audio. "I think people don't realize how good the state-of-the-art AI currently is, but more to the point, how quickly it is improving and how the rate at which it improves is itself increasing," Bores said, adding: "We need to be prepared for if it slows down, but we should be prepared for if continues at this rate or even increases. And I don't think people are engaging that question seriously enough." Bores' bid for Congress is in the center of an expensive clash of vision over the future of AI. The pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future, which is funded in part by OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, is part of a network that has stockpiled a nine-figure war chest as it aims to support AI-friendly candidates on both sides of the aisle. The group has already spent more than $1 million on advertising attacking Bores. It's also involved in upcoming congressional primaries in Texas, North Carolina and Illinois. A recent ad focuses on Bores' past work for Palantir Technologies, "selling the tech for ICE, enabling ICE and empowering their deportations while making bank," it says. While it accuses Bores of "hypocrisy" in the ad, Leading the Future has relied on support from Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. Bores' allies argue the attacks on his past work are outweighed by his vocal push to put guardrails on big tech companies. Meanwhile, Bores has drawn financial support from the other side of the AI debate, including leaders at Anthropic, an AI company that has supported more regulation of the industry. Leading the Future has said it supports or opposes candidates on the basis of whether they support a "national framework" for regulating AI, pre-empting a "patchwork" approach spawning from state-by-state AI regulations. But Bores, who has backed state-level regulation in his current job and now proposes a national framework, said the group is being dishonest about why it opposes his candidacy. "They don't want a national standard," he said. "They actively advocate against any standard whatsoever, and they only talk about a federal standard insofar as it helps them justify pre-empting the states. ... I don't like using such harsh language, but they are clearly liars." In a statement, Leading the Future strategist Josh Vlasto said, "Assemblyman Bores has advanced exactly the type of ideological and politically motivated legislation that would handcuff not only New York's, but the entire country's, ability to lead on AI jobs and innovation. "The original RAISE Act as Assemblyman Bores proposed it, which was ultimately rejected, is a clear example of the patchwork, uninformed, and bureaucratic state laws that would slow American progress and open the door for China to win the global race for AI leadership," Vlasto continued, adding, "His ideological agenda threatens American competitiveness." The AI battle is just one angle drawing national interest and money into the congressional contest in New York. Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, 78, the longest-serving House member from the state, announced last year that he would retire in 2026, pointing to the need for generational change in his party. Five candidates raised more than $1 million for their campaigns last year, including Bores and Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy family scion who has leveraged his at-times-edgy social media platform into a House bid. Despite being a first-time candidate, Schlossberg has won prominent backers, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., helping make the case that he's mounting a serious campaign. Nadler has weighed in, too, backing another top fundraiser in Micah Lasher, a colleague of Bores' in the state Assembly. Former Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who fell to Nadler in 2018 during the last major primary in the district, has also weighed in, backing Bores. And the sprawling field of more than a dozen candidates also includes George Conway, the former Republican-turned-prominent Trump critic who, like Schlossberg, has put opposing the president at the center of his campaign. Bores, however, sees the fight between him and segments of the AI industry as defining the race. "There's only two campaigns that have raised millions of dollars -- plural," Bores said. "And those two campaigns are mine and the AI super PAC targeting me."

Democrats run on AI policy in 2026 campaigns

Why it matters: The Democrats campaigning on AI policy now could be the ones writing the rules for it in the next Congress. The big picture: As AI's rapid advancements sound alarms even from within the ranks of AI companies, the Trump administration has embraced a very hands-off approach to the technology and Congress has not passed major AI legislation. * Democrats running for office see an opportunity. What they're saying: "The next generation of Democrats understand that AI is going to reshape the economy they work in and change how their kids grow up," Andrew Mamo, a Democratic strategist working on House and Senate campaigns, told Axios. * He said that candidates are tapping into parental concerns about screen time and mental health. * "It really speaks to how people who actually understand technology can better govern and legislate around technologies," said Amanda Litman, president of Run for Something, a group that works to elect progressive candidates. Here are a few Democrats putting AI front and center on the campaign trail: Mallory McMorrow, running for a Senate seat in Michigan, told Axios about her AI and kids' online safety platform earlier this week. * Her plan calls for banning cellphones in the classroom and prohibiting chatbots from representing themselves as licensed professionals. Alex Bores, running for the House in New York, has been targeted by pro-AI super PACs due to his co-sponsorship of the RAISE Act, an AI frontier models safety law. * He rolled out an AI safety and policy plan this week that addresses kids' online and AI safety, data privacy, deepfakes, data centers, AI and workforce concerns, frontier model AI safety and more. Evan Turnage, running for Congress in Mississippi to unseat longtime Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), is also focused on how government should regulate AI, campaign adviser Rodericka Applewhaite told Axios. * Turnage is an alum of both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and worked on antitrust issues for Warren. Luke Bronin, running for Congress in Connecticut to unseat incumbent John Larson (D-Conn.), told Axios that he's advocating for tax policies that would spread AI-driven wealth, along with workforce reskilling and education and infrastructure investments. * "We need to be honest about the fact that [AI is] going to turn a lot of things upside down, on jobs, on what our kids are exposed to," he said. The bottom line: AI is fast becoming a defining issue on the campaign trail for the next generation of Democrats.

