Crypto and AI Money Is FLOODING the Midterms

August 21, 2026

The most consequential shift in American campaign finance right now isn’t happening in presidential politics at all — it’s happening in the plumbing of congressional primaries, where two industries that barely existed as political forces a decade ago, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, have built super PAC infrastructure large enough to outspend most traditional corporate lobbies combined.

Key Points

Crypto firms had spent $189 million on the 2026 midterm cycle by June 30, while the two largest AI super PACs raised more than $200 million and had deployed at least $44 million to 40 House and Senate candidates by the same point
Public Citizen calculates that crypto, AI, Big Tech, and online betting corporations together account for $294 million, or 57%, of the $517 million in corporate midterm spending reported so far
Fairshake, the dominant crypto-aligned super PAC, is funded overwhelmingly by Coinbase and Ripple Labs and held roughly $171 million in cash at the end of February, after spending more than $100 million on 2024 primaries and general-election races
Independent analysis finds crypto and AI PACs have already reached into more than 70 congressional races across 28 states, indicating the spending is deliberately broad rather than concentrated on one or two marquee contests
The 2024 cycle offers a working precedent: crypto money helped elect Bernie Moreno and shaped competitive Senate races, and by 2026 that same industry playbook — plus a new one written by AI firms — is running at even larger scale

How the Money Moves: Super PACs, Independent Expenditures, and the Fairshake Model

To understand why crypto and AI firms have become dominant midterm spenders, you need to understand the vehicle they’re using. Since Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, corporations and wealthy individuals have been free to give unlimited sums to independent-expenditure-only committees — super PACs — so long as those committees don’t coordinate directly with candidates. That single doctrinal shift, as election-law scholar Richard Briffault has argued, effectively re-validated unlimited private wealth as a force in American elections. Crypto’s answer to that opportunity was Fairshake, a super PAC built primarily on Coinbase and Ripple Labs money, which by the end of February held roughly $171 million in cash and had already proven its capacity: more than $100 million spent across House, Senate, and battleground races in the 2024 cycle alone.

What makes Fairshake distinctive isn’t just its size — it’s the ecosystem it spawned. The Guardian reported in March that Fairshake and its affiliated committees carried more than $193 million in cash on hand, according to FEC filings, positioning the network to intervene early and often in 2026 primaries rather than waiting for the general election. AI firms have essentially copied that architecture. CNBC’s reporting on two major AI super PACs found more than $200 million raised, with one committee, Leading the Future, spending over $24 million on primary races by the end of June and the sector overall funneling at least $44 million into 40 candidates. The mechanism is identical to crypto’s; only the industry writing the checks has changed.

The Scale, in Context: How Big Is $294 Million, Really?

Numbers this large need a yardstick. Public Citizen’s tally puts crypto, AI, Big Tech, and online betting spending at $294 million through the 2026 cycle — 57% of all corporate election spending the group has tracked so far, out of $517 million total. That means a handful of industries, none of which existed as organized political donor blocs a decade ago, now account for a majority of corporate money entering federal races. Academic research on super PACs generally has found they concentrate spending in competitive contests and can account for roughly one in every four federal campaign dollars, though their net electoral effect is often muted by counter-spending from opposing sides. Crypto and AI money doesn’t behave like ordinary competitive-race spending, however — it behaves like sector-wide lobbying with an electoral face, aimed less at swinging a single seat than at reshaping the ideological center of gravity in Congress on regulatory questions that directly affect these industries’ bottom lines.

Geographic breadth reinforces that reading. An analysis by Our Financial Security found eight crypto and AI PACs among the top 50 super PACs nationally had spent over $100 million to influence more than 70 congressional races spread across 28 states. That is not the footprint of a donor chasing one marquee Senate seat; it is the footprint of an industry building durable relationships with dozens of potential future committee members, regardless of party. Fairshake has always billed itself as bipartisan and non-partisan in its criteria — the litmus test is a candidate’s stance on crypto regulation, not their party label — and the 2024 cycle bears that out: crypto money backed Republican Bernie Moreno in Ohio while also supporting Democrats Elissa Slotkin and Ruben Gallego with roughly $10 million apiece.

What the Money Buys: Precedent From 2024 and the AI Sector’s Newer Playbook

Crypto’s 2024 experiment is the clearest evidence of what this spending accomplishes. Public Citizen found crypto corporations, led overwhelmingly by Coinbase and Ripple, poured more than $119 million into that cycle’s federal elections — and CNBC’s later reporting connects that spending directly to legislative outcomes, noting that a major stablecoin bill became law in the aftermath, alongside broader regulatory progress the industry had been seeking for years. That is the causal thread PAC treasurers point to when justifying the spend: money in, favorable regulation out. AI firms are now running the identical play, only earlier in their political maturity. Their spending data is thinner and their targeting less battle-tested than crypto’s, but the trajectory — tens of millions committed to primary races well before a general election, aimed at candidates who will sit on committees overseeing AI policy — mirrors crypto’s approach closely enough that several independent trackers describe AI spending as explicitly modeled on the crypto playbook.

None of this proves that any individual lawmaker changed a vote because of a specific check. The public record documents money flows, PAC balances, and targeted expenditures with considerable precision; it does not, by itself, establish that a given senator’s position shifted because of industry support rather than pre-existing conviction. That is an important distinction, and one worth holding onto: correlation between funding and favorable legislation is suggestive, not dispositive, and different organizations count “spending” differently enough — cash on hand versus disbursed independent expenditures versus cycle-to-date totals — that headline figures from Reuters, Politico, CNBC, and Public Citizen aren’t always apples-to-apples.

Sources:

Crypto, AI and online betting firms are becoming the new political kingmakers, pouring hundreds of millions into the 2026 midterms as Washington prepares to write the rules that could make—or break—their industries. https://t.co/KkSQSjUpKw

— MDBayNews (@MDBayNews) August 21, 2026

Why This Reshapes How Midterms Get Fought

The practical consequence is that congressional primaries — traditionally low-turnout, low-dollar affairs decided by party activists — are becoming the venue where crypto and AI money exerts its earliest and heaviest leverage, well before most voters are paying attention to a general election. Because independent-expenditure spending is disclosed through FEC filings rather than campaign ads that announce their funders plainly, much of this financial architecture remains legible only to people who go looking for it in Schedule E filings and 24-hour notices. That disclosure lag, combined with the sheer number of overlapping committees now operating under similar names and shared donor bases, means the full shape of crypto and AI’s 2026 investment likely won’t be final until well after the primaries it was built to influence have already been decided.