Money in Politics Roundup — October 2025

As the 2025–2026 election cycle unfolds, the Brennan Center is launching a periodic roundup of stories on money in politics. We will examine key fundraising trends, delve into an underreported story, and note developments in campaign finance and political corruption.

This installment features a look at the money spent to influence the federal government’s decisions to regulate (or not) the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry, recent trends in federal super PAC giving, and record-breaking spending in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections.

As November 2026 approaches, we will continue to watch spending nationwide, from statewide elections, such as the supreme court contests in Pennsylvania, to the congressional midterms.

By Anna Massoglia

Sam Altman, the OpenAI chief who oversaw the launch of ChatGPT, was once a registered Democrat who primarily donated to liberal or progressive candidates. He gave six-figure sums to support Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid and Democrats in the Senate.

That was before the second Trump administration brought new fights over AI regulation to Washington. Earlier this year, Republicans bundled a moratorium on AI regulation into the Trump-backed budget bill. It would have blocked state legislation aimed at preventing the use of AI to discriminate, protecting minors from manipulation, or requiring transparency for consumers, to name just a few examples. It would have been a massive victory for the AI industry. Although the proposal didn’t pass, it provides an interesting window into the shifting financial allegiances of Sam Altman and his peers.

In October, a month before the 2024 election, Altman gave $3,300 each to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the maximum allowed under federal law at the time. Both senators went on to become key players in the fight over whether to include a federal ban on state-based AI regulations in the Trump-backed budget reconciliation bill.

When Trump defeated Kamala Harris, Altman cultivated a relationship with the new president as well. Altman gave Trump’s inaugural fund $1 million, Altman’s biggest-ever direct political contribution. A week before Trump’s inauguration, Tools for Humanity, another company cofounded by Altman, contributed $5 million to MAGA Inc., the main pro-Trump super PAC. It’s the only contribution the company has ever disclosed in federal campaign finance filings.

This year, Altman gave the maximum legal contribution to several Republican members of Congress who have each furthered the policy interests of the AI industry in different ways. That includes Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), the sole senator who did not vote to remove the moratorium on AI regulation from the budget reconciliation bill, and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who backed the moratorium and pledged to continue efforts to preempt state AI law. Altman also contributed the maximum legal amount to Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), who has championed policies cracking down on Chinese companies that compete with American AI firms, and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), a member of the Senate’s bipartisan AI working group.

Altman has continued to court some Democrats as well. In March, Altman reportedly hosted an AI-focused fundraiser for Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who has introduced legislation to regulate AI but also promoted investment in the industry.

The shift in Altman’s giving habits reflects a broader AI industry trend of ramping up spending on political influence. Google contributed $1 million to the Trump inauguration while calling for exemptions allowing the company to train AI models using copyrighted material. Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia also gave $1 million each, while Microsoft chipped in $750,000.

If this trend continues, the industry’s political spending in the 2026 election cycle could reach new levels.

AI industry insiders recently announced the launch of Leading the Future, a network of super PACs and 501(c)(4) nonprofits that anticipates raising $100 million from AI executives and investors. Meta has separately pledged tens of millions of dollars each to fund two other groups, one focusing on California and another on state candidates across the country.

Leading the Future will be funded by major figures in AI. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, whose investment firm has invested in multiple AI and crypto startups, pledged $50 million. Last cycle, Andreessen and Horowitz gave $70 million to crypto super PACs like Fairshake and $7 million to a pro-Trump group, Right for America.

Greg Brockman, who cofounded and leads OpenAI, and his wife, Anna Brockman, committed to contributing another $50 million to the new AI political venture. The couple doesn’t have a history of political giving anywhere near this scale.

Other known supporters of Leading the Future include venture capitalist Ron Conway, known as the “Godfather of Silicon Valley,” and Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, who now manages venture capital firm 8VC. While Conway is a Democratic donor who supported Harris in the 2024 election, Lonsdale has a history of contributing to groups supporting Republicans, including $1 million to Elon Musk’s America PAC, which supported Trump’s 2024 bid.

The AI industry has sunk hefty sums into lobbying as well. OpenAI alone spent $1.8 million on federal lobbying in 2024 and went on a lobbyist hiring spree after Trump’s election. The company spent more than $1.7 million on federal lobbying in the first half of 2025, putting it on track for a record year.

The AI industry’s growing investments in federal policy are already paying dividends. Trump kicked off his Inauguration Day by rescinding Biden’s regulations designed to prevent AI from causing harm. In July, Trump filled the void with “America’s AI Action Plan,” a roadmap outlining more than 90 federal actions largely dedicated to helping the American AI industry through deregulation, infrastructure investment, and international dominance. Much of the plan echoes talking points pushed by AI industry lobbyists while sidestepping more controversial issues, such as AI safety and environmental costs.

The fight over AI policy is far from over. Those who backed the moratorium on AI regulation in the budget bill have already signaled plans for a new iteration, and there will no doubt be more policy debates to come.

