The AI industry's influence on American elections is about to escalate significantly. Innovation Council Action, a new political operation led by former Trump White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, is preparing to spend more than $100 million in the 2026 midterm elections to back candidates who support AI deregulation — and punish those who don't.
The group has the blessing of David Sacks, who served as the Trump administration's AI and crypto czar before stepping down earlier this year. That connection makes Innovation Council Action distinct from other tech-industry political groups: it's not just pro-AI, it's explicitly aligned with Trump's specific policy vision for the technology.
The Scorecard Strategy
Innovation Council Action has developed a scorecard ranking lawmakers based on their alignment with the administration's AI agenda. The criteria track positions on several key issues: support for a single federal regulatory framework that preempts state-level AI laws, acceleration of data center and energy infrastructure permitting, and policies aimed at maintaining U.S. competitiveness against China in AI development.
The scorecard approach borrows from the playbook of groups like the NRA and League of Conservation Voters, which have used legislative ratings for decades to direct political spending with precision. The difference is scale — $100 million is an enormous sum for a single-issue group in a midterm cycle, and it signals that AI policy has graduated from a niche tech concern to a top-tier political issue.
The spending comes at a moment when AI regulation is genuinely contested. Washington state passed two major AI bills in March covering disclosure requirements and chatbot safety. The European Union's AI Act is entering enforcement. And the Trump administration's own six-pillar legislative framework, unveiled last week, explicitly calls for federal preemption of the emerging patchwork of state laws. Innovation Council Action's spending is designed to ensure that framework survives congressional negotiations intact.
The Broader Political Landscape
Innovation Council Action isn't operating in isolation. The AI industry's total political spending in the 2026 cycle is on track to exceed $300 million across multiple groups and PACs. Tech companies have learned from the crypto industry's successful 2024 midterm playbook, where targeted spending in key races helped elect a Congress more favorable to digital asset regulation.
The calculation is straightforward: AI companies would rather spend hundreds of millions on elections now than face billions in compliance costs from restrictive state-by-state regulation later. A unified federal framework — especially one written with industry input — is worth far more than the political investment required to secure it.
For voters, the question is whether $100 million in targeted spending produces better AI policy or simply more favorable AI policy for the companies writing the checks. Innovation Council Action's answer, implicit in its structure and strategy, is that those are the same thing. The 2026 midterms will test whether that argument holds.
