MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump is scheduled to travel to South Carolina on Friday to make a last-minute appeal for Sen. Darline Graham, his chosen candidate to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, ahead of a Republican runoff next week.

Voters will decide Tuesday whether Graham or Rep. Ralph Norman will be Republicans’ nominee on the November ballot.

The Myrtle Beach rally is the sort of campaign trail occasion that Trump hasn’t done as much of this year, compared with past midterms, making it a signal of the importance Trump is placing on a win for his pick.

It’s also an opportunity for the president to wade into friendly territory ahead of the midterm elections that leave his party’s control of Congress hanging in the balance. South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in decades, its House delegation has only one Democrat and Trump’s own victory in the 2016 presidential primary here helped propel him toward the nomination and ultimately the White House.

In the scramble of a special Republican primary election that was called after Lindsey Graham’s sudden death last month, Darline Graham was picked by Gov. Henry McMaster — also a Trump ally — to serve as interim senator and entered the special primary at Trump’s urging. The president had said he told McMaster that appointing her would be a “fabulous tribute to Lindsey,” although the governor pointed out that he asked Graham to serve “in the wee hours” after her brother’s death, adding that Trump “thought it was a great idea” when he later told him of his pick.

The president pressed “RUN DARLINE, RUN” on social media, and gave her his “Complete and Total Endorsement” before she’d officially announced her campaign. And at every turn on the campaign trail, she’s reminded voters of this anointing, as well as her commitment to advancing his priorities if elected. On the eve of the primary two weeks ago, he held a tele-rally for Graham.

Trump also considered Lindsey Graham a close ally and friend, though they ran against each other in 2016 and had their ups and downs, so part of the visit is personal for Trump. He eulogized his longtime golfing partner and wartime consigliere at Washington National Cathedral last month.

A political newcomer, Graham has stressed that she’s “not a politician,” as she’s hurriedly introduced herself to voters across the state. Regularly touting her support for Trump’s policies, as well as his endorsement, she has pointed to her years heading up a state agency, as well as her weeks on the job in the U.S. Senate, as evidence of her readiness.

Saying she’s “answering President Trump’s call to serve,” she has repeatedly said she wants “to fight for President Trump’s agenda” and cited his core goals of border security and passing the SAVE Act voting bill as among her top priorities.

Graham has said she’s focused on kitchen table issues like gas prices and household spending rather than international affairs. Earlier this week, after stumbling on an elemental foreign policy question related to U.S. interests in Taiwan, Graham defended herself as “not a polished politician up here.”

Trump has made no comment on the gaffe, which garnered attention after Graham told moderators, “National security is not my thing.”

By meeting voters in Myrtle Beach, both Trump and Darline Graham are aiming to capitalize on a growing part of the state that’s known to be deeply conservative, loyal to Trump and full of new residents.

It’s also the home district of Rep. Russell Fry, the House ally whose name Trump had floated as an “outstanding” possible replacement for Graham after the senator’s death. Elected to the House in 2022 with Trump’s help, Fry ousted a five-term GOP congressman who had voted to impeach Trump a year earlier.

Running in the Senate primary, Fry touted his support for and previous backing from the president, but was hampered by the absence of it in this race. Finishing third, he swiftly endorsed Graham, a calculated move for the 41-year-old, two-term congressman, who, dating to the origins of his 2022 election, has seen the ramifications for some Republicans who have crossed Trump.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

MIDDLETOWN, OHIO (AP) — Vice President JD Vance will return to his hometown Friday to campaign for Republican candidates at the same steel plant where his grandfather used to work.

Vance is set to speak at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works facility, which was known as Armco Steel when his grandfather James Vance worked there for nearly 40 years.

Vance has highlighted his Rust Belt rootswhile trying to boost GOP candidates ahead of the November midterm elections and to promote the Trump administration’s economic policies and efforts to try to expand U.S. manufacturing. The Middleton event comes as he’s expected to ramp up his travel schedule with more public events and fundraisers, according to a person familiar with the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly and discussed it on condition of anonymity.

