Why AI groups are spending millions to influence midterms

Summary

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The NPR Politics Podcast

Episode: Why AI groups are spending millions to influence midterms

Date: June 23, 2026
Hosts/Reporters: Tamara Keith, Eric McDaniel, Shannon Bond

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the unprecedented surge in political spending by groups connected to the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Focusing on the current midterm elections, the episode explores why AI companies are funneling millions into congressional and state races, how they're doing it, and what impact it could have on future AI regulation in the United States. The hosts analyze a particularly heated New York congressional primary to illustrate the high-stakes battle between AI industry factions, and unpack the broader regulatory and public perception challenges facing AI.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The AI Industry’s Political Playbook (00:29–02:04)

• AI as a Major Political Player:

  • AI firms are pouring tens of millions into elections, hoping to influence who will write the rules that will govern their industry.
  • Shannon Bond: “This year's midterm elections have become kind of a proxy battle in this ongoing war over how AI should be regulated … The AI companies and AI interests are not waiting around for a bill to be on the table. They really want to be involved in picking who is going to write that kind of legislation.” (00:43)

• Numbers on Spending:

  • AI-focused Super PACs have spent over $43 million on congressional races this cycle, according to Open Secrets. Even more is being spent in key states like California and Texas.

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2. Spotlight: New York’s Contentious 12th District Race (02:04–06:57)

• Why This Race Matters:

  • The race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler is seeing huge AI money because it's in a major media market and features candidates directly tied to AI policy.
  • Notable Candidate: Alex Boris, a state assemblyman and former Palantir employee (Palantir: big AI firm with government contracts).
  • Pro- and anti-regulation AI interests have made this race a focal point, pushing total outside spending to $25–26 million—astounding for a safe Democratic seat.

• Factions: Pro-Regulation vs. Anti-Regulation (03:20)

  • Shannon Bond: “Almost all of this outside spending ... is coming from two groups ... broadly aligned with OpenAI on one side and Anthropic on the other.”
  • OpenAI/Leading the Future: Wants a national/federal regulatory approach, warns patchwork state rules will harm innovation and US competitiveness. Backed by OpenAI investors (e.g., Andreessen Horowitz).
  • Anthropic/Public First: Supports more robust regulation, including at the state level, and explicitly positions itself against Leading the Future.
  • Both groups have together spent over $20 million in the race.

• On Ad Transparency and Tactics:

  • Shannon Bond: “It's a bit of a mixed bag. Some ... pointed out specifically, we don’t want this ... state patchwork of rules. ... But they've also just taken much more straightforward political attacks, criticizing his past employment at Palantir, just really going very personal.” (05:54)

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3. The Big Picture: Lessons and Implications for AI Influence (06:57–07:44)

• Industry Influence Still Unwritten:
  • Eric McDaniel: “All this money is an acknowledgment that the future on AI is still unwritten from a regulatory perspective. ... There's a lot of opportunity to influence not just what the rules are, but who is writing them ... which is why we're seeing all this campaign spending.” (07:14)

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4. Public Perception and Political Strategy (08:58–10:34)

• Public Distrust Growing:

  • Pew poll: Two-thirds of Americans feel AI is advancing too quickly; more expect negative effects than positives.

• AI Firms’ Motivations:

  • Eric McDaniel: “I don't think [the campaign spending] is about public perception. This is mostly self-interest ... every AI company has a lot of interest on the federal rules that will govern how they operate their businesses.” (09:23)

• Long-term Risks:

  • If the public isn’t convinced about AI, it could stymie investment and government support—especially in the race vs. China.

• Contrast With Social Media Regulation:

  • AI enters the scene with much less public goodwill than social media firms once enjoyed.

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5. The Regulatory Landscape: Gridlock, State vs. Federal, and Partisan Dynamics (10:34–14:44)

• Why No Federal AI Law Yet:

  • “No. 1 I talked to thought regulation was coming this year before the midterm elections. It's too complex to sort out ... too many big questions on approach remain.” – Eric McDaniel (10:56)
  • The main fight isn’t about the substance of regulations, but whether Congress or states should take the lead.

• Not a Typical Partisan Divide:

  • Industry-tied boosters (from both left and right) generally oppose state-by-state regulation.
  • Pro-consumer and populist corners (also bipartisan) advocate for stronger, state-level guardrails.

