Corporate donors poured $517 million into House and Senate races between January 2025 and the close of the first quarter of 2026 — a total that already exceeds the $461 million companies spent across the entire two-year 2024 cycle, according to figures compiled by the watchdog group Public Citizen. Three industries account for most of the jump: cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and online sports betting, whose combined giving has reached more than $294 million.
Layer in billionaire donors and union spending, and the picture gets bigger still. Ad-tracking firm AdImpact now projects the full midterm cycle will hit roughly $11.6 billion in political advertising, topping the $11.2 billion record set during 2023–2024. Some of the personal money behind that number is already public: Elon Musk has put more than $90 million toward this year's federal races, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has spent over $106 million fighting a proposed California wealth tax and related measures, and Meta has handed $65 million to four super PACs supporting candidates from both parties in state contests.
Crypto Built the Playbook — Everyone Else Is Copying It
Cryptocurrency pioneered this cycle's money strategy in 2024, and its infrastructure is now the template other industries are borrowing. The sector's flagship group, Fairshake, entered 2026 holding roughly $193 million, funded overwhelmingly by exchange operator Coinbase, payments company Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. By mid-2026 it still had about $130 million on hand — meaning tens of millions had already gone out the door with plenty left to spend before November. The group operates through separate Democratic- and Republican-leaning affiliates that reward or punish candidates in either party's primary purely on crypto policy, a model industries from AI to gambling are now replicating.
Andreessen Horowitz's reach extends well past Fairshake alone: the firm has directed more than $81 million into crypto- and AI-focused PACs this cycle, with at least $23.8 million of that landing at Fairshake specifically.
Artificial Intelligence Shows Up Late but Spends Fast
AI-aligned political money barely existed in 2024. Now, it's sprinting to catch the crypto industry. Leading the Future — bankrolled in part by OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman, his wife Anna, and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz — had raised over $75 million by June and had already put $23.5 million into races spanning Texas, Georgia, Illinois and Montana. By mid-August, people familiar with its finances said the group's haul had grown to $140 million.
The rivalry has an opposing side, too. Anthropic has funneled at least $40 million into Public First Action, a dark-money nonprofit pushing for tighter AI rules, while an affiliated super PAC called Public First has raised close to $3.9 million, including $1 million given personally by Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei. Anthropic has said the nonprofit money supports public education on policy rather than direct candidate advocacy.
That split has already turned combustible. In a single liberal New York City primary — the 12th Congressional District race where Leading the Future committed roughly $1 million to oppose Assembly member Alex Bores over his AI-safety platform — groups tied to OpenAI and Anthropic spent more than $23 million battling one another in June alone. "It was basically two AI groups having it out with each other and the candidates were secondary," OpenSecrets director Brendan Glavin told reporters.
Sportsbooks Place Their Own Bets
Online betting companies aren't sitting this one out. DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics and UK-based bet365 have collectively steered more than $72 million into Win for America, a super PAC that funnels cash to Democratic- and Republican-aligned affiliates alike. DraftKings alone accounts for at least $34 million of that total, FanDuel roughly $27 million, and bet365 and Fanatics have each added $5.5 million.
Nowhere does industry cash intersect with Latino political power as directly as in South Texas. Five congressional seats reworked by last year's mid-decade redistricting fight — the 15th, 23rd, 28th, 34th and 35th districts — are all majority-Hispanic, and outside groups from both parties are racing to claim them. The Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC has reserved $22 million across the map, while the Congressional Leadership Fund — the House GOP's flagship outside group, closely tied to Speaker Mike Johnson — is spending $13.9 million on offense, including a $10.3 million reservation in the Harlingen media market that covers Spanish-language airtime.
Crypto money has already shaped one of those races directly. Fairshake's Republican-leaning arm, Defend American Jobs, spent $581,172 backing Carlos De La Cruz's winning runoff bid in the newly drawn 35th District — though a separate CoinDesk analysis published the same week put the figure at roughly $607,000, a gap neither report has explained. Leading the Future has also spent in Texas as part of its broader multistate campaign.
Progressive organizers are trying to counter the wave. Somos PAC is committing about $6 million to the fight, including a $4 million ad campaign concentrated in the 15th, 23rd and 35th districts, aimed at winning back Hispanic voters who moved toward Republicans in 2024.
What Has Watchdogs Worried
Campaign finance monitors describe the scale as historically unmatched: roughly a third of all corporate election spending logged since the 2010 Citizens United ruling has arrived within this single cycle — and the year still isn't over. Groups tracking the money warn the trend could push kitchen-table issues like health care, groceries and rent out of the campaign conversation entirely, leaving voters in the most contested districts to work out whose interests all that money is actually serving.
