AI Super PACs Won Big in the Midterms Despite the Backlash

More than 86% of the candidates backed by Leading the Future, the largest pro-AI super PAC network, have won or are leading their House or Senate races — roughly matching the win rate of crypto's Fairshake, which spent more than four times as much. That's the core finding of a Fast Company analysis of election data, and it punctures one of the dominant narratives heading into the midterms: that AI money would be rebuked at the polls.

By some estimates, super PAC spending exceeded $2 billion this cycle, more than 50% above previous elections. Heading into November, the expectation was that Big Tech and the AI sector would spend hundreds of millions electing AI-friendly lawmakers — much as the crypto industry had done in prior cycles. Leading the Future, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, and Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, drew direct comparisons to Fairshake, even sharing some of the same donors and operatives.

What does the win rate actually say?

Fairshake supported 87 candidates this cycle; 77 have won or are currently ahead. Leading the Future's success rate is essentially identical. The two networks also backed 21 of the same candidates, including Rep. Kevin Hern, who won his Oklahoma Senate race. Hern also received support from Public First, the Anthropic-funded super PAC that has positioned itself as a counterweight to the industry's other political operations.

For practitioners tracking tech policy, the headline numbers land like this:

• Fairshake spent about $154 million this cycle, funded by Coinbase, Ripple, and Andreessen Horowitz.
• Leading the Future spent $34.8 million; Public First spent $24.4 million.
• In the Senate, Leading the Future won 9 of 12 races; Fairshake won 5 of 8.
• In the House, Leading the Future won 31 of 38; Public First won 6 of 11; Fairshake won 63 of 79.

Analysts had assumed Leading the Future was playing it safe by backing incumbents. The data says otherwise: just over half of its 40 winning candidates were incumbents. The group actually spent more on challengers — roughly $511,000 per non-incumbent versus $288,100 per incumbent.

Where the big bets failed

Heavy spending was no guarantee. Two of Leading the Future's 10 best-funded candidates lost. The industry's biggest setback came in South Carolina, where Democrat Annie Andrews, a former pediatrician, defeated Republican Darline Graham — sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — in a Republican stronghold. Leading the Future spent about $2.3 million on Graham, its largest single investment. Another pro-AI super PAC, Building the Future, poured an additional $2.5 million into that race, the only contest it reported spending on. Andrews won without backing from any AI or crypto super PAC.

Leading the Future also spent nearly $1.4 million on Jesse Jackson Jr., the former Illinois congressman who resigned amid a federal corruption investigation. He lost his primary. Public First took its own lumps: it spent roughly $13 million on New York Democrat Alex Bores, who lost his primary, plus $1.5 million on Texas Republican Carlos De La Cruz Jr., $960,000 on Alabama Republican Rhett Marques, and $905,000 on Texas Republican Alexandra Mealer — all defeats.

Fairshake's biggest bet failed too. The group spent $36.8 million supporting Ohio Sen. Jon Husted and $19.7 million opposing Democrat Sherrod Brown. Brown won. Fairshake's second-largest investment paid off, though: Alabama Republican Barry Moore took his Senate race after $12.2 million in support. The group also spent nearly $10 million opposing Illinois Senate candidate Juliana Stratton, who won anyway, plus smaller sums against three House Democrats — La Shawn Ford ($2.5 million), Oliver Gilbert ($2.1 million), and Donavan McKinney ($269,000) — all of whom prevailed.

Why did AI spending cool by November?

AI super PAC spending peaked during the primaries, then tapered. Weekly outlays surged in June around Bores's closely watched New York primary — Bores, a former Palantir data scientist turned AI safety advocate, lost after Leading the Future spent $8 million against him; Public First spent about $10 million of its $13 million on him the same month. In October, Fairshake spent $57.6 million on advertising and media, versus $4.1 million for Leading the Future and just over $1 million for Public First.

Industry observers attribute that gap partly to AI's unpopularity. A September Pew Research Center poll found 56% of Democrats concerned about AI's impact, versus 46% of Republicans — a narrow partisan divide in an otherwise polarized climate. More than 100 Democratic operatives signed an open letter urging candidates to reject AI money. The spending continued anyway, and as NBC News reported, ads funded by AI groups rarely mentioned candidates' positions on the technology.

Despite the "toxic money" narrative, Leading the Future backed 34 Republicans and 16 Democrats, and spent nearly twice as much per Democratic candidate on average. It opposed exactly one candidate all cycle: Bores.

What changes in January?

When the new Congress convenes, roughly one in 13 House members and a quarter of newly elected senators will have benefited from Leading the Future's support — for a super PAC that didn't exist two years ago, that's a remarkable foothold. But Democratic gains in Congress could bring greater scrutiny of AI companies, and proposals from data center moratoriums to restrictions on artificial superintelligence development are already on the table. The industry bought access; whether that converts into protection is the question 2027 will answer.