• Expert Voices:

  • Adam Kovacevich, Chamber of Progress: “We can do things like set standards for frontier models, for algorithmic discrimination ... Unfortunately, we’re seeing a creep of blue state laws ... which end up becoming a de facto national standard. But that's not the best way to regulate AI.” (12:28)
  • Daniel Cochran, Family First Tech Initiative: “...states like Texas and Florida and Utah, they've been leading the charge to hold these companies accountable. We need them to be able to respond quickly. And that’s really what our federalist system is designed to allow.” (13:23)

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6. Learning From the Crypto Playbook (14:44–16:18)

• AI Emulates Crypto’s 2024 Strategy:

  • Major PAC money from crypto in 2024 netted them legislative wins and new allies in Congress, including favorable executive action by President Trump.
  • Overlap between crypto and AI super PAC donors/strategists signals AI is betting similarly on campaign influence.

• Shannon Bond: “They're taking a page from the crypto playbook ... there is a return on investment ... in terms of putting money into elections to help choose ... the people who are going to be at the table and who are going to be making these laws.” (14:44)

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7. AI Already Has Influence—Money Is Only Part of the Story (16:05–17:26)

• Beyond Campaign Cash:

  • AI firms have direct White House access, seat at international policy tables (e.g., G7, meetings with the Pope).
  • Massive uptick in lobbying: OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, and Nvidia spent nearly $51 million last year on lobbying. Already, Q1 spending for some has quadrupled.

• Significance of Spending:

  • Shannon Bond: “All of this money is coming in all over the place ... these amounts of money, we're talking about millions, when they're looking at their balance sheets, are not maybe significant to them in terms of what they could see getting out of spending this money in Washington.” (16:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Shannon Bond, on motivation:
  “They [AI industry] really want to be involved in picking who is going to write that kind of legislation.” (00:43)

• Eric McDaniel, on the point of PAC money:
  “There's a lot of opportunity to influence not just what the rules are, but who is writing them, which is why we're seeing all this campaign spending.” (07:14)

• Shannon Bond, on tech rivalries extending to politics:
  “Anthropic was actually founded by dissidents who left OpenAI because they felt like the company wasn't focused enough on safety.” (04:17)

• Eric McDaniel, on policy gridlock:
  “No. 1 I talked to thought regulation was coming this year before the midterm elections. It's too complex to sort out ... too many big questions on approach remain.” (10:56)

• Shannon Bond, on emulating crypto lobbying:
  “They're taking a page from the crypto playbook ... there is a return on investment ... in terms of putting money into elections.” (14:44)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:29 — Episode theme introduction
• 00:43 — Shannon Bond on the AI industry's campaign spending
• 02:24 — Why New York’s 12th district is a battleground
• 03:34 — Breakdown of AI-aligned Super PACs & strategies
• 05:54 — Are campaign ads transparently AI-funded?
• 07:14 — What AI money acknowledges about regulatory uncertainty
• 08:58 — Does campaign spending address public concern?
• 10:34 — Congressional gridlock, state vs. federal authority
• 12:28 — Policy group perspectives on regulation
• 14:44 — AI's adoption of the crypto industry playbook
• 16:05 — AI’s multi-faceted influence: lobbying and White House ties

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Conclusion

The episode exposes the scale and sophistication of AI industry political engagement as it jockeys to shape the US regulatory environment. Highlighting both the record campaign spending and the strategic divisions within the industry (OpenAI vs. Anthropic), the reporters make clear that this influence campaign is just beginning. Listeners are left with the sense that the battle over AI’s future in American society will be fought not just in tech labs, but on the campaign trail and in the corridors of power—with deep pockets and determined lobbyists on every side.

Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Tamara Keith]

Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.

[Eric McDaniel]

I'm Eric McDaniel, I cover Congress.

[Shannon Bond]

And I'm Shannon Bond. I cover technology.

[Tamara Keith]

Today on the show, groups linked to the artificial intelligence industry are spending tens of millions of dollars to shape congressional races this year. Shannon, there is a lot of money in politics. What's the AI industry's play here?

