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Home – Midterm Election News – The New Kingmakers: Crypto, AI and Betting Firms Fuel Record Spending on the 2026 Midterms

The New Kingmakers: Crypto, AI and Betting Firms Fuel Record Spending on the 2026 Midterms

NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) – A handful of billionaires and companies are driving corporate spending in U.S. midterm elections this year, and they aren’t the usual power brokers who have sat atop the political food chain in Washington in previous decades.

Crypto companies, artificial intelligence firms and online betting have emerged as the biggest industries shaping the 2026 midterm races, driving a record amount of business spending on congressional contests, according to campaign finance watchdogs and interviews with more than a dozen political strategists from both parties.

The new money surging into U.S. politics comes from a fresh class of billionaires hailing from industries that barely existed a generation ago, occupying territory traditionally held by Wall Street, along with the pharmaceutical, oil and media industries, strategists from both parties say.

As lawmakers across the country press for more scrutiny and regulation of these industries, their founders are deploying their newfound wealth to win allies, shape rules and push back on those efforts.

U.S. companies have spent an unprecedented $517 million on the 2026 U.S. House and Senate races in the 15 months through the end of the first quarter, exceeding the record $461 million in corporate spending over two years for the 2024 elections, data compiled by corporate accountability nonprofit group Public Citizen shows.

And that’s before the blitz of campaign spending expected in the closing stretch of the November 3 elections, when Democrats hope to wrest control of both the House and Senate.

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“The scale of corporate spending in this election cycle is unlike anything we’ve seen previously,” said Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen.

Critics argue the spending risks amplifying the influence of a small group of niche interests and allowing issues like crypto and AI regulation, data-center energy demands and online gambling oversight to crowd out more pocketbook issues like high gas prices and healthcare. Supporters say it gives emerging sectors a voice other corporate interests have long enjoyed.

“When corporate money can inundate the political discourse, there’s less room for talk about what people really care about,” Claypool said. “Instead, you have the situation that we have in Congress now where they are spending an inordinate amount of time discussing........

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