A new class of players is gearing up to spend big money in the midterms, cutting across partisan lines and disrupting both the primary and general election landscapes.
And many of them didn’t even exist until recently.
New campaign finance reports reveal the explosive growth of a motley group of moneyed interests — including artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and sports betting companies — that have collectively stockpiled hundreds of millions of dollars to influence who is elected to Congress this year.
These groups have already become among the biggest super PACs in the country — in just a few years or even months. A pro-AI super PAC that launched in August has nearly as much cash as some party-affiliated groups that have long dominated congressional races. A crypto group now in its second cycle has raised even more, outpacing the traditional party players.
In the 2018 midterms, only five super PACs raised more than $50 million over the entire cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics, with four of the five being each party’s traditional caucus-aligned groups. Now, at least seven super PACs have already exceeded that threshold, according to a POLITICO tally, with the midterm election cycle only starting to heat up.
The latest filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission for Wednesday’s first-quarter filing deadline don’t even encompass the full scope of the new money — a few groups have launched in the past few weeks and won’t reveal their finances until later this year.
Meet the new players:
AI
The newest crop includes super PACs representing rival factions of the artificial intelligence industry, with groups popping up in the past few months that have begun spending millions of dollars on primaries across the country.
The biggest so far is Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC founded in August, which brought in another $25 million during the last quarter from Marc Andreessen and Benjamin Horowitz of the venture capital firm A16Z, bringing the group’s total haul this cycle to more than $75 million. Through a network of connected PACs, the group has spent millions on primaries in Texas, Illinois and New York.
Even with that spending, the group’s cash on hand — $51 million — rivals that of the Congressional Leadership Fund and HMP, the behemoth House super PACs that are traditionally among the largest midterms spenders.
Another network of AI-linked PACs — Public First, Jobs and Democracy PAC and Defending Our Values — collectively brought in a bit over $5 million in the first quarter. Their backers include a nonprofit linked to the firm Anthropic, which pitches itself as a champion of ethics in the AI industry and has battled with the Trump administration over military use of its products.
The AI-linked PACs are in some cases at odds with one another: Think Big, an affiliate of Leading the Future, opposes New York state Rep. Alex Bores in the open Democratic primary for the state’s 12th Congressional District, while Jobs and Democracy PAC supports him.
Additional AI-linked PACs — including one for Anthropic employees and another super PAC called ANTHROPPAC — registered with the FEC in early April, and thus won’t have to report fundraising numbers until July.
Cryptocurrency
The AI industry isn’t even positioned to be the biggest spender this cycle: Fairshake, a pro-cryptocurrency PAC primarily funded by Coinbase and Ripple Labs, had $171 million in the bank at the end of February, according to reports from last month. (The group won’t file its March report until next week.) The PAC launched in the 2024 cycle as part of a network of groups that quickly became a force, spending more than $100 million in House and Senate primaries and battleground general elections across party lines.
Fairshake and its affiliated groups, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, have sought to boost both Democrats and Republicans aligned with its agenda for cryptocurrency regulation. They are once again expected to back people in both parties and have spent across a half-dozen contested primaries this year.
The Fairshake super PACs are particularly known for deploying more than $40 million to defeat three-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio during the 2024 election. Brown is running for Senate again this year, and another major effort from the crypto groups to block him could make a large difference in a pivotal race for control of the Senate.
Another new cryptocurrency-linked group, Fellowship PAC, launched in August and brought in its first $11 million in the first quarter, $10 million of which came from Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm formerly run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The flood of crypto cash comes as the industry is locked in its biggest fight yet in Washington, with lobbyists and executives pushing lawmakers to advance a bill that would establish rules around the industry but has drawn pushback from big banks. It also comes as Democrats have called for the legislation to include ethics provisions that would crack down on the Trump family’s burgeoning crypto empire.
Other players and their impact
Of course, being able to spend cash doesn’t guarantee any group’s preferred candidates will win. And the ballooning amounts of money and new groups could complicate the electoral picture, especially as major players spend against each other.
In Illinois, Fairshake opposed Democratic Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who prevailed in last month’s Senate primary against two House members, and state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who won the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Danny Davis.
In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee staved off a tough primary challenge from her left last month after benefiting from spending by Jobs and Democracy PAC, among other outside spenders.
And other new players keep emerging: Win for America, a super PAC backed by sports betting companies and founded in November, reported raising $41 million in the first quarter of the year, with that total coming entirely from three companies: DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics. It’s focused so far on state legislative races.
The traditional party players still have cash too: Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC affiliated with Senate Republican leadership, brought in a whopping $72 million in the first quarter and sits with $166 million cash on hand. Its House counterpart, Congressional Leadership Fund, brought in $38 million and has $54 million in the bank.
Democratic super PACs raked in funds, too: SMP, aligned with Democratic Senate leadership, brought in $56 million in the first quarter and had just shy of $75 million in the bank. HMP, the main Democratic House super PAC, had $53.6 million at the end of February.
Still, the biggest super PAC of all is President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc., which brought in $297 million since the start of last year. Its funders include a handful of cryptocurrency donors and AI executives, along with other business interests. The group had $312 million in the bank at the end of February, but has not disclosed how it plans to spend those funds.
Declan Harty and Gabby Miller contributed to this report.
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