US campaigns disclose $17m in AI spending since 2020

Anthropic’s Claude saw 65 campaigns report spending in 2026—up from near zero in prior years—totaling an undisclosed amount. Tom Cotton’s Arkansas Senate campaign led with $4,000+ in reported expenses. xAI had $5,000 in spending from seven federal and two state-level candidates, including RFK Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign and Republicans Dave McCormick and Thomas Massie. Specialized AI vendors like AmplifAI (now owned by Triller) dominated earlier cycles with $4.7 million in 2022, but spending has tapered. Daisychain, a Democratic-aligned texting tool, saw $300,000 in 2026, up from $50,000 in 2024, with Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan Senate campaign as the top spender. Campaign Nucleus, linked to former Trump strategist Brad Parscale, attracted six-figure Republican spending.

State-level AI spending across California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington totaled $92,000 since 2022, with Daisychain and OpenAI leading. DonorAtlas, an AI prospect-research tool, saw $4,000 in spending from the California Democratic Party. Deepfake tools like ElevenLabs and Midjourney had minimal reported use, with $1,400 and $1,600 spent respectively at the federal level. However, $80 million in ad spending supported AI-generated media in 164 political ads this cycle, per the Wesleyan Media Project, highlighting gaps in disclosure requirements for consultants, media firms, and PACs.