The AI Industry Is Buying Elections — Just Don't Mention AI

Tens of millions of dollars from the AI industry are flooding the 2026 midterms. The ads are about immigration, healthcare, and Trump. Not a single one mentions artificial intelligence. That's not an accident.

Two rival super PAC networks — one backed by OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the other funded by Anthropic to the tune of at least $20 million — are already waging a proxy war in Texas, North Carolina, and New York primaries. The stated goal on both sides is to shape how AI gets regulated in America. The actual ads are about everything else.

The Oldest Trick in Political Spending

This is a well-worn playbook. Crypto did it. Big Oil did it. AIPAC does it. You back candidates who share your policy goals, but you win their races on wedge issues that actually move primary voters. Immigration. Healthcare. Trump. The issues that make people feel something in the voting booth.

Leading the Future — the Brockman/Andreessen network — has $39 million banked and is running ads attacking a pro-AI-safety candidate in New York's Democratic primary by hammering him over his former employer's ICE contracts. The irony: that employer was Palantir, co-founded by Joe Lonsdale, who supports the very group running the attack ad.

Public First — the Anthropic network — responded with ads calling those attacks the work of "right-wing billionaires" trying to buy a congressional seat. Neither ad mentions Claude. Neither ad mentions ChatGPT. Neither ad mentions the regulatory fight that is, per both groups' own statements, existential for the future of the industry.

What They're Actually Fighting Over

Strip away the ad copy and the stakes are clear. One faction — broadly the Silicon Valley deregulation camp — wants a single national framework for AI, free from a patchwork of state regulations that could slow deployment. The other — broadly the safety-first camp — wants meaningful federal oversight with real teeth.

These are not trivial differences. They represent fundamentally incompatible visions for how much unchecked power AI companies should have over the systems that will touch every American's job, healthcare, financial life, and civic participation.

The fact that this fight is being waged through ads about ICE raids and the Affordable Care Act tells you something important: the industry knows that if voters understood what was actually being decided, the politics would get considerably harder.

Why This Should Matter to Every Marketer and Growth Leader

The regulatory outcome of these races will directly determine what AI tools you can build with, how your customer data can be used, what liability you carry for AI-generated content, and how quickly new capabilities reach the market.

If you're building marketing strategy around AI — and at this point, who isn't — the policy environment these elections shape is your operating environment. A national deregulatory framework looks very different from a state-by-state patchwork. The companies funding these races understand that. Most marketing teams don't.

Pay attention to who wins these primaries. The spending happening right now is an industry telling you, in the clearest possible terms, how much the regulatory outcome is worth to them. The number is in the tens of millions — and climbing.

Democracy, it turns out, is also an AI story.

Winsome Marketing helps growth teams build AI strategies that are built to last — regardless of what the regulatory environment brings. Let's talk.