In a radio interview Thursday on the “Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show,” Vance said Friday’s stop will be “personally very meaningful” because of his family connection. He said it was “an amazing opportunity for me to go talk about, frankly, plants like this wouldn’t exist were it not for some of the Trump administration’s economic policies.”

Vance, who will be joined by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, said he will also use the visit to stop by some Cincinnati chili restaurants.

In his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance described the steel plant as an economic savior for his family that brought his grandparents from Kentucky’s hills into the American middle class. He described how his grandfather, known to his grandchildren as Papaw, would boast when he saw an old Ford or Chevy that its steel was made by his company.

His grandson’s election as vice president of the United States spurred pride in the Midwestern city, though Vance has faced some pushback to his portrayal of it in the book. He said kids “derisively called it ‘Middletucky’” when he was a child because it had so many transplants like his family. He said they brought problems with them from Kentucky such as drug addiction, ”Mountain Dew mouth” and problematic fathers.

In the 2024 election, Trump and Vance won about 62% of the vote in the city’s precincts. His mother, Beverly Aikins, and his sister still live in Middletown.

Ohio has lost its political bellwether status and turned red during the Trump era, but Democrats see a chance to win both the governor’s office and a U.S. Senate seat from Republican hands this year as anti-Trump sentiment buoys their party.

Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to replace Vance in the Senate, is trying to hold on to his seat against a challenge from former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a longtime Ohio politician with a pro-working class message who lost his reelection bid to Republican Bernie Moreno two years ago.

Brown has capitalized on public opposition to data centers in the campaign and aired ads calling Husted the “face of data centers in Ohio.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, warned in a memo this week that backlash to the centers has left Husted vulnerable.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a Vance ally, is the party’s nominee for governor in a race against Democrat Amy Acton. Democrats have not won the Ohio governor’s office in two decades.

Vance, whose family still keeps a home in Cincinnati where they sometimes spend weekends, is making his first public visit since his fourth child was born in July.

As part of his plans for ramping up his travel schedule, his office announced a trip Monday to Brewer, Maine, where former Republican Gov. Paul LePage is running against Democrat Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, in a competitive House district.

___

Price reported from Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Michigan Senate race is drawing attention not only because of the candidates involved, but because of the voters crossing party lines.

Republican candidate Mike Rogers recently held a press conference in Detroit with supporters who identify as Democrats. Their message was straightforward: They may still call themselves Democrats, but they no longer feel represented by today’s Democratic Party.

Among those speaking was Michigan state Representative Karen Whitsett, who said she was a lifelong Democrat until March, when she decided the party had moved too far away from her values.

Whitsett focused much of her criticism on Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed and his support for eliminating private health insurance in favor of a Medicare for All system.

Her warning was blunt.

“If you enjoy going to the ER now and sitting for six hours,” Whitsett said, “get ready to enjoy that a whole lot longer, because you may be sitting there for six weeks.”

She argued that a government-run system could give officials greater control over where patients receive care, what services are available, and how medical decisions are made.

“You say you don’t want government in your business,” Whitsett said. “Well, the government will be controlling your healthcare. They will control everything.”

From the perspective of Rogers supporters, that is the central issue in this election: whether Michigan families should keep choices in their own hands or place more authority with the government.

Democrats have promised major healthcare fixes before. Obamacare was presented as a solution that would make coverage more affordable and improve access. But many Americans still face high premiums, expensive deductibles, and long waits for care.

So when Democrats now promise that another government-led healthcare plan will solve those problems, skepticism is understandable.

Why should voters believe the latest promise when previous promises failed to deliver?

That concern could be especially important among working-class and Black voters, groups Abdul El-Sayed reportedly struggled to win during the Democratic primary. Whitsett’s appearance with Rogers suggests that some voters are looking beyond traditional party labels and focusing instead on issues such as healthcare, government control, and personal choice.

And Whitsett is not the only Democrat supporting Rogers.

Fox 2 Detroit anchor Roop Raj recently observed that Rogers is actively courting Black voters and Democrats who remain undecided about the November election. Raj noted that signs reading “Democrats for Rogers” are appearing online and in neighborhoods across the state.

