THE CRUNCH
Political groups on both sides of the AI regulation debate spent millions trying to shape Tuesday's midterm elections, and much of that money failed to buy victories. Two AI-focused political action committees, American Mission and Building the Future, collectively spent $4.8 million backing losing South Carolina Senate candidate Darline Graham. American Mission is the Republican spending arm of Leading the Future (LTF), a pro-industry group backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz. American Mission also spent more than $500,000 each on losing House candidates Aaron Flint in Montana and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina. LTF's Democratic arm, Think Big, fared better by backing Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who won reelection.
Groups favouring stronger AI safeguards had similarly mixed luck. Public First, backed by Anthropic, supported several losing Republicans but had more success with Democratic candidates, and contributed $3 million to a PAC backing California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who was leading his race at the time of publication. The Guardrails Alliance, which campaigns against candidates taking AI industry money, spent over $1 million each opposing two losers, California Rep. Jimmy Gomez and Montana's Aaron Flint, and $300,000 supporting Angela Gonzales-Torres, who defeated Gomez.
It is hard to isolate the effect of AI money from the broader Democratic wave. LTF also backed candidates it expected to win, only to see them lose. The group told TechCrunch that general elections were never its main focus: it spent $27.38 million in the primaries, including $8 million opposing New York Assembly member Alex Bores, who lost his congressional bid in June, arguing that primary spending builds name recognition and helps candidates shape AI policy agendas.
Charlie Blaettler, political director of Guardrails Alliance, offered a different explanation for LTF's light general-election spending: "They don't want their money to become an issue in these elections." He cited the Michigan Senate primary, where AIPAC spent close to $30 million backing Haley Stevens, who conceded to Abdul El-Sayed, saying "AIPAC became the story in that race." "Our goal is to make AI money politically toxic," Blaettler said.
The underlying fight is whether Congress should set a national AI framework that overrides state laws or leave states free to impose their own safeguards, and neither side seems poised to back down.