The artificial intelligence industry’s main super PAC has raised more money for the 2026 midterms than the crypto super PAC it was modelled on, according to campaign finance disclosures compiled by Reuters.
Leading the Future has raised $140 million since January 2025, a person familiar with the group’s funding told Reuters. Fairshake, the crypto super PAC that spent heavily in 2024, has raised $137 million over the same period.
US companies have spent $517 million on House and Senate races in the 15 months through the end of the first quarter, according to data compiled by Public Citizen. That exceeds the $461 million record set across two full years for the 2024 elections, and comes before the closing stretch of campaigning ahead of the November 3 vote.
Strategists Say the Crypto Model Is Being Copied
Crypto companies pioneered the approach in 2024, backing candidates who supported their policy positions regardless of party and spending against those who did not. Public Citizen described Fairshake at the time as a corporate Death Star that could annihilate individual candidates.
Democratic and Republican strategists told Reuters that the playbook is now being copied by Big Tech, sports betting, and other industries. Brendan Glavin, director at the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, said of the AI industry’s efforts: “They’ve emulated a lot of what crypto did in 2024.”
Reuters reported the findings following interviews with more than a dozen political strategists from both parties.
Fairshake Has About $130 Million Left
Fairshake began the year with a $193 million war chest and has approximately $130 million remaining, according to filings. It is financed almost entirely by Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz, and operates through two partisan affiliates: Defend American Jobs for Republican races and Protect Progress for Democratic ones.
The Crypto Times has tracked that spending through the primary season, including roughly $12 million in Alabama’s Senate runoff, a six-for-six record in Texas runoffs, and interventions in Maryland and New York primaries.
Two other crypto vehicles appear in the disclosures. The Digital Freedom Fund super PAC has raised $22.4 million, funded by Winklevoss Capital Fund. Stand With Crypto Alliance, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit backed by Coinbase, does not disclose its amounts.
Andreessen Horowitz has given more than $81 million to mostly crypto and AI political committees, of which at least $23.8 million went to Fairshake, according to federal election records analyzed by Reuters. Co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have each donated about $4 million personally this cycle, most of it to President Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC.
AI Groups Spent $23 Million Against Each Other in One District
Political groups backed by OpenAI and Anthropic, or their executives, spent more than $23 million on two competing Democrats in a single New York City district in June, according to campaign finance records.
“It was basically two AI groups having it out with each other and the candidates were secondary,” Glavin said.
Leading the Future is funded in part by OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna, along with Andreessen Horowitz. It runs affiliates named Think Big for Democratic races and American Mission for Republican ones. The company has said it does not finance or direct the group’s activities and that employees may donate personally. “We want to be explicit: No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company’s views,” it said in June. The Brockmans have separately given $25 million to MAGA Inc.
Anthropic has donated at least $40 million this cycle through a nonprofit called Public First Action, which has raised $100 million. About half of that goes toward elections through two aligned PACs, he said. The company is also linked to the Public First super PAC, which has raised $3.9 million, including $1 million from Anthropic co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei, and runs a traditional PAC called AnthroPAC that has raised $280,000.
Anthropic has defended the donations, saying Reuters that they are being used to educate the public on policies rather than to support or oppose specific candidates.
Meta has funded four state-level super PACs totalling roughly $67 million, and an America super PAC funded by Elon Musk has raised between $100 million and $120 million, according to the disclosures.
Betting Firms Target State Races
DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics and UK-based bet365 have donated more than $72 million so far, making online sports betting the third-largest corporate donor this cycle by Public Citizen’s estimate. Most of it is routed through two affiliates of the Win for America super PAC — American Conservative Fund and American Future — into state races, where the industry faces the most regulation.
Prediction market Polymarket separately donated $1 million in June, through its corporate parent Blockratize Inc., to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The donation came during a period of regulatory pressure on the sector. The CFTC invoked emergency authority on August 11 to direct Kalshi to keep operating after New York sought a restraining order, and the New York City Council announced an investigation on August 12 into the marketing practices of four platforms including Polymarket.
Watchdog Says Spending Crowds Out Other Issues
“The scale of corporate spending in this election cycle is unlike anything we’ve seen previously,” said Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen.
“When corporate money can inundate the political discourse, there’s less room for talk about what people really care about,” Claypool said. “Instead, you have the situation that we have in Congress now where they are spending an inordinate amount of time discussing the niche regulatory policy problems related to crypto while people really just want cheaper groceries.”
He added that one-third of all corporate money spent since 2010 has gone into this cycle, with the election not yet over.
Supporters of the spending argue it gives emerging sectors a voice that other corporate interests have long enjoyed. Reuters reported that polls show a majority of Americans feel there is too much money in politics, and that progressive Democratic Senate candidates including James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan have built campaigns on the argument that wealthy donors exert too much influence.
Sherrod Brown Has Gone Quiet on Crypto
Sherrod Brown chaired the Senate Banking Committee and was among the industry’s most vocal critics in Congress before Fairshake spent to help unseat him in 2024. Seeking a return to the Senate this year, strategists say he has been quiet on crypto and at times conciliatory.
Campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer said in a statement to Reuters that Brown “recognizes that cryptocurrency is part of America’s economy” and is keeping an open mind. Brown gave a similar statement to Axios in August 2025.