Of course, lawn signs do not determine election results. But in a close race, they can reveal energy, organization, and enthusiasm.

For Rogers supporters—including many Republicans and former Democrats—the message is that this election is not simply about party loyalty. It is about common sense, individual freedom, and resisting the expansion of government into everyday life.

And if Democrats continue losing voters who once supported them for generations, those voters could become decisive when Michigan goes to the polls.

By Bo Erickson

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump had a warm public reunion on Thursday with Michael Cohen, his former fixer turned foe whose court testimony contributed to Trump’s 2024 conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial.

Cohen, who is seeking a pardon, interviewed Trump on his New York radio program. He called Trump “boss” and gave a six-minute monologue on friendship and forgiveness.

In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison — and served more than a year — for a $130,000 hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election — as well as for other crimes, including cheating on his personal taxes and lying under oath to Congress.

Trump was convicted in 2024 on 34 counts of falsification of business records to conceal the Daniels payment, in part due to Cohen’s testimony. He has denied the encounter with Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, and is appealing the ruling.

Trump was represented in the hush-money trial by Todd Blanche, now the U.S. attorney general. In court, Blanche called Cohen the “GLOAT,” meaning the “greatest liar of all time.”

“How do two men who spent years in an all-out public war hurling verbal and legal missiles across a massive canyon ever come back to the same room?” Cohen said. “We forgave.”

Trump, who is seeking political allies ahead of the November midterm elections, then greeted his former fixer of 15 years with a convivial: “Hello Michael. How are you, Michael?”

“I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said,” said Trump, who spoke to Cohen from the White House.

Cohen aired excerpts from a pre-recorded interview that focused on Trump’s favorite themes, including his campaign against immigrants and his disdain for unfavorable polls. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the interview, more of which is to be aired on Sunday. 

After Trump won re-election later in 2024, a federal appeals court ordered the Manhattan judge in the hush-money trial to review more closely how the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in July 2024 giving Trump broad immunity from prosecution affected the New York case.

Cohen ended the interview segment in song, crooning a lyric from the 1978 R&B song by Peaches & Herb: “Reunited, and it feels so good…”

(Reporting by Bo Erickson; editing by Donna Bryson and Edwina Gibbs)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California state Sen. Aisha Wahab will serve out the rest of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s term after securing victory Thursday in a special election.

Swalwell, a Democrat who was running for California governor, ended his campaign and resigned from Congress in April after he was accused of sexual assault and harassment, which he denies. Wahab will represent the state’s 14th Congressional District, which covers parts of Alameda County on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay, through Swalwell’s term ending in January.

She will be the first Afghan American to serve in Congress. The progressive Democrat defeated Bay Area Rapid Transit Director Melissa Hernandez even after a swell of spending by outside groups opposing Wahab in the race’s final stretch. She said her victory shows her district “cannot be bought.”

“I will fight for this district that raised me,” Wahab said in a statement. “From foster care to Congress, this journey shows the possibility of the American Dream.”

The conclusion of the race to replace Swalwell comes as criminal investigations continue into the sexual assault allegations he faces. Over the weekend, federal agents seized electronic devices from Swalwell at the San Francisco airport and later searched his home in Washington, D.C., according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Swalwell’s attorney did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.

Wahab became the first Afghan American elected to public office in the U.S. when she won a Hayward City Council seat in 2018.

She has championed housing affordability and access in her time in the Legislature and throughout her campaign. She also wrote a bill in 2023 to ban caste-based discrimination, which garnered national attention. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it, saying such discrimination is already outlawed by civil rights protections.

Wahab and Hernandez will face off again in a separate November election determining who will serve the next full two-year term.

Wahab won the June primary decisively, but outside spending in favor of her rival poured into the race ahead of the general election.. Groups affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, spent millions into supporting Hernandez, and thousands into opposing Wahab.

At a candidate forum in April, Wahab answered “yes” when asked if she considered “what is happening to the Palestinian people” to be a genocide.

Hernandez did not give a straight yes or no answer. She said Israel had a right to defend itself following the October 2023 attack by Hamas but that “the destruction into Gaza has gone too far.”

