Two major AI-backed political action committees—Leading the Future (backed by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Palantir's Joe Lonsdale, Ron Conway, Perplexity) and Public First Action (funded by Anthropic, OpenAI/Google/DeepMind/X employees)—have raised over $200m combined for the 2026 midterms. As of end June 2026, they spent at least $44m on 40 House and Senate candidates.
Leading the Future raised $125m through end-2025 and has spent $24m on primaries. Of 28 candidates backed, 25 won primaries; only Jesse Jackson Jr. lost. Public First Action raised $80m through June 2026 ($20m from Anthropic) and spent $20m; every candidate except Bores won. Carson (Public First Action) said the groups plan to spend in 50–60 races by the general election.
The playbook mirrors crypto's Fairshake PAC, which deployed $200m in 2024 and yielded the stablecoins bill and major digital-assets progress. This is the first major test of AI industry legislative influence at scale.
The two groups differ on preemption: Leading the Future backs a broad federal AI framework (though supports NY's RAISE Act); Public First Action supports state-led approaches. Both back safeguards and protection of minors, but the regulatory philosophy split signals the industry is not monolithic on Washington's role.