By Eduardo Bacci, The Investigative Journal
The first wave of 2026 first-quarter Federal Election Commission filings has confirmed what political operatives in both parties have whispered for months: the money chase for the midterms is being reshaped by a relatively small constellation of industry-funded super PACs, a Republican coordinating apparatus tied to former and current President Donald Trump that is sitting on a war chest unmatched in modern off-year history, and a Democratic small-dollar surge that is concentrated in a handful of marquee Senate races. April quarterly reports, due to the FEC on April 15 and now publicly browsable through the commission’s data portal, capture activity from January 1 through March 31 of this year. Read in tandem with the late-2025 year-end filings, they show a midterm cycle on track to be the most expensive non-presidential cycle ever recorded.
Trump-aligned PACs sit on a roughly $400 million stockpile
Make America Great Again Inc., the principal pro-Trump super PAC commonly known as MAGA Inc., reported approximately $294 million in cash on hand in its January 31 year-end FEC filing, with subsequent reporting indicating the broader Trump-aligned constellation of committees collectively held more than $400 million in early February. According to records summarized by The Washington Post, MAGA Inc. raised $102 million in the second half of 2025, including 25 contributions of at least $1 million, and ended 2025 with more than $289 million in total receipts for the year. Filings indicate roughly 96 percent of MAGA Inc.’s 2025 receipts came from donations of $1 million or larger, an unusually concentrated donor base even by super-PAC standards.
Among the seven-figure contributors disclosed in MAGA Inc.’s filings is OpenAI president Greg Brockman, whose $25 million September 2025 contribution placed him among the cycle’s largest single donors to a Trump-aligned vehicle. Records suggest the super PAC plans to deploy that capital primarily to defend Republican-held House seats in suburban districts and to back Senate candidates aligned with the administration’s agenda. By contrast, the principal Democratic congressional super PACs and party committees collectively held under $200 million in cash at the same point in February, according to FEC summaries reviewed by The Washington Post.
The Senate air war: $147 million raised in Q1 between two leadership PACs
Two committees dominate the Senate independent-expenditure landscape. Senate Leadership Fund, the McConnell-era vehicle now affiliated with Majority Leader John Thune, raised approximately $72 million in the first quarter of 2026 and reported $166 million in cash on hand on March 31, according to its FEC filing. Senate Majority PAC, the Schumer-aligned Democratic counterpart, brought in $56 million during the same quarter and ended Q1 with roughly $75 million in the bank. Combined, the two groups raised $128 million in three months and held $241 million for ad reservations expected to begin in earnest after Labor Day.
The disparity in cash on hand — SLF holds more than twice SMP’s reserves — understates the structural advantage Republicans enjoy in the outside-money ecosystem this cycle, because party-aligned dark-money 501(c)(4) affiliates of both committees are not required to disclose donors and so do not appear in the FEC summary. Filings from One Nation, SLF’s nonprofit affiliate, and Majority Forward, SMP’s, will trickle out only when the IRS publishes their 990s, typically more than a year after the cycle closes.
Industry super PACs reroute the cycle: crypto, AI, and a new consumer-facing constellation
The most consequential structural shift in the 2026 cycle is the emergence of industry-funded super-PAC networks that operate independently of the traditional party committees. According to FEC filings and analysis by OpenSecrets, the cryptocurrency industry’s flagship vehicle, Fairshake, reported approximately $193 million in total available funds heading into 2026, including roughly $129 million in new contributions raised during the 2025-2026 cycle and $64 million carried over from 2024. Cumulative receipts from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026 totaled $134.6 million, according to the committee’s FEC summary page.
Fairshake has already deployed independent expenditures in 2026 primaries on a scale typically reserved for general elections. The committee announced a $5 million expenditure to boost Alabama Republican Representative Barry Moore in that state’s GOP Senate primary, and an affiliated PAC committed roughly $1.5 million against Democratic Representative Al Green of Texas. Notably, the bulk of Fairshake’s on-air messaging in these primaries does not mention digital-asset policy, instead focusing on character contrasts — a strategic choice that has drawn scrutiny from disclosure advocates who argue the omission obscures the donor industry’s policy interests.
Leading the Future, the artificial-intelligence industry’s analogue, reported $75.5 million raised, $24.4 million spent, and $51.1 million cash on hand as of March 31, according to its first FEC report. The committee’s top contributors include OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna Brockman at $12.5 million each, and a16z founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz at $12.5 million each, with additional seven-figure contributions from SV Angel founder Ron Conway and Perplexity. The PAC’s stated mission is to advance “a responsible national framework” for AI policy, but as with Fairshake, its early-cycle ad spend has focused on character attacks rather than substantive policy contrast.