Hernandez, a moderate Democrat, said she was proud to put up a competitive fight after Wahab’s success in the primary.

“I’ve been a fighter my whole life, and when I promised the residents of CA-14 I would fight for them, I never gave up,” she said in a statement.

___

Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Department investigators have sought to interview law enforcement officials related to the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a Florida-based inquiry aiming to establish a conspiracy against the Republican president, multiple people familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The requests for interviews, made in recent weeks, suggest that a conspiracy investigation that had mostly appeared focused on the decade-old question of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is also examining a more contemporary event — the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago that resulted in the FBI seizing top secret documents from the president’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate.

The requests were for voluntary interviews and not made through subpoenas, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation with The Associated Press.

It is not clear when or if prosecutors might seek to bring charges, or for what, but investigating conduct that occurred in Florida might give the Justice Department the legal hook it needs to try to anchor a prosecution in the state.

Joe diGenova, the prosecutor brought back to the Justice Department in April to oversee the investigation, declined to comment when contacted by AP on Thursday. The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump was indicted in 2023 on charges of unlawfully retaining classified documents and of obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. But the case was dismissed the following year after a Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, ruled that the prosecutor who brought the indictment, Jack Smith, had been illegally appointed.

Trump has long maintained that law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against him over the last decade, drawing a straight line between an investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign and the more recent investigations related to his retention of classified documents and his efforts to undo the 2020 election.

The Justice Department has for months conducted an investigation in Florida in hopes of proving wrongdoing by the officials involved in scrutinizing Trump.

Much of the questioning known to have occurred so far has centered on the government response to Russian interference in the 2016 election and the creation of an intelligence community assessment that documented the extent of the meddling.

It was not immediately clear why investigators want to question FBI officials in connection with the Mar-a-Lago search, but the act has long infuriated Trump, who decried it as an invasion of privacy.

In addition, congressional Republicans have long seized on accounts of tension between FBI officials and senior Justice Department leaders before the search to raise questions about whether there was an adequate justification for it, though the law enforcement dispute centered not on whether investigators had gathered sufficient evidence for a search but rather on whether there was a less dramatic and intrusive way to recover the records.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and agents executed a search warrant at his home a day later, said the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell, who has denied allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The Daily Mail first reported the seizure of Swalwell’s devices on Thursday.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following allegations that Swalwell had sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him. The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

The seven-term lawmaker had been seen as one of the leading candidates in California’s gubernatorial race before dropping out after the allegations surfaced.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed in April that it was investigating Swalwell after a former staffer told CNN and the Chronicle that Swalwell raped her at a hotel while he was in New York City for a charity gala in 2024. In a statement, Bragg’s office encouraged “survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations to contact our Special Victims Division.”

A lawyer representing Lonna Drewes, a California woman who in April said she had been raped in 2018 by Swalwell, said his team was cooperating with all law enforcement agencies investigating the former congressman.

“We are encouraged to learn about the escalation of the FBI’s investigation into the allegations against Eric Swalwell,” attorney Arick Fudali said in a statement.

Drewes spoke of the assault at a news conference days after Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race. She said it occurred at a hotel in Southern California. Swalwell denied that assault.

Swalwell, an Iowa native, was elected in 2012 and represented a House district east of San Francisco. He launched a presidential run in April 2019 but ended it a few months later after failing to catch on with voters.

He was one of Republican President Donald Trump’s top Democratic antagonists in Congress. He was a prominent member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees during Trump’s first term and served as one of several Democratic prosecutors for Trump’s second impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Swalwell was removed from the Intelligence Committee by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in 2023 based on Swalwell’s contact with a suspected Chinese spy, Christine Fang.

Fang was reported to have come into contact with Swalwell’s campaign as he was first running for Congress in 2012 and to have participated in fundraising for his 2014 campaign.

Federal investigators alerted Swalwell to their concerns and briefed Congress about Fang in 2015, at which point Swalwell says he cut off contact with her. He was not accused of wrongdoing and a House Ethics Committee investigation that was opened in 2021 closed two years later without any action.

