AI and tech are trying to influence the midterm elections

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AI and tech are trying to influence the midterm elections

By Shannon Bond, Eric McDaniel

Monday, June 22, 2026 • 5:00 AM EDT

Heard on All Things Considered

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Groups tied to the artificial intelligence industry are flooding money into the midterms in hopes of shaping future AI regulation.<br>Around the country, groups associated with AI and tech are trying to influence elections from Senate races to local offices, even as Americans register increasing discomfort with the technology's ramifications for jobs, energy bills and society. AI-focused super PACs have already spent $43.3 million on congressional races this cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign spending.<br>The campaign blitz comes against a backdrop of bipartisan consensus that Congress needs to set more rules governing AI and the powerful companies developing it. Yet efforts to advance federal legislation have so far stalled.

Related Story: NPR<br>The massive spending and heated rhetoric reveal a great deal about the contours of Silicon Valley's political fault lines and competing visions of what the future should look like.<br>"This type of spending really helps shape who is at the table and what perspectives they are bringing into those conversations when new legislation is crafted," said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit that seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics.<br>"It's rewriting the playbook for how industries are trying to exert their influence in Washington and in states across the country," he said.<br>The proxy war in Central Park

An early test of how this strategy could pay off will come Tuesday in a congressional primary in New York City that has drawn more than $15 million in AI-backed spending both for and against Alex Bores, a former Palantir employee who is pushing to more strictly rein in the industry.

Related Story: NPR<br>Bores, 35, is a New York state assemblyman who co-sponsored the state's Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, legislation that requires AI companies to report safety incidents and publish information on their safeguards.<br>In October 2025, he entered the Democratic primary race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York's 12th Congressional District. It spans the heart of Manhattan, north from 14th Street to the top of Central Park, and has the highest per-capita income in the country.<br>The primary race — which will likely determine who replaces Nadler in the Democratic stronghold — has become a major battle in the proxy war over federal AI regulation.<br>After Bores entered the race, super PACs tied to investors in ChatGPT maker OpenAI unleashed a torrent of spending aimed at torpedoing his campaign. An early anti-Bores ad argued laws like New York's RAISE Act would create a "chaotic patchwork of state rules that would crush innovation."<br>Rival Anthropic, an AI company founded by OpenAI defectors that has called for more regulation, is backing super PACs countering the OpenAI-aligned groups' assault on Bores with millions of dollars of their own.<br>Groups linked to the two companies have collectively spent more than $15 million on pro- and anti-Bores messaging, according to Federal Election Commission filings.<br>The torrent of ads, mailers and texts appears to have primarily served to raise Bores' profile in a crowded field ahead of the June 23 primary.<br>Corporate rivals fund opposing super PACs

The Bores contest is the most visible arena in which the AI sector's intramural rivalries are spilling into politics.<br>In their quest to win the AI race, OpenAI and Anthropic compete for everything from funding and staff to customers. They're both planning massive initial public offerings later this year. And they are locked in an ideological feud over how AI should be built, commercialized and governed, which shapes their respective views on the role of regulation.<br>On one side of the political fight is Leading the Future, mainly funded by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which is an OpenAI investor, and OpenAI's president and co-founder, Greg Brockman. Its stated mission is to "oppose policies that stifle innovation, enable China to gain global AI superiority, or make it harder to bring AI's benefits into the world, and those who support that agenda." It argues for a national approach to setting AI standards and safeguards.<br>Leading the Future has raised more than $75 million. It's already spent $23.5 million on dozens of races from Texas and Georgia to Illinois and Montana through a network of super PACs, including Think Big and American Mission, according to OpenSecrets' tally of federal filings. The group has also funded a PAC supporting Republican Byron Donalds' campaign for governor of Florida, a hotspot in the state-level fight over AI regulation.<br>On the other side is Public First, positioned...