A third entrant worth watching is Fellowship PAC, a crypto-aligned committee that launched in 2025 and reported $11 million in Q1 contributions, including a $10 million donation from financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, according to FEC filings. The pattern across these three networks — Fairshake, Leading the Future, and Fellowship — is consistent: a small number of mega-donors capitalize a vehicle with eight- or nine-figure reserves, then deploy them in primaries to pre-clear the general-election field of policy adversaries.
Top individual fundraisers and the Democratic small-dollar surge
The first quarter produced several record-setting individual-candidate hauls. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico reported $27.1 million raised in Q1, which his campaign described as the largest first-quarter haul ever recorded by a Senate candidate, according to filings reviewed by NPR and Roll Call. Other notable Democratic Senate fundraising figures from the April quarterly reports include Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff at approximately $14 million, former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown at $10.1 million with $16.5 million cash on hand, former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper at $8.8 million through his principal account, and former Alaska Representative Mary Peltola at $8.6 million in her first reporting period after entering the race.
House Democratic challengers also outpaced expectations in several targeted Republican-held districts: Sarah Trone Garriott reported $1.7 million, Janelle Stelson $2.2 million, and JoAnna Mendoza $2.4 million, according to the latest FEC filings. The pattern echoes the 2018 cycle, when small-dollar fundraising on platforms such as ActBlue produced an unexpectedly favorable terrain for Democratic challengers in the spring before the wave broke in the fall.
The Democratic AIPAC question and a new countervailing PAC
Pro-Israel money continues to operate as one of the most influential outside forces in Democratic primaries. United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, ended 2025 with approximately $96 million in the bank after a $30 million contribution from AIPAC, according to FEC filings, and disbursed roughly $9.1 million during the 2025 calendar year. UDP and AIPAC-linked vehicles have concentrated significant resources in Illinois, where filings show the network spent at least $22 million on Democratic primaries; UDP’s preferred candidates won two of four contested races, according to NBC News reporting on the March primaries. AIPAC’s super PAC also seeded two anonymously branded affiliates that together spent more than $14 million in pivotal Illinois House primaries.
The scale of UDP’s primary intervention has prompted the launch of a counterweight super PAC promising at least $10 million to back progressive Democratic candidates in primaries where AIPAC-linked groups are spending heavily. Whether the counter-PAC can reach UDP’s scale — and whether the Democratic National Committee’s pending resolution on AIPAC funding will alter the calculus — remains an open question that TIJ will continue to monitor.
Dark money: 501(c)(4) spending continues to outpace disclosure
Records compiled by OpenSecrets and Issue One indicate that politically active 501(c)(4) social-welfare nonprofits remain a substantial — and largely invisible — share of cycle spending. Among the most active industry-aligned dark-money entities reported in early-cycle disclosures are the American Petroleum Institute, the crypto-focused Solana Institute, the National Community Pharmacist Association, and the Advanced Medical Technology Association, according to OpenSecrets’ cycle tracking. Because these groups are not required to disclose donors, their spending appears in FEC reports only when they make independent expenditures or transfer funds to a super PAC.
One ongoing dark-money development is concentrated not on a federal race but on the Virginia redistricting fight that could tilt control of Congress next decade. Reporting from TIME in mid-April identified millions of dollars in dark-money flows linked to Peter Thiel into the Virginia redistricting contest, an investment that, if records suggest correctly, would represent one of the largest single-donor commitments to a state-level redistricting battle in the post-Citizens United era. TIJ flags this for further investigation.
State-level developments: California’s billionaire primary
The most consequential state-level money story of the spring is unfolding in California, where the June 2 gubernatorial primary has produced what records suggest will be the most expensive gubernatorial campaign in state history. Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer has reported expenditures exceeding $132 million, according to filings compiled by CalMatters. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan leads conventional fundraising among Democrats with approximately $13 million; Katie Porter has reported $2.8 million; Xavier Becerra $1 million; Antonio Villaraigosa $707,000; and Tony Thurmond $62,000. On the Republican side, conservative commentator Steve Hilton has raised $4.4 million and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco $1.5 million.
The Steyer campaign’s spending pace — a 100-to-1 ratio over Thurmond’s and roughly 10-to-1 over Mahan’s — raises questions familiar from prior self-funded campaigns about the marginal return on saturation spending in a top-two primary. Virginia, which holds its gubernatorial general election in November 2026, continues to operate without individual or party contribution limits to gubernatorial candidates, according to Ballotpedia’s state campaign-finance summary, leaving the state vulnerable to the kind of late mega-donor surges seen in 2021.
