The new kingmakers: Crypto, AI and betting firms fuel record spending on the 2026 midterms

By Dawn Kopecki

NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) – A handful of billionaires and companies are driving corporate spending in U.S. midterm elections this year, and they aren’t the usual power brokers who have sat atop the political food chain in Washington in previous decades.

Crypto companies, artificial intelligence firms and online betting have emerged as the biggest industries shaping the 2026 midterm races, driving a record amount of business spending on congressional contests, according to campaign finance watchdogs and interviews with more than a dozen political strategists from both parties.

The new money surging into U.S. politics comes from a fresh class of billionaires hailing from industries that barely existed a generation ago, occupying territory traditionally held by Wall Street, along with the pharmaceutical, oil and media industries, strategists from both parties say.

As lawmakers across the country press for more scrutiny and regulation of these industries, their founders are deploying their newfound wealth to win allies, shape rules and push back on those efforts.

U.S. companies have spent an unprecedented $517 million on the 2026 U.S. House and Senate races in the 15 months through the end of the first quarter, exceeding the record $461 million in corporate spending over two years for the 2024 elections, data compiled by corporate accountability nonprofit group Public Citizen shows.

And that’s before the blitz of campaign spending expected in the closing stretch of the November 3 elections, when Democrats hope to wrest control of both the House and Senate.

“The scale of corporate spending in this election cycle is unlike anything we’ve seen previously,” said Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen.

Critics argue the spending risks amplifying the influence of a small group of niche interests and allowing issues like crypto and AI regulation, data-center energy demands and online gambling oversight to crowd out more pocketbook issues like high gas prices and healthcare. Supporters say it gives emerging sectors a voice other corporate interests have long enjoyed.

“When corporate money can inundate the political discourse, there’s less room for talk about what people really care about,” Claypool said. “Instead, you have the situation that we have in Congress now where they are spending an inordinate amount of time discussing the niche regulatory policy problems related to crypto while people really just want cheaper groceries.”

Still, there are limits to what money can do. Polls show a majority of Americans feel there is too much money in politics and progressive Democratic Senate candidates like James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan have successfully built campaigns on the argument that wealthy donors and companies exert too much influence in Washington.

NO LIMITS

Together, crypto, tech and online gaming industry donations accounted for at least $294 million of the corporate spending on midterm races from January 1, 2025 through the first quarter, Public Citizen found.

In an approach pioneered by the crypto industry in the last election cycle, these industries have structured their campaign giving through a vast network of so-called super PACs, affiliate PACs — which get their money from the super PACs — and dark money nonprofits, which do not have to disclose who their donors are. Companies and founders often donate across those networks, as well as directly to specific candidates.

The groups can take unlimited sums but cannot give directly to or coordinate with candidates. Instead, they can pay for advertising, organize voter drives and sponsor campaign rallies.

Executives running those companies have directly spent millions more, such as the more than $90 million SpaceX founder Elon Musk has already put toward the 2026 federal elections — with plans to spend far more by November. Google co-founder Sergey Brin also spent over $106 million in California fighting a proposed wealth tax among other state issues, federal and state filings show. Brin and Musk did not return requests for comment.

Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, has donated $65 million to four different super PACs to spend backing candidates from both parties on state races in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere. The company declined to comment for this article.

Counting all political spending, including donations from billionaires like Musk, labor groups and social causes, a record $11.6 billion is expected to be spent on political ads for the midterms, breaking the 2023-2024 cycle’s previous record of $11.2 billion, according to political advertising research firm AdImpact.

POLITICAL DISRUPTORS

Crypto companies Coinbase and Ripple, along with investor Andreessen Horowitz, spent heavily in 2024 through their Fairshake super PAC to help unseat longtime incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown from his Senate seat in Ohio.

The crypto industry’s strategy was so effective that year that Public Citizen called its super PAC Fairshake a corporate Death Star that could “annihilate individual candidates.” Its playbook — which bucked tradition by refusing to align with solely one party — is being copied now by Big Tech, sports betting and other industries, Democratic and Republican strategists say.

Instead, the industry openly backed candidates that supported its policies — regardless of party — and spent millions to end the political careers of those who didn’t.

As then-chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Brown was one of the industry’s most vocal critics in Congress, but strategists say he’s been quiet on crypto as he seeks a return to the Senate, even conciliatory. Campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer said in a statement to Reuters that Brown “recognizes that cryptocurrency is part of America’s economy” and is keeping an open mind.

Fairshake started the year with a $193 million war chest, and has about $130 million left to spend, filings show. It was financed almost entirely by Coinbase and Ripple as well as California venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

That firm’s co-founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen have each donated about $4 million of their personal funds so far this election cycle, most of which went to U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, while their investment firm has given more than $81 million to mostly crypto and AI PACs, according to federal election records analyzed by Reuters. At least $23.8 million of that went to Fairshake. The firm and its co-founders declined to comment through a spokesman.

Ripple declined to comment. Coinbase did not respond to a request for comment.

AI ENTERS THE RACE

AI barely registered in the 2024 elections, but has already made its presence felt this time around.

Political groups backed by AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic — which want different types of regulatory oversight — or their executives spent more than $23 million on two competing Democrats in a staunchly liberal New York City district in June alone, according to campaign finance records.

“It was basically two AI groups having it out with each other and the candidates were secondary,” said Brendan Glavin, director at nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.

AI super PAC Leading the Future has raised $140 million for the midterms, a person familiar with the group’s funding said, thanks in part to substantial donations from OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna, along with Andreessen Horowitz.

OpenAI and the Brockmans declined to comment. The company has previously said it doesn’t finance or direct Leading the Future’s activities and that Brockman, his wife and other employees are free to donate in a personal capacity. The couple has also separately donated $25 million to MAGA Inc., filings show.

“We want to be explicit: No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company’s views,” the company said in June.

Anthropic has donated at least $40 million in this election cycle through a dark money nonprofit called Public First Action, which has raised $100 million so far, according to a spokesman who declined to disclose the other donors. About half of its funds go toward elections through two aligned PACs, he said.

The company, which referred questions for this article to the group, is also linked to a super PAC called Public First that has raised an additional $3.9 million, of which $1 million came from Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, federal filings show. Anthropic additionally runs a small traditional PAC called AnthroPAC that takes donations from employees and can directly give to campaigns.

The company has defended its donations to the nonprofit group, saying they are being used to educate the public on policies rather than to support or oppose specific candidates.

“They’ve emulated a lot of what crypto did in 2024,” Glavin said, of the AI industry’s efforts to back candidates seen as supportive while ignoring traditional party lines.

Online sports betting is also copying that playbook as it comes under increased scrutiny and regulatory pressure.

DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics and UK-based sportsbook bet365 have donated more than $72 million to the midterms so far, making the industry the third-largest corporate donor in this cycle, Public Citizen estimates. They are directing the bulk of the money through two affiliate PACs — American Conservative Fund and American Future — to state races where the industry faces the most regulation, filings show.

Prediction market Polymarket separately donated $1 million in June through its corporate parent Blockratize Inc. to a Republican super PAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, filings show.

The betting platforms did not return requests for comment.

Campaign finance watchdogs say the amount of money pouring into this election cycle is staggering.

“One-third of the corporate money that’s been spent since 2010 has been spent in this election cycle and it’s not even over yet,” Claypool said. “The amount of corporate money that’s been poured into these elections is unprecedented.”

(Reporting by Dawn Kopecki in New York, additional reporting by Bo Erickson in Washington, DC. Editing by David Gaffen and Deepa Babington)