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POLICY · MONEY · #632

AI-linked super PACs have spent nearly $1M backing Sen. Mike Rounds in South Dakota

Major super PACs tied to AI investors and labs — including funds connected to Andreessen Horowitz, Anthropic and donors linked to OpenAI president Greg Brockman — have poured roughly $1 million into incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Rounds’s South Dakota senate race, according to FEC filings and reporting. The spending comes as AI regulation and data-center policy become prominent issues for Congress and state legislatures.

KEY POINTS

  1. Major super PACs tied to AI investors and labs — including funds connected to Andreessen Horowitz, Anthropic and donors linked to OpenAI president Greg Brockman — have poured roughly $1 million into incumbent Republican Sen.
  2. Mike Rounds’s South Dakota senate race, according to FEC filings and reporting.
  3. The spending comes as AI regulation and data-center policy become prominent issues for Congress and state legislatures.

WHY IT MATTERS

The donations show AI industry actors are deploying political funding to secure allies in Congress ahead of anticipated AI regulation and data‑center policy battles.

SOURCES & TIMELINE

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WIRED AI INDEPENDENT COVERAGE
AI PACs Have Dumped Nearly $1 Million Into an Obscure Senate Race

Major super PACs associated with AI labs and investors have poured close to one million dollars into incumbent Republican Mike Rounds’s South Dakota senate race, seeking to shape the outcome of a noncompetitive race amid a critical national debate over AI regulation. Rounds has been the beneficiary this cycle of around $600,000 in spending by outside groups, with the vast majority of that figure coming from the supe…

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