California lawmaker Aisha Wahab secured victory Thursday in a special election to serve the rest of Swalwell’s House term, which ends in January. She will run again in the November election to represent the district for a full two-year term. ___

Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisak in New York and Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this report.

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) – The FBI has raided a home belonging to former Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell, a prominent antagonist of President Donald Trump before he resigned from Congress, as part of an investigation into sexual misconduct claims against him, according to a source familiar with the investigation. 

FBI agents seized electronic devices from Swalwell at the San Francisco International Airport and searched his home in Washington, D.C. last weekend, the source said.

A lawyer for Swalwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Swalwell resigned his seat in Congress and dropped out of the race for California governor in April after four women accused him of sexual misconduct, ranging from sexual assault to sending unsolicited explicit images. Swalwell has apologized for “mistakes in judgment” but has said the allegations are false and has vowed to fight them.

Local law enforcement in New York and Los Angeles have announced investigations into the alleged assaults, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it has looked into allegations Swalwell illegally employed a Brazilian nanny. 

The FBI raid was first reported by CNN.

Swalwell, first elected to Congress in 2012, gained a national profile as a prominent Trump critic and mounted a brief run for president in 2019. He was considered a leading contender in this year’s California governor race before he dropped out.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; additional reporting by Richard Cowan; editing by Andy Sullivan and Chris Reese)

Democrats on Thursday narrowed the list of potential host cities for their 2028 presidential convention to Boston, Denver and Philadelphia as their party looks ahead to a wide-open primary to succeed President Donald Trump.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids,” and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party’s future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn’t specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

The three finalists are liberal strongholds surrounded by the type of suburban areas that have become increasingly important to the party in recent elections. They also provide access to fundraising and key demographic and interest groups, like labor unions.

While Colorado and Massachusetts have gone Democratic in recent presidential elections, Pennsylvania has been among the biggest battlegrounds. Trump, a Republican, won Pennsylvania in 2024.

Philadelphia last hosted the convention in 2016, Denver in 2008 and Boston in 2004.

Before the presidential primary gets into gear, Democrats are looking at this year’s midterm elections as an opportunity to flip the narrowly divided Republican-led House and maybe take back control of the Senate.

Democrats face fundraising disadvantages compared with Republicans, along with financial debt, and Martin has confronted criticism over his stewardship of the party.

During a recent DNC meeting in Texas, Martin downplayed the critics and called for the party to unite as it tries to win the midterms and look ahead to 2028 and the end of Trump’s second term.

By Dawn Kopecki

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.

“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 the niche regulatory policy problems related to crypto while people really just want cheaper groceries.”

Still, there are limits to what money can do. Polls show a majority of Americans feel there is too much money in politics and progressive Democratic Senate candidates like James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan have successfully built campaigns on the argument that wealthy donors and companies exert too much influence in Washington.

NO LIMITS

Together, crypto, tech and online gaming industry donations accounted for at least $294 million of the corporate spending on midterm races from January 1, 2025 through the first quarter, Public Citizen found.

In an approach pioneered by the crypto industry in the last election cycle, these industries have structured their campaign giving through a vast network of so-called super PACs, affiliate PACs — which get their money from the super PACs — and dark money nonprofits, which do not have to disclose who their donors are. Companies and founders often donate across those networks, as well as directly to specific candidates.

The groups can take unlimited sums but cannot give directly to or coordinate with candidates. Instead, they can pay for advertising, organize voter drives and sponsor campaign rallies.

Executives running those companies have directly spent millions more, such as the more than $90 million SpaceX founder Elon Musk has already put toward the 2026 federal elections — with plans to spend far more by November. Google co-founder Sergey Brin also spent over $106 million in California fighting a proposed wealth tax among other state issues, federal and state filings show. Brin and Musk did not return requests for comment.

Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, has donated $65 million to four different super PACs to spend backing candidates from both parties on state races in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere. The company declined to comment for this article.

Counting all political spending, including donations from billionaires like Musk, labor groups and social causes, a record $11.6 billion is expected to be spent on political ads for the midterms, breaking the 2023-2024 cycle’s previous record of $11.2 billion, according to political advertising research firm AdImpact.

