OpenAI and Anthropic Super PACs Have Spent Over $43 Million on Midterms, With Half Targeting One Manhattan Primary

Since the AI super PAC spending war began escalating in late 2025, it has grown into one of the largest single-industry political interventions in a midterm cycle. As of June 24, 2026, AI-focused super PACs have spent more than $43 million on congressional races, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance.

The spending is split between two rival networks with opposite views on how AI should be governed.

Two Camps, One Industry

On one side: Leading the Future, co-founded by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Its four known donors — Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife Anna — have funded a war chest of roughly $75 million, according to Federal Election Commission data cited by The Guardian. The group has raised more than $140 million total, per The Atlantic. OpenAI has put out a statement distancing itself from the PAC, though Brockman's personal contribution stands.

Leading the Future's position: regulate AI at the federal level only. No state patchwork. Their argument is that a tangle of conflicting state laws would strangle innovation and hand the competitive advantage to China.

On the other side: Public First Action and affiliated PACs, backed by a $20 million contribution from Anthropic — maker of the AI assistant Claude. Anthropic has stated publicly that its donation is restricted to AI education initiatives and cannot be used for federal election activity. Public First, founded by former Democratic congressman Brad Carson, supports candidates who back stronger AI safety requirements and state-level regulatory authority.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, these two networks are among the biggest outside spenders in congressional races so far this cycle, collectively spending more than $38 million.

The Manhattan Proxy War

More than half of all AI super PAC spending this cycle has converged on one race: the Democratic primary in New York's 12th Congressional District, a Manhattan seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. The district spans from 14th Street to the top of Central Park and has the highest per-capita income in the country.

The candidate at the center of it: Alex Bores, 35, a state assemblyman and former Palantir employee who co-sponsored New York's Responsible AI Safety and Education Act. That law requires major AI developers to publish safety plans and report safety incidents. Bores entered the race in October 2025.

Within months, Leading the Future's affiliate PAC Think Big had poured $8.2 million into attack ads against him, according to The Guardian. The ads argued that laws like the RAISE Act would create a "chaotic patchwork of state rules that would crush innovation."

The counter-assault came from PACs aligned with Anthropic's regulatory vision, including You Can Push Back — funded by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen — and Jobs and Democracy, the Democrat-focused arm of Public First. Total AI-backed spending in the NY-12 primary crossed $15 million, per WEKU and OpenSecrets.

The Crypto Playbook, Repeated

The crypto industry ran the same operation in 2024 through a super PAC called Fairshake, which spent hundreds of millions supporting pro-crypto candidates. It worked. Congress became more receptive to crypto, and the industry secured several policy wins in 2025, according to The Atlantic.

AI companies watched that and took notes.

The key difference: crypto was a niche product. About 18% of Americans reported using or investing in it during the 2024 cycle. AI chatbots are used by roughly half of American adults. The technology is everywhere, and a majority of voters — in a March poll cited by The Atlantic — believe its risks outweigh its benefits. That's the political environment AI companies are trying to spend their way through.

The Strongest Case for the Other Side

Critics of this spending — and there are reasonable ones — argue that federal preemption of state AI laws is not a neutral technical position. It is a business preference. States like California and New York have moved faster on AI safety precisely because Congress has not. Federal legislation on AI has stalled repeatedly. If companies successfully defund candidates who support state oversight before federal alternatives exist, the result isn't a cleaner regulatory framework. It's a regulatory vacuum that benefits the companies funding the PACs. Brad Carson of Public First made this case explicitly: the message Leading the Future sends, in his words, is "regulate AI, and we will find you, wherever you are." A former Andreessen Horowitz general partner published an op-ed in the New York Times making a similar argument from the other direction, accusing the industry of trying to intimidate anyone who engages "too aggressively" with AI governance.

That concern deserves a straight answer, not a dismissal. Leading the Future did not respond to The Guardian's request for comment.

What the Money Actually Buys

Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, told WEKU that this kind of spending "helps shape who is at the table and what perspectives they are bringing into those conversations when new legislation is crafted." He called it a rewrite of "the playbook for how industries are trying to exert their influence in Washington."

In some races, AI-backed PACs have outspent the actual candidates. In Montana, Al Olszewski lost a Republican congressional primary by 30 points after a super PAC dropped $877,000 in ads backing his opponent, according to the Los Angeles Times. Olszewski said there was "no way as a grassroots person" to compete.

The NY-12 primary result is the first concrete test of whether that money translates to votes in a high-profile, high-income, high-information Democratic electorate. The outcome will be scrutinized by every other industry watching to see whether the AI industry's political operation is as effective as the crypto industry's proved to be in 2024.