AI super – As Americans grow uneasy about AI, two AI-linked super PAC ecosystems are racing into the midterms with very different messages: one pushes “pro-AI” candidates and lighter regulation, the other backs comprehensive AI safety oversight. The fight is already spil
When the midterms draw close, the advertisements don’t sound like voters do.
In New York’s Twelfth Congressional District. Alex Bores—running as a candidate who says he can regulate Big Tech because he understands its power—finds his opponent in the airwaves is not just another candidate. It’s an industry-backed idea of what voters should fear. what they should want. and who should lead the next wave of AI.
Bores is a former Palantir employee who left the company after it renewed its contract with ICE. His campaign leans on that experience, positioning him as someone who can regulate Big Tech. But Leading the Future has blasted him for that stance. running ads that call him a “hypocrite” who will stifle AI’s progress.
Leading the Future’s financial footprint is large enough to change the temperature of a race. Politico calculates that groups affiliated with the tech industry have spent $26 million to ensure Bores doesn’t win. In response, Public First Action and other aligned groups have spent $18 million to back him.
At the center of the dispute is a question that now feels bigger than any single district: how AI should be regulated—and whether the people building it get to define the rules.
The path to this money trail was drawn in earlier elections. when the cryptocurrency industry used super PACs to turn political spending into policy leverage. During the 2024 election cycle, crypto and venture-capital firms poured funds into a super PAC called Fairshake. Fairshake spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting pro-crypto candidates and attempting to undercut anti-crypto candidates. The plan worked. Major politicians—both Republicans and Democrats—supported by Fairshake and its affiliate PACs defeated their opponents. Congress became marginally more accepting of crypto, and the industry notched several major policy wins the following year.
AI-backed super PAC groups are adopting a similar strategy, but they’re doing it in a climate that is sharply different.
About half of American adults say that they use chatbots such as ChatGPT. Just under one-fifth say that they’ve used or invested in crypto. In other words, AI is everywhere—but widely distrusted. A March poll showed that a majority of voters think the risks of the technology outweigh the benefits.
There isn’t a leading political candidate calling for an outright ban on AI. Instead, the fight is about the shape of regulation.
Two super PAC efforts are offering two competing answers.
Leading the Future, co-founded by venture-capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz, has embraced a regulation-light approach to AI. It focuses on “identifying, maintaining, and growing pro-AI candidates.” It has raised more than $140 million. The super PAC has received contributions from the VC firm’s founders as well as OpenAI President Greg Brockman. Leading the Future’s priorities seem to align with those of OpenAI. The AI firm recently put out a statement distancing itself from the super PAC.
Public First Action, backed by Anthropic’s money, is built differently. Anthropic’s rival donation totaled $20 million. Public First Action is a nonprofit that works with super PACs to back candidates who have a focus on AI safety.
Anthropic has stated that its donation is reserved exclusively for the group’s AI-education initiatives and “cannot be used for federal election activity.” The group markets its support for comprehensive regulation over the “move fast and break things” approach.
That stance is consistent with how Anthropic has described itself for years: humane and safety-focused. positioned as a contrast to first-mover OpenAI. The tension has also turned legal. The company was recently blacklisted by Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense after it refused to remove guardrails from one of its AI models. and the company is currently suing the government.
Public First Action’s structure is also part of its pitch. One of its co-founders described it as “the anti-super PAC super PAC”—a purely counter-move meant to counter Leading the Future and its Donald Trump–aligned donors.
In the New York race, that philosophical split is being fought in practical terms: ads, money, and momentum.
Cooper Teboe, a political strategist, told me the New York race “will be viewed as the final exam” for this model of AI-backed political spending. If Leading the Future wins out and Bores loses, the super PAC could double down on its playbook in future races.
So far. Leading the Future’s spending has arguably given Bores more attention. and has in some ways bolstered his appeal to AI-critical voters. One of his own campaign ads satirizes an “AI super PAC” with an evil-sounding robot voice that is trying to destroy him; the ad paints Bores as the level-headed alternative.
The fight isn’t confined to campaign strategy rooms. It’s showing up in public life.
Last month. at commencement events at the University of Central Florida. the University of Arizona. and Middle Tennessee State University. speakers began to talk about AI’s importance in graduates’ lives—and were met with loud boos. People are especially skeptical of data centers: Seven out of 10 Americans don’t want to see one built in their area.
The anxiety has also moved from rhetoric to violence. Two months ago, an Indiana politician’s home was fired at 13 times. A handwritten note reading “No Data Centers” was left on his doorstep.
The industry seems to be noticing that the most recognizable AI personalities—like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei—who tend to speak about AI’s potential in extreme terms. aren’t necessarily the best face for a worried electorate. What’s at stake now is not just who wins elections. but what voters accept as normal: what gets regulated. how quickly. and who pays the price.
The questions that voters are being pushed toward are large and immediate: how AI’s processing power should be taxed; whether data centers will ultimately subsidize the restoration of the country’s electrical grid; and what towns should allow data centers to be built, and which shouldn’t.
As the midterms approach, voters will decide. But the industry—and its money—will be guiding much of the conversation before Election Day arrives.
AI super PACs midterms Leading the Future Public First Action Andreessen Horowitz OpenAI Anthropic Alex Bores data centers AI regulation election spending