[Shannon Bond]

Yeah, I mean, this industry is just the latest to realize that if you spend money on, on getting candidates elected, that might have good outcomes for you. But we're really seeing is that this year's midterm elections have become kind of a proxy battle in this sort of ongoing war over how AI should be regulated. You know, and there is, you know, widespread bipartisan recognition in Congress that lawmakers, you know, do need to set some rules around this technology, which is, you know, being developed really quickly, being deployed really quickly has huge consequences for the economy, for jobs, for people's energy bills. At the same time, despite that, that bipartisan consensus, all efforts to advance federal legislation so far have stalled out. But the AI companies and AI interests are not waiting around for a bill to be on the table. They really want to be involved in picking who is going to write that kind of legislation. So what we've seen is that AI focused super PACs have already spent over $43 million on congressional races this cycle. That's according to Open Secrets, which tracks campaign spending. And then there is even more being spent when you add in local races, states like California, Texas, where there is a lot of interest among state lawmakers about regulating AI. And so we're just seeing lots and lots of and it's breaking down in pretty interesting ways among these companies.

[Tamara Keith]

And this is playing out in a big way in one race that you guys have been following quite closely. It's the race to replace the retiring Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler. He's from New York City. Eric, that primary is today. Can you just explain why this race in particular is getting so much AI money?

[Eric McDaniel]

I mean, in part, the reason there's so much money here is It's New York's 12th congressional district, which is right in the heart of Manhattan. You need a lot of money to get any attention at all. The other one is because one of the men running is a prominent State assemblyman who helped lead the charge on state AI regulation there. His name is Alex Boris. He's an ex Palantir employee, which is a big AI firm and prominent government contractor founded by Trump ally billionaire Peter Thiel. The lax regulation folks have helped to raise Boris profile with the amount of money they've spent attacking him. Then the pro safety standard AI folks threw in their cash to defend him. So now we've seen, I don't know, 25 or $26 million in this race. And now Boris is in a dead heat with a former Mayor Bloomberg staffer, Micah Lasher. And that's despite all of the other really famous names in the race, like George Conway or Kennedy scion Jack Sloshberg.

[Tamara Keith]

I think they are Internet famous if nothing else. Yeah, there you go, Shannon. Eric mentioned that there are like pro regulation and anti regulation AI groups. Can you just like, help untangle who these groups are that are spending money in this primary?

[Shannon Bond]

Almost all of this outside spending that's come in is coming from two groups, and they are broadly aligned with OpenAI on one side and Anthropic on the other side. Those are like the two big leading US AI companies.

[Tamara Keith]

That's ChatGPT and Claude.

[Shannon Bond]

Exactly. So they compete over everything. Right? Like customers for their chatbots, investors. They're both planning to go public later this year. They compete over staff. They have wildly different approaches, in a way, when it comes to thinking about how AI should be built, commercialized, governed. Anthropic was actually founded by dissidents who left OpenAI because they felt like the company wasn't focused enough on safety. And so you have these two networks of PACs that are affiliated with these two sides. So on the one hand, there is Leading the Future. It was funded by OpenAI investors, big investors Andreessen Horowitz, as well as the company's president, Greg Brockman. And then you have Public first, which is funded in part by Anthropic and has been explicitly positioned in opposition to Leading the Future. So Leading the Future was the one who came in initially opposing boris in New York 12 and basically kind of targeting him because he was involved in this state legislation. It has taken this position, really highlighting the risks. You know, if we get regulation wrong, it'll be a risk to innovation, it'll be a risk to the US winning the AI race with China. It's argued for a national approach, sort of a federal framework of AI safety and regulation versus what it calls a patchwork of state rules. And then Anthropic aligned Public first has really kind of more lined up with Anthropic's position, generally supporting more regulation, including at the state level. And so it came in defending Boris. And so together they have now spent more than $20 million in this primary. You know, as Eric said in that's a safe blue seat, yes, in an expensive media market. But like, this is just, you know, the kind of money you're not typically seeing, you know, in this kind of race.

[Tamara Keith]

And I should note here that Anthropic is a financial supporter of npr. Shannon, I'm wondering, if you're just like a regular person at home watching tv, are you going to be able to tell from the ads that they are being funded by AI companies or people allied with AI?

[Shannon Bond]

It's a bit of a mixed bag. So, you know, some of the early ads against Boris from this group aligned with OpenAI investors pointed out specifically, we don't want this to state patchwork of rules. This is the wrong approach to AI regulation. But they've also just taken much more straightforward political attacks criticizing his past employment at Palantir, just really going very personal and then talking about other issues. Actually, ironically, there was a recent ad that was highlighting he's not being funded from people in New York, it's coming from AI companies in California. You know, an ad brought to you by an AI company in California, that's amazing.

