Biggest Pro-AI Super PAC Network Made Little Impact on the Midterms
Leading the Future, the largest pro-AI political spending network in the US, ended the midterms with many winning candidates but achieved little in the riskier races. Its goal of shaping the election outcome largely fell short.
In the US congressional midterm elections, Leading the Future, the largest pro-artificial intelligence (AI) super PAC network, has come out of the cycle with just over $20 million left in the bank and dozens of winning candidates from both major parties. A super PAC is a political fundraising group that may spend money to support candidates without formally coordinating with their campaigns. At first glance that looks like a success, but a Wired analysis points to a different picture: the money mostly went to safe candidates, while results in the few riskier contests were poor.
How the network began
Leading the Future appeared in August 2025 with a war chest of about $100 million, supplied by prominent Silicon Valley figures including Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and OpenAI's Greg Brockman. The network includes American Mission, which mostly funds Republicans, and Think Big, which mostly funds Democrats. Its structure drew comparisons to Fairshake, the pro-crypto network that dominated the 2024 election.
The results
The network spent millions on attack ads against Democrat Alex Bores, a former Palantir engineer and state lawmaker who ran in New York's 12th district on an AI safety platform. Bores lost to Micah Lasher but finished second, while Public First, an AI safety network, put $15 million into his campaign. Across the primaries, Leading the Future spent about $26 million in independent expenditures, but only about $10 million for the general election. It reported no donations in the second and third quarters.
In South Carolina, Republican Darline Graham, backed with more than $2 million from American Mission, lost with 46.5% to Democrat Annie Andrews. In North Carolina, Democrat Don Davis won, even though the network had backed his Republican rival in the primary. In Florida, Jared Moskowitz won by 13,000 votes.
Polling shows widespread distrust of Big Tech. Democrats have already vowed to call tech executives to hearings in Congress.
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