AI PACs spent millions trying to shape Congress. Here’s how they fared.

Political groups on both sides of the AI debate spent millions trying to shape Tuesday's midterm elections and the future of AI regulation. The results were mixed: some of the most heavily backed candidates lost their races, and the spending's actual influence is hard to isolate from the night's broader political currents.

On the industry side, two AI-focused political action committees — American Mission and Building the Future — collectively spent $4.8 million to back South Carolina Senate candidate Darlene Graham, who lost. American Mission is the Republican spending arm of Leading the Future (LTF), a political group backed by OpenAI President Greg Brockman and the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. American Mission also spent more than $500,000 apiece supporting Republican House candidates Aaron Flint in Montana and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina, both of whom lost. LTF's Democratic arm, Think Big, had better luck with Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who won reelection.

Groups advocating stronger AI safeguards saw similarly mixed fortunes. Public First, backed by Anthropic, supported several Republicans who lost through its affiliated PAC but had more success backing Democrats; it also contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who was leading his race at publication. Guardrails Alliance, a group that has tried to make taking money from AI companies a political liability, spent more than $1 million apiece opposing two candidates who lost — California Rep. Jimmy Gomez and Montana's Flint — while $300,000 behind Angela Gonzales-Torres helped her defeat Gomez.

Separating the impact of AI money from the Democratic wave that swept Tuesday is difficult. Elon Musk, who reportedly poured half a billion dollars into supporting Republicans, also saw many of his candidates lose, and LTF itself backed some candidates it believed would win only to watch them fall.

For LTF, the general election was never the main focus. The group told TechCrunch it considers primaries a more effective use of money, since spending there builds name recognition and helps candidates set up AI policy agendas; it spent $27.38 million in primaries, including $8 million opposing New York Assembly member Alex Bores, who lost his congressional bid in June. Guardrails Alliance political director Charlie Blaettler offered a competing theory: AI groups "don't want their money to become an issue in these elections." He pointed to AIPAC's roughly $30 million backing Haley Stevens, whose primary loss to Abdul El-Sayed made the lobbying group "the story."

The open questions going forward: whether AI money stays concentrated in primaries where it has worked best, whether industry backing becomes a liability in competitive general elections, and how much either side's spending actually moved a cycle where heavy investment did not guarantee victories.