[Tamara Keith]

But also just like sort of classic campaign money.

[Shannon Bond]

Exactly. And so, you know, it's a little bit all over the place. Boris has talked about his approach and, you know, this is his sort of his signature legislation, this state bill. But certainly AI is not like the main theme of this race, despite the fact that so much of this outside money coming in is coming from AI groups.

[Tamara Keith]

All right, well, we are going to have the results of that New York race. Many others on the pod tomorrow. But one thing I'm wondering, given that AI is on both sides in this race, when the dust settles with this one, do you think there'll be any lessons that can be drawn about the political influence of this industry?

[Eric McDaniel]

Just at the 30,000 foot level? This is all kind of an acknowledgment. All this money is an acknowledgment that the future on AI is still unwritten from a regulatory perspective. Right. These companies know that everyone in Washington at this point agrees that AI is too big to ignore. The White House has been involved. Congress has been having task forces and chit chats and fire side whatevers, but they've not moved from the chalkboard or the drafting table to the permanent record yet. So there's a lot of opportunity to influence not just what the rules are, but who is writing them, which is why we're seeing all this campaign spending.

[Tamara Keith]

All right. Well, we are going to have more on that aspect of it when we get back, but we're going to take a quick break right now.

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[Eric McDaniel]

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[Tamara Keith]

And we're back. And a recent poll from Pew found two thirds of Americans say AI is advancing too quickly and more people expect negative effects from AI on themselves and society than think it will be a positive. So I'm wondering, is all this spending on congressional campaigns part of trying to address this public perception problem?

[Eric McDaniel]

I don't think so. I mean, I think this is mostly self interest, right? Like anthropic and open. OpenAI and every other AI company has a lot of interest on the federal rules that will govern how they operate their businesses. But it is a concern for lawmakers and policy advocates who are weighing in on all of this because if the public isn't bought in to either the approach to regulating AI or AI itself, then you know all of the things that people interested in the United States economy and like general life in the country aren't going to be able to deploy it in the way they want to. If you don't believe in AI or data center expansion and all of those things, then it's going to be really hard for you to get behind, like investing a lot of Money in beating China in an AI race. Right.

[Tamara Keith]

Like investing federal money, right?

[Eric McDaniel]

Yeah. Or just like devoting federal attention and like figuring out how to, you know, support say, scientific research into AI or any of those things. Right. Like if, if the government and AI companies don't eventually invest into getting the public on board, then the whole regulatory environment is going to be much different than I think, you know, any one of these companies would hope for.

[Tamara Keith]

You know, it strikes me that in the beginning, social media companies, which were a new technology many years ago, they had a bit of a halo around them and it took a while for the public sentiment to turn on them. But with AI, public sentiment starts out in a much worse place than it started out with those companies.

[Eric McDaniel]

Yeah, I think that's right. And AI is a little bit different than social media in that it is, I think, much more aligned with like traditional business and industry generally. Right. It's not like considered a domain of like, I don't know, like fun or recreation or whatever kind of social media and Facebook started out as. Right. This is kind of explicitly part of the professional world now. And there are two things to know with, like where this is starting in Congress. One is no. 1 I talked to thought regulation was coming this year before the midterm elections. It's too complex to sort out with tiny majorities during a campaign season. Too many big questions on approach remain. And two, the big fight right now at least isn't what rules to put in place, but how much should be done by Congress versus the State House. And this is an issue that Shannon talked about with these groups weighing in on right, differences of opinion within the AI industry. And it's also not a partisan red versus blue fight. The split is more kind of industry boosters who see this as a competition with China and a way to grow the economy and all of those things. And more. I don't know, I might call it like populist or pro consumer, tighter guardrails, folks who are more worried about safety and economic opportunity. If I had to characterize it, I'd say many Republicans want to limit states from making rules, to limit the overall number of regulations that these AI companies have to contend with. But there are also some folks on the left who want limits on states to avoid a patchwork of rules. One of those folks is Adam Kovacevich. He's founder and CEO of this group called Chamber of Progress, which is a center left tech policy group. And he outlined to me the federal rules he wants to see and the concerns he has with state Regulations, we can do things like set standards for frontier models, for algorithmic discrimination, for transparency, for fairness, for. And unfortunately we're seeing a creep of blue state laws on those topics, which end up becoming kind of a de facto national standard. But that's not the best way to regulate AI. Then you've got folks from the more conservative policy world and progressive policy world who want to see states be able to exercise their own judgment here because historically states have moved more quickly on regulation. Here's Daniel Cochran. He's a senior fellow at the Family First Tech Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. The group says it works to strengthen family life and advance the welfare of children. What we've seen over and over again is that while Congress has essentially fiddled under the influence of big tech lobbyists, states like Texas and Florida and Utah, they've been leading the charge to hold these companies accountable. We need them to be able to respond quickly. And that's really what our federalist system is designed to allow. So obviously a lot of contours here. It's not red versus blue straight up. And there's a lot of opportunity I think we'll see after the midterms for cross party work.

