Where AI money worked in the midterms - Semafor

AI-funded super PACs saw mixed effectiveness in Tuesday’s midterm elections, while the newly launched Guardrails Alliance PAC, which promotes AI rules, went 5-0 in its spending. Leading the Future, an AI advocacy group, spent $4.8 million supporting Republican Darline Graham’s bid to replace her late brother in the Senate. Graham lost; Democratic winner Annie Andrews dubbed her “Data Center Darline” during the campaign.

Leading the Future’s other spending in the general helped propel Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., to victory despite redistricting, but Republican House candidates the super PAC supported lost, per Wired.

The other major AI-related and Anthropic-affiliated super PAC, Public First Action, spent $20 million in the general election, somewhat successfully. It backed winners Rep. Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., Rep.-elect Brian Poindexter in Ohio, Rep.-elect Manny Rutinel in Colorado, and Rep.-elect Scott Wiener in California. The Republicans backed by Public First’s network lost.

Guardrails Alliance spent more than $3.1 million total opposing five candidates who lost, the group announced. But money could not buy influence on the most salient AI-related outcome of the election: local ballot measures curbing data center development, about 40 of which passed across the country on Tuesday.

The ballot initiatives coincide with hyperscalers’ scramble to figure out a way forward in certain jurisdictions and overhaul their messaging around the projects.

One GOP operative told Semafor that Leading the Future was taken by surprise by the success of the data center ballot measures and had not put any resources into fighting them.

“We’re proud that many of the pro-innovation champions we supported this cycle won on Tuesday,” Leading the Future spokesman Jesse Hunt said. “Our investments are about building a durable coalition that can advance a national regulatory framework, unleash American innovation, and ensure workers, families, and communities are protected.”

“We are committed to a multi-cycle effort and 2028 will show who actually cares about passing a national regulatory framework on AI and who wants to politicize an issue that’s extremely consequential to the future of our country,” he continued.