Off-election years like 2025 can be quiet in the world of campaign finance, with no regular federal elections and very few state elections. But this year is different. The main pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., raised a record-smashing $200 million in the eight months after Trump’s reelection, almost entirely from donors of $1 million or more. That’s more than six times the prior record held by pro-Biden groups in 2021. The haul is all the more remarkable because it’s in support of a president who is constitutionally barred from running again.

There are only two states with gubernatorial races this year — New Jersey and Virginia — and they are on track for historically high spending, driven by six- and seven-figure payments. National party–affiliated independent spending groups, the Democratic Governors Association and Republican Governors Association, are among the biggest spenders in both races. But we’ve also seen super PACs in New Jersey relying on dark money from unknown sources. And in Virginia, where there is no limit on contributions to candidates, the Republican and Democratic nominees are benefiting from energy industry interests and their opponents, respectively.

Big money is also mounting in the fight over California’s Proposition 50, a ballot measure that would allow the state legislature to redraw the state’s congressional district map. Fundraising focused on the measure has reached $130 million, mostly in favor of redistricting. The effort is widely seen as Democratic retaliation for Texas redrawing its map to increase the number of House seats held by Republicans.

Trump pardons erase corruption convictions. President Trump issued a flurry of pardons this summer to campaign donors and former politicians who had been convicted of corruption or fraud. This follows the administration’s controversial decision to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D). Other disgraced politicians, including former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R), reportedly appear hopeful for similar reprieves.

Crypto’s midterm war chest. The cryptocurrency industry is amassing a huge political war chest. Pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake is sitting on $141 million, more than the total amount that Fairshake and two affiliated super PACs collectively spent in the 2024 election. In August, the Winklevoss twins — founders of crypto exchange Gemini — launched a super PAC with $21 million to focus on advancing Trump’s pro-crypto agenda. The industry was one of the top-spending special interests in 2024, shelling out $40 million to support the election of Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno (R) and $10 million each to boost Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D) and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego (D). Campaign finance isn’t the only way the industry is influencing politics: This election spending comes on top of heavy crypto lobbying and the crypto investments of Trump and his family.

Public financing advances. For the 2026 election cycle, three Maryland counties — Anne Arundel, Baltimore, and Prince George’s — will have in effect new programs matching small campaign donations with public funds. New York State’s small donor matching program will be available to candidates for governor and other statewide offices for the first time in 2026, on the heels of a successful debut in the legislative election cycle last year. In an August election, Seattle voters opted to keep the city’s democracy vouchers. The program’s funding source was scheduled to sunset 10 years after it was enacted, but the ballot measure to renew it passed by a 19-point margin.

Federal Election Commission without a quorum. A Republican-appointed commissioner at the U.S. Federal Election Commission resigned last month, leaving the campaign finance watchdog with only two of its six posts filled. The agency has been without a quorum since May, when another Republican-appointed commissioner resigned. This is the third time the FEC has lacked a quorum in the past decade. The shortage of commissioners has been exacerbated by President Trump’s unprecedented move in February to fire a sitting Democratic-appointed commissioner, the first time any president has ever fired a commissioner from the opposing party. The White House has given no indication of when it will nominate new commissioners to fill the vacant seats.

This term, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of a major campaign finance law for the first time in over a decade. The Court agreed to hear a case in which the National Republican Senatorial Committee is challenging limits on the amount political parties can spend in coordination with candidates. Without that limit, candidates would be able to control funds raised from donors who give up to $310,100 to the party in one year — almost 90 times higher than the amount a donor can legally give to a candidate. The Brennan Center filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to reject the lawsuit. Arguments in the case are slated for December.

Meanwhile, lower federal courts recently struck down two laws adopted by an overwhelming majority of Maine voters to curb the influence of money in politics. One law, blocked by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, prohibited foreign governments from spending in elections. The other, blocked by the district court, limited how much individuals can contribute to super PACs.

• Extracting policy — Owen Bacskai tells the story of the fossil fuel industry’s heavy spending on Trump’s presidential campaign and the favorable policies that followed. READ MORE
• More pardons — The Trump administration has shown a concerning pattern of providing pardons and other lenient treatment to big donors. READ MORE
• Defining corruption — Lisa Danetz and Eric Petry explain the scope of political corruption and what Americans can do to fix it. READ MORE
• A quarter-billion-dollar inauguration — Anna Massoglia finds that donations to Trump’s second inauguration fund totaled $245 million, more than double the prior record — which was set by his first inauguration. READ MORE
• Dark money’s highest point so far — Anna Massoglia reveals that spending by so-called dark money groups that do not disclose their donors reached an all-time high of $1.9 billion in the 2024 election. READ MORE
• A web of political spending — The most comprehensive analysis to date finds that election spending on the four largest digital platforms topped $1.9 billion in the 2024 election cycle. READ MORE
• Tax breaks — Grady Yuthok Short explores how the federal tax bill’s benefits for the ultra-rich present a familiar story of donors’ outsize influence. READ MORE