Alex Bores, target of AI super PACs, rolls out AI plan

Why it matters: Bores is banking that backing AI guardrails will help, not hurt, his bid for Congress -- even as pro-AI super PACs spend big against him. * His campaign raised $2.2 million last year, per FEC filings. Driving the news: Bores is out with a new AI policy plan for Congress that addresses kids' online and AI safety, data privacy, deepfakes, data centers, AI and workforce concerns, frontier model AI safety and more. * Bores, who has a masters' in computer science, is vying for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.)'s seat. What they're saying: "I think the future here [on AI policy] is hopefully very bipartisan," Bores told Axios in an interview. * But he said that some on the right "just want to let it rip," while some on the left want to "put the genie back in the bottle." * Most Americans want guardrails, but don't know what policies would get them there. * "That's the point of releasing this plan," Bores said. What's inside: Bores' AI policy framework for Congress includes the following proposals: * Kids' safety: It calls for age verification and parental consent for AI tools, chatbot safety requirements, AI education guidelines, and a ban on AI-generated child sexual abuse material. * Data and deepfakes: It proposes a national data privacy law, consumer rights around AI and data, and penalties for "malicious deepfake creation and distribution." * Data centers: It would block rate utility hikes for residents and require the private sector to cover grid upgrade costs. * Workforce: It calls for company reporting on AI-related job changes, tax incentives for upskilling, and an "AI dividend" funded by taxing large AI companies. * Frontier AI: It proposes independent safety testing of powerful AI models, mandatory cybersecurity incident reporting, and coordinating with allies on standards to prevent an AI arms race. Reality check: Congress has struggled for more than a decade to pass a national data privacy law, along with other kids' online safety and AI legislation. The big picture: Bores has been the subject of attack ads funded by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman's Leading the Future PAC, partly over his co-sponsorship of New York's RAISE Act, an AI safety bill signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul last December.

AI Money Is Coming to a Midterm Near You

During the past two election cycles, the giants of cryptocurrency emerged as some of the biggest money players. Sam Bankman-Fried's PAC spent $70 million on donations in 2022, and Fairshake, a super-PAC formed to support pro-crypto politicians, spent a whopping $245 million in 2024. In just a few years, their bipartisan donations helped reshape the Senate, with cash going to support swing-state Democrats like Ruben Gallego, who pledged to play ball with industry-friendly legislation, while stymieing the election of swing-state Democratic crypto skeptics like Sherrod Brown. For the 2026 midterms, it looks like the artificial-intelligence companies are the new players with startling amounts of cash to spend. Bloomberg reports that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (of the eponymous AI-leaning venture-capital firm) and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman are among the leading donors to a super-PAC called Leading the Future, which looks to spend $125 million this cycle. Also in the mix is Public First, a PAC that received a $20 million pledge from Anthropic PBC, the OpenAI rival behind the AI assistant Claude. Leading the Future is already spending on primary races to boost Democratic and Republican candidates who are friendly to the AI and tech sectors, with appropriately named cutout PACs for both parties. (Take a guess which party is getting funding from American Mission and which is benefiting from Think Big.) In Texas, Leading the Future is supporting pro-AI Republican Chris Gober in the congressional race for the Tenth District outside of Austin, while in New York, it has spent $1.1 million dinging the AI-skeptic state assemblyman Alex Bores, who is running in the crowded primary to replace Jerry Nadler. A spokesperson for Leading the Future told Bloomberg that the PAC is "committed to supporting policymakers who want a smart national regulatory framework for AI." If the crypto model is any indication, that most likely means industry-friendly regulation written or co-sponsored by lawmakers from both parties who received bags of campaign cash from crypto donors. Like the crypto-ad blitz of 2024, it may be hard to tell which ads are paid for by the AI PACs. For example, the Gober spots cite his record as a "MAGA warrior" but say nothing about the fact that one of his platforms is to ensure "America's AI dominance." The ads condemning Bores, who has proposed consumer-friendly AI regulation, mostly refer to his record working with the defense contractor Palantir. If only AI executives were voting, this might be a good association; Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel and is a close partner of the industry titan NVIDIA. But in New York's progressive 12th District, where Bores is running, the contractor's connections to Palantir (and by association, ICE) could weigh him down. While PACs, by their very nature, try to conceal where the money is coming from, there might be another reason why Leading the Future is running ads that obscure a focus on AI: The industry's obscene energy demand is increasing the cost of electricity in many regions throughout the country. Maybe a cost-of-living election isn't the best time for a politician to admit that they're running on AI donations.