Scam PAC enforcement: the FEC inches forward
The Federal Election Commission moved closer to enforcement action against treasurers linked to alleged scam PACs in late April, according to filings and reporting by Campaigns & Elections. The commission approved an audit report covering the filings of Freedom’s Defense Fund and Conservative Majority Fund for January 2011 through December 2012 — an enforcement timeline that itself illustrates the structural challenges of policing the scam-PAC ecosystem. The Campaign Legal Center has separately filed FEC complaints alleging that “Patriots for American Leadership” and “Campaign for a Conservative Majority” fraudulently used recordings of Donald Trump’s voice in robocall solicitations and falsely claimed to support his reelection campaign. Those complaints remain pending; no findings have been made.
The hallmark scam-PAC pattern — high overhead, low candidate disbursement — remains identifiable in FEC summary data. Committees that report 80 percent or more of receipts going to fundraising vendors, payroll, and consultants, and less than 10 percent to candidate-support activity, warrant closer scrutiny. TIJ’s analysis of the Q1 monthly filings has flagged a small number of committees in this profile for follow-up reporting.
Foreign-connected PACs: continued opacity at the corporate edge
OpenSecrets’ foreign-connected PAC tracker continues to identify federal contributions from PACs sponsored by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned corporations, a category permitted under FEC rules so long as the contributions are made by U.S.-citizen employees and the foreign parent does not direct decisions. Records suggest the largest foreign-connected PACs by volume continue to be those affiliated with European pharmaceutical and financial-services parents. The structural concern flagged in OpenSecrets’ published research — that foreign-influenced corporations may indirectly shape state-level political spending through entities not subject to the same disclosure regime — remains unaddressed at the federal level.
Comparison to historical cycles
The first quarter’s combined haul across the principal Senate-focused super PACs ($128 million between SLF and SMP) substantially exceeds the equivalent period in any prior midterm cycle. By way of historical comparison, in Q1 of the 2022 cycle the same two committees collectively raised approximately $35 million, according to FEC filings — meaning Q1 2026 receipts ran more than three and a half times the 2022 pace. The MAGA Inc. cash position of $294 million in early 2026 has no direct analogue in any prior off-year cycle; the largest comparable presidential-aligned committee at this point in the 2022 cycle held under $40 million.
The crypto, AI, and pro-Israel networks together represent more than $360 million in available outside money — a figure roughly equivalent to the entire 2014 super-PAC universe. The structural implication is that policy-area-specific industries can now match or exceed the spending capacity of the traditional party committees, and the rise of these industry-funded groups is correspondingly shifting power away from House Majority PAC, Senate Majority PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and the Senate Leadership Fund as the singular gatekeepers of cycle spending.
Money flows that warrant deeper TIJ investigation
Three threads from the Q1 filings merit deeper investigation in the coming weeks: first, the donor architecture behind Fellowship PAC and the cluster of newer crypto-aligned committees that emerged in late 2025, where filings suggest a small number of corporate principals are responsible for the bulk of receipts; second, the Virginia redistricting dark-money flows linked to Peter Thiel, where records suggest a single donor may be capitalizing a state-level fight at federal-race scale; and third, the AIPAC-affiliated network of anonymously branded Illinois primary affiliates, where filings indicate at least $14 million in spending was routed through entities with disclosed funding chains but undisclosed strategic coordination. TIJ will pursue these in subsequent reporting.
The next significant disclosure milestone is the May monthly filing for monthly-filing PACs, due May 20, followed by the July Quarterly report covering activity through June 30. By the time the July reports land, the primary calendar will have substantially advanced and the pattern of independent-expenditure deployment by the industry super-PAC networks will be clearer. We will publish the next Campaign Finance Watch on June 1.
Sources
- FEC Campaign Finance Data Portal
- FEC PAC and Party Committee Reports
- FEC Statistical Summary, 2025-2026 Cycle
- FEC Committee Page: Fairshake
- OpenSecrets Super PAC Database
- OpenSecrets Foreign-Connected PACs
- OpenSecrets Dark Money Tracker
- OpenSecrets PAC Profile: Fairshake
- The Hill: Q1 FEC reports and midterm dynamics
- NPR: Money in the 2026 midterms
- Washington Post: Trump-aligned PACs $400M
- CNN: Trump super PAC $300M cash stockpile
- NBC News: Big money setting up the midterms
- NBC News: AIPAC-funded Illinois groups
- Roll Call: Democratic Q1 fundraising
- CNBC: AI industry super PAC raises $125M
- CoinDesk: Fairshake $5M in Alabama
- Campaign Legal Center: Scam PAC FEC complaints
- Campaigns & Elections: FEC scam PAC audit
- TIME: Dark money in Virginia redistricting
- CalMatters: Steyer $132M California governor race
- Issue One: Top 15 dark money groups
- Washington Post: Super PAC spending surges