Artificial intelligence remains deeply unpopular with the American public. One poll found it’s even more reviled than ICE, which is no small feat given the mass protests that erupt whenever the agency’s goons march into another US city.
A few political action groups are hoping to turn that around. Going into the 2026 midterm elections, the Financial Times reports, newly-formed PACs with major tech industry backing are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to shape how voters think about AI regulation.
Some of the groups cast a wide net, like Leading the Future, a super PAC backed by Trump donors and AI barons like OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and tech venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz. Founded in August of 2025, Leading the Future has raised over $125 million to back pro-AI candidates who oppose state-level regulations, according to the FT.
Others, like the pro-regulation PAC Public First Action, serve as vehicles for individual AI companies to push their agendas. Backed solely by Anthropic, this group aims to raise $75 million to boost candidates who want to preserve state’s individual rights to regulate AI. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta also has its own pet super PAC, the American Technology Excellence Project, which aims to spend $65 million on state-level candidates who will “defend American tech leadership at home and abroad” — a fluffy way of saying “oppose AI regulation.”
This jockeying over states’ rights to regulate AI is the key question in the 2026 PAC wars. Though Republicans have largely staked their flag as the party of small government — which was always a selective attitude, to be fair — Donald Trump is now pushing for a major expansion of federal power. His latest AI framework seeks to concentrate regulatory authority over the tech at the executive level, which would effectively strip all 50 states of oversight power.
Bankrolling that push is Innovation Council Action, a hawkish super PAC backed by Trump advisor and PayPal mafioso David Sacks and led by former Trump communications aide Taylor Budowich. The newly formed group plans to spend at least $100 million supporting candidates who aren’t just pro-AI, but who will commit to carrying out Trump’s consolidation agenda, exclusively.
That PAC marks a major challenge to groups like Leading the Future, which Trump and his cabinet found to be insufficiently loyal.
“President Trump has made it clear, America will win the AI race against China, period,” Budowich told Fox. “He built the framework, he’s leading from the front, and this organization exists to make sure he doesn’t fight that battle alone. The cavalry is coming to back up the policymakers who stand with the president and will hold accountable the ones who don’t.”
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