Emerging Industries Fuel Record Corporate Spending in US Midterm Elections

A record amount of corporate spending is flooding the US midterm elections this year, driven by a handful of billionaires and companies from emerging industries such as crypto, AI, and online betting.

The $517 million spent so far exceeds the previous record of $461 million in corporate spending over two years for the 2024 elections, according to campaign finance watchdogs and interviews with more than a dozen political strategists from both parties.

Crypto companies, such as Coinbase and Ripple, have been particularly aggressive in their spending, structuring their campaign giving through a vast network of super PACs, affiliate PACs, and dark money nonprofits. These groups can take unlimited sums but cannot give directly to or coordinate with candidates, instead paying for advertising, organizing voter drives, and sponsoring campaign rallies.

The industry's strategy was so effective in 2024 that Public Citizen called its super PAC, Fairshake, a corporate 'Death Star' that could 'annihilate individual candidates'. Its playbook is being copied now by Big Tech, sports betting, and other industries, Democratic and Republican strategists say.