POLITICAL DISRUPTORS

Crypto companies Coinbase and Ripple, along with investor Andreessen Horowitz, spent heavily in 2024 through their Fairshake super PAC to help unseat longtime incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown from his Senate seat in Ohio.

The crypto industry’s strategy was so effective that year that Public Citizen called its super PAC Fairshake a corporate Death Star that could “annihilate individual candidates.” Its playbook — which bucked tradition by refusing to align with solely one party — is being copied now by Big Tech, sports betting and other industries, Democratic and Republican strategists say.

Instead, the industry openly backed candidates that supported its policies — regardless of party — and spent millions to end the political careers of those who didn’t.

As then-chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Brown was one of the industry’s most vocal critics in Congress, but strategists say he’s been quiet on crypto as he seeks a return to the Senate, even conciliatory. Campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer said in a statement to Reuters that Brown “recognizes that cryptocurrency is part of America’s economy” and is keeping an open mind.

Fairshake started the year with a $193 million war chest, and has about $130 million left to spend, filings show. It was financed almost entirely by Coinbase and Ripple as well as California venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

That firm’s co-founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen have each donated about $4 million of their personal funds so far this election cycle, most of which went to U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, while their investment firm has given more than $81 million to mostly crypto and AI PACs, according to federal election records analyzed by Reuters. At least $23.8 million of that went to Fairshake. The firm and its co-founders declined to comment through a spokesman.

Ripple declined to comment. Coinbase did not respond to a request for comment.

AI ENTERS THE RACE

AI barely registered in the 2024 elections, but has already made its presence felt this time around.

Political groups backed by AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic — which want different types of regulatory oversight — or their executives spent more than $23 million on two competing Democrats in a staunchly liberal New York City district in June alone, according to campaign finance records.

“It was basically two AI groups having it out with each other and the candidates were secondary,” said Brendan Glavin, director at nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.

AI super PAC Leading the Future has raised $140 million for the midterms, a person familiar with the group’s funding said, thanks in part to substantial donations from OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna, along with Andreessen Horowitz.

OpenAI and the Brockmans declined to comment. The company has previously said it doesn’t finance or direct Leading the Future’s activities and that Brockman, his wife and other employees are free to donate in a personal capacity. The couple has also separately donated $25 million to MAGA Inc., filings show.

“We want to be explicit: No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company’s views,” the company said in June.

Anthropic has donated at least $40 million in this election cycle through a dark money nonprofit called Public First Action, which has raised $100 million so far, according to a spokesman who declined to disclose the other donors. About half of its funds go toward elections through two aligned PACs, he said.

The company, which referred questions for this article to the group, is also linked to a super PAC called Public First that has raised an additional $3.9 million, of which $1 million came from Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, federal filings show. Anthropic additionally runs a small traditional PAC called AnthroPAC that takes donations from employees and can directly give to campaigns.

The company has defended its donations to the nonprofit group, saying they are being used to educate the public on policies rather than to support or oppose specific candidates.

“They’ve emulated a lot of what crypto did in 2024,” Glavin said, of the AI industry’s efforts to back candidates seen as supportive while ignoring traditional party lines.

Online sports betting is also copying that playbook as it comes under increased scrutiny and regulatory pressure.

DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics and UK-based sportsbook bet365 have donated more than $72 million to the midterms so far, making the industry the third-largest corporate donor in this cycle, Public Citizen estimates. They are directing the bulk of the money through two affiliate PACs — American Conservative Fund and American Future — to state races where the industry faces the most regulation, filings show.

Prediction market Polymarket separately donated $1 million in June through its corporate parent Blockratize Inc. to a Republican super PAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, filings show.

The betting platforms did not return requests for comment.

Campaign finance watchdogs say the amount of money pouring into this election cycle is staggering.

“One-third of the corporate money that’s been spent since 2010 has been spent in this election cycle and it’s not even over yet,” Claypool said. “The amount of corporate money that’s been poured into these elections is unprecedented.”

(Reporting by Dawn Kopecki in New York, additional reporting by Bo Erickson in Washington, DC. Editing by David Gaffen and Deepa Babington)