[Tamara Keith]

Huh? I mean, so I, part of me is very skeptical because I have followed Congress's attempts to regulate other industries and they often, especially when it's a new technology, get tied in knots and then don't really do anything. And I think that there's kind of a long history of that. Is this any different?

[Eric McDaniel]

I mean, it hasn't happened yet. Right. Like there was a report during the 118th Congress. We're in 119th now, so say 18 months ago on an AI task force. And we haven't seen legislation move, we haven't seen action this Congress outside of some proposed ideas on children's safety related stuff and some deep fake legislation. But I mean, I think this is going to become just too massive a part of the US economy not to touch at all.

[Shannon Bond]

And I think the other thing we're seeing is that, you know, the AI companies are looking around, seeing what has worked for other industries and you know, a big thing happening here. They're taking a page from the crypto playbook. So, you know, back in 2024, there were super PACs aligned with the crypto industry that spent more than $100 million in elections that year and, you know, got results. They helped get several pro crypto candidates elected. You know, Congress has passed a bill favorable to the industry. You know, Trump has signed executive orders Favor industry. And, you know, it's pretty explicit, this playbook. There's lots of overlaps here. So there's one of the big Pro crypto super PACs, you know, has shares, donors with Leading the Future, the pack, backed by OpenAI investors. And one of the strategists of that, of that pack is a spokesperson for this crypto pack. So, you know, they've seen that there is a return on investment in terms of putting money into elections to help choose, as Eric says, you know, the people who are going to be at the table and who are going to be making these laws.

[Tamara Keith]

Well, and President Trump was as explicitly pro crypto a candidate as you could get.

[Shannon Bond]

Exactly, Exactly. You know, where he falls in AI, I think, is a much more complicated question, as we've seen with the administration's ongoing fight with Anthropic. Yeah, that's a whole nother podcast.

[Tamara Keith]

That is a whole nother podcast. But, you know, I do think that we should be clear that although AI is spending a lot of money in these elections to have influence, it's not like they don't already have a seat at the table.

[Shannon Bond]

That's right.

[Tamara Keith]

They are in open conversations with the White House. They, you know, executives were at the table with leading at the G7 meeting, the meeting of the world's leading economies. The CEO of Anthropic was with the Pope. I mean, they're at the table. Yeah.

[Shannon Bond]

And they're already spending a lot of money lobbying. Right. So just looking at lobbying disclosures, you know, last year, just four companies, OpenAI, Meta Alphabet, which is the parent of Google, and Nvidia, which is a big AI chip maker. They spent almost $51 million lobbying members of Congress. That's according to issue one. They've just been hiring more lobbyists. And then we're seeing that already increasing this year. So Anthropics already more than quadrupled its lobbying spending in the first quarter. OpenAI nearly doubled it. So all of this money is coming in all over the place, and they have major investments. And so in a way, you know, these amounts of money we're talking about millions, when they're looking at their balance sheets are not maybe significant to them in terms of what they could see the getting out of spending this money in Washington and on campaigns.

[Tamara Keith]

All right, let's leave it there for today. And I should note that Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is also a financial supporter of NPR. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.

[Eric McDaniel]

I'm Eric McDaniel. I cover Congress.

[Shannon Bond]

And I'm Shannon Bond, I cover technology.

[Tamara Keith]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

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This is Eric Glass on this American Life. One thing we like is a good mystery sometimes about really big things. But most times the little mysteries are the best.

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Our lost and found is currently filled with pants.

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I've never seen this happen.

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