Senators Sound Alarm As AI Companies Pour Millions Into U.S. Elections

WASHINGTON - Prominent critics of artificial intelligence warned that the industry's plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this year's midterm elections are aimed at blocking Congress from regulating a rapidly advancing technology that poses serious risks to society, including jobs, energy prices, and privacy, along with more existential dangers. "The big money interests, the billionaires who control our economy and our political system, are going to do everything to elect people to give them a green light to go forward," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is planning to introduce legislation prohibiting the construction of data centers that power AI, said in an interview with HuffPost. "I happen to believe that Congress and the American people are totally unprepared for the transformational and radical impact it's going to have on our society." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another leading advocate of regulating AI, said the industry is trying "to make sure that they can continue doing whatever they want." "It's a problem," she added. AI companies have modeled their lobbying efforts after crypto-backed groups, another influential segment of the tech industry that invested heavily in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Crypto super PACs spent tens of millions of dollars, for example, on ads to block Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) from being elected to the Senate last year. They did the same to oust former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and elect his replacement, crypto-friendly GOP businessman Bernie Moreno, who now holds his seat. Leading The Future, the main pro-AI industry super PAC backed by OpenAI, plans to spend at least $100 million to support candidates who favor AI adoption with minimal regulatory hindrances. They've begun deploying their resources in congressional races, spending $5 million in support of Rep. Byron Donalds' (R-Fla.) bid for governor in Florida and contributing $1 million to defeat Alex Bores, a Democratic assemblyman from New York who spearheaded new rules on the industry, quickly making himself a target. Meanwhile, Anthropic, another AI company founded by former OpenAI executives, announced this week that it is investing $20 million in another super PAC focused on strengthening industry guardrails. The dueling AI super PACs could upend both parties' coalitions and the tech industry itself. "Those who have already followed a model of walled gardens, and there will be only two or three players in this space, want one kind of regulation, but those who are investing in the startups want something very different," Warren said, acknowledging the split in the industry. "But they're all here to try to buy advantage from a pliant Congress." Warren met this week with the CEO of Anthropic, which backs limits on selling the powerful chips necessary to power A.I. to China. Warren and Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) have introduced legislation to limit such sales. Sanders, meanwhile, is traveling to California next weekend, where he will meet with AI industry leaders and hold a town hall at Stanford University with Rep. Ro Khanna on "who controls the future of AI." Many Democrats have begun railing against the rapid buildout of data centers ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as voters blame the industry for spiking electricity prices. Even industry-friendly moderates like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro are supporting some limits on data center construction. But Sanders said his concerns go deeper. "What I am looking at right now goes beyond electric rates," he said on a call with reporters on Thursday. "It goes to who will control, essentially control, this transformative technology. Will it simply be Elon Musk? And Bezos and other multi-billionaires who will make huge amounts of money off of this. Or will AI and robotics work to improve life for human beings?" The White House and the GOP-controlled Congress, with the support of wealthy allies in Silicon Valley, have embraced lax regulation of AI on the grounds that any effort to put guardrails in place will ensure the U.S. loses the AI development race to China. The Trump administration has ordered a government-wide deployment of AI while seeking to restrict individual states that are tired of waiting on Congress to act from regulating the industry at all. Some populist Republicans and MAGA allies of President Donald Trump have urged the administration to pump the brakes, warning what rapid adoption of AI could do to the economy. "I don't think we are doing enough to protect workers," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told HuffPost recently. "We need to do more because I'm confident Silicon Valley will get rich from this... But what about blue-collar workers in my state?" The vast majority of Republicans, however, are cheering on the AI race even as experts who work in the industry raise more and more scary-sounding alarms about how quickly it is advancing. Congress can't even agree on a framework for regulation, much less actual legislation. The breakdown of negotiations over crypto legislation in the Senate earlier this month shows just how difficult it will be to produce any AI regulations, at least not before November's midterm elections and even the 2028 presidential election. "There obviously is an effective moratorium in the U.S. when it comes to interest in either domestic regulation or international regulation," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said of AI at a panel with other leaders at the Munich Security Conference. "The industry right now is spending millions of dollars trying to suppress conversations in the U.S at the state and federal level around a regulatory framework." "So it becomes very difficult for any president to prioritize bringing this conversation to China or our allies abroad if hundreds of millions of dollars spent by AI companies and by technology companies are trying to destroy enthusiasm or conversation about regulation," he said. "That's the political reality."