US midterms: Spending binge by Musk, crypto and AI hit voter wall

It was the most expensive election in US history and most of the biggest spenders have little to show for it.Elon Musk, the crypto industry and AI backers together poured hundreds of millions of dollars into key midterm races from Texas to Ohio but came up short. Voters’ frustration over the economy, including the impact of technology on their jobs and communities, overcame what often seemed like a torrent of cash. The losses are certain to raise new questions for many top donors about what they are getting for their money and whether they need to shift strategies. Instead of helping candidates cruise to victory, in some races the flood of money may have ended up galvanising the opposition. “We just showed that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas,” Democratic Senator-elect James Talarico, who banked on a national network of small-dollar donors, said during his victory speech on Nov 3. “We just sent a message to every billionaire mega-donor, every trillionaire mega-donor, every corrupt defender of this broken political system.”Musk was again the single biggest donor at more than US$445 million this cycle, with US$205 million spent in Texas in a failed bid to support Ken Paxton against Talarico, Federal Election Commission filings show. Then there was the crypto industry, which spent US$166 million, including US$64 million seeking to defeat Democratic Ohio Senator-elect Sherrod Brown. AI and the data centre industry, which saw backlash accelerate against it through the campaign cycle, dumped millions into an 11th-hour effort to elect South Carolina Republican Senator Darline Graham, whom President Donald Trump handpicked for the race. Instead, Graham’s rival Annie Andrews will be the first Democrat to represent the state in the US Senate in more than two decades. Another big loser on Nov 3 was the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, which spent more than US$558 million only to see all the candidates in its top five races go down to defeat. “Big money was on the ballot in a way it hasn’t been in any election of my lifetime,” said Daniel Weiner, a campaign finance expert with the Brennan Center for Justice.Of course, Democrats spent significant sums as well. Democratic candidates in competitive Senate races – including Talarico, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed – handily outraised and outspent their Republican counterparts. Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, has donated US$116 million to support Democrats in the midterms. The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC spent US$333 million, bolstered by dark-money donors. But the Grand Old Party (GOP) - the Republican Party’s informal name - dominated outside spending. The Republican Party and three super PACs tied to Trump or House and Senate leaders during the election cycle raised US$2.1 billion, compared to US1.4 billion for their Democratic counterparts. The odds were stacked against Republicans from the get-go. The incumbent president’s party typically loses in midterm elections, and voters this year have been incensed by the rising cost of living and the war in Iran.In the wake of what Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis called an “extinction-level event,” some Republicans went so far as to dismiss the importance of money altogether.“Money is the most over-rated thing in politics and it has been for a long time,” said Sam Geduldig, a Republican lobbyist and former adviser to House Republican leaders. “It’s an important factor, but America does love to go back and forth, punishing the people they just put in power. And money flows to where the power is perceived to be.” Many Republican gubernatorial candidates backed by big donors found themselves shut out of power on Nov 3. Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate and billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy lost despite being backed by US$30 million from Republican Party mega-donor Jeff Yass and millions more from Musk. GOP donor Richard Uihlein’s Restoration of America super PAC spent over US$12.7 million boosting Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany, who lost to Democrat David Crowley, according to analytics firm AdImpact. In a social media post, Uihlein’s super PAC said voters “soured on Trump because of the unexpected Iran War and the resulting higher gas and diesel prices” and blamed the losses on Christian voters failing to turn out in “significant enough numbers”.There were some bright spots for GOP donors. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin gave a total of US$15 million to support Republican Byron Donalds’ successful bid for the Florida governor’s mansion and another US$2.5 million to Senator Ashley Moody, who turned back a strong challenge from progressive Angie Nixon. A Republican super PAC backed by the AI industry also spent more than US$2 million supporting Donalds.The likely defeat of the billionaire tax measure in California would be another score for big donors. The ballot measure, Proposition 40, appeared unlikely to succeed on Nov 3 after ultra-wealthy opponents including billionaire Google co-founder Sergey Brin raised more than US$375 million and spent hundreds of millions to defeat it.California billionaires outspent the ballot measure’s supporters 250-to-1 to sink the tax, which would have put a one-time 5% levy on individuals’ accumulated wealth to fund healthcare in the state. Crypto super PAC Fairshake, which is backed by major industry players including Coinbase and Ripple, touted its spending on behalf of Nebraska Republican Senator Pete Ricketts, an incumbent who won his race handily over an independent challenger. Fairshake’s Republican arm spent over US$11.9 million to boost Ricketts.“As the biggest spender in the Nebraska Senate race, we’re proud to have helped Senator Ricketts weather the waves of a hard-fought cycle,” said Geoff Vetter, a spokesperson for Fairshake, who promised that the super PAC “will do it again” in two years for the next presidential election. “We will be watching and ’28 is a new map,” Vetter said. BLOOMBERG