AI Goes to Bat for Valerie Foushee
When we last left Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), she was getting massively outspent in her March 3 Democratic primary for re-election in the Fourth Congressional District, where she faces Durham County commissioner Nida Allam. But that million-dollar deficit has now been mostly made up by a super PAC linked to artificial intelligence model designer Anthropic, makers of Claude, which is now dumping nearly $700,000 into supporting Foushee. Another $250,000 has been put toward Foushee by a mysterious PAC with ties to Democratic leadership.
Jobs and Democracy PAC is Anthropic’s super PAC and part of an umbrella organization called Public First, which has been trying to give off a vibe of being the kinder, gentler AI super PAC, dedicated to prudent regulation rather than rampant accelerationism. The headline on Jobs and Democracy PAC’s website reads: “Supporting Democrats who put people before Big Tech.”
Former Rep. Brad Carson (D-OK), an outspoken advocate for AI regulation, leads Public First, which is linked to the “AI safety” movement that is trying to establish guardrails against hypothetically apocalyptic outcomes from AI development. Anthropic has staked the political PAC associated with Public First with $20 million thus far; Public First says it has raised $50 million in all and plans to raise $25 million more. In one congressional race in New York, Jobs and Democracy PAC is going toe-to-toe with the super PAC backed by OpenAI, which favors more of a hands-off approach to AI regulation.
But by supporting Foushee, Public First is standing up for one of three co-chairs to the House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy, which Foushee was appointed to in December. They’re also running ads for one of the other two, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), with a $300,000 buy. So two-thirds of the Democrats’ policy development leadership for AI regulation is benefiting from ads bankrolled in part by one of the leading AI firms, presenting at least the suggestion of a conflict of interest.
Rep. Foushee’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
ALLAM, WHO ONLY GOT INTO THE RACE in December, has mostly matched Foushee in candidate fundraising. Foushee is a Congressional Progressive Caucus member (the organization has endorsed her) and has a relatively reliable progressive voting record. But Allam has criticized her for taking money from the pharmaceutical and defense industries, in addition to tech companies. Justice Democrats and other progressive groups have endorsed Allam.
Prior to the intervention that began last weekend, Allam was the clear leader in terms of outside support, backed by a $550,000 investment from American Priorities, a new PAC set up to counter pro–Israel lobby funding in Democratic primaries, along with nearly half a million dollars from other social justice PACs. American Priorities added another $50,000 late last week.
But about $270,000 came in from Jobs and Democracy PAC for ads for Foushee last weekend, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. Sources have told the Prospect that another $420,000 is dropping. In addition, $50,000 supporting Foushee was released on Monday by Rolling Sea Action Fund, which is affiliated with the Congressional Black Caucus.
Foushee recently changed the “red box” on her campaign website, a way that campaigns communicate with super PACs on messaging, attacking Allam for “more than a million dollars in dark money spending” and saying that Foushee is “taking on big corporations and special interests” and “can’t be bought.”
Public Policy Polling was in the field with a poll last week, surveying both the head-to-head on the congressional race and voter attitudes in the district on AI. It’s unclear whether Public First or some other entity funded it, and it has not been released. Public Policy Polling did not respond to a request for comment.
Public First is among a series of AI super PACs attempting to influence elections this cycle. Leading the Future is the umbrella group backed by OpenAI; their Democratic family of PACs is called Think Big. Leading the Future has raised $125 million, and has $70 million currently in the bank. Meta has a separate super PAC effort for state legislative races that has a stake of $65 million.
That’s on top of the influence-peddling happening inside Washington. A new report from Public Citizen shows that more than 3,500 lobbyists reported doing work for the AI industry in 2025; that represents 1 out of every 4 registered lobbyists at the federal level, or a 170 percent growth in the past three years.
Anthropic and OpenAI super PACs also support Republicans. Public First, for instance, has run ads supporting Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE), who is in a tight race for re-election against independent Dan Osborn. But that group has become a thorn in the side of the Trump administration; recently, Anthropic objected to the Department of Defense using its technology as part of the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
Public First has cultivated a reputation as supporting reasonable regulations on AI, and Anthropic has aligned with that. But Foushee now faces some hurdles explaining the support from the AI industry in the district, which is home to a massive proposed data center project near Apex, North Carolina. Hundreds of constituents have been mobilizing against the data center, and have signed an open letter to candidates in the Fourth District, asking them to oppose the data center and reject super PAC funding from the industry. It is unknown what tech firm will be using the data center.
In another part of the district in Chatham County, a one-year moratorium has been placed on data centers. Allam has signed on to the proposed data center moratorium put forward by one of her endorsers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). At a press conference last weekend in Apex, Allam highlighted the soaring cost of electricity in areas with data centers, which she called “an AI tax on our power,” and said she would work with the community to fight the construction.
“We know that they look at this land and all they see is more profit, more energy,” Allam said. “They claim that they want progress or that these centers will create jobs. In fact they’re so concerned with cleaning up their image that they’ve gotten involved in our congressional race. They’re calling themselves the Jobs and Democracy PAC and they think we can’t see right through it, but we do.”
Foushee was confronted by a high school student in the district weeks ago about whether she would accept AI industry money. She did not respond.
Another set of rumored activity in the race involves Article One PAC, a shell PAC formed late last year to assist Tahesha Way, the former lieutenant governor of New Jersey who unsuccessfully ran for a House seat vacated by now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Sources have told the Prospect that Article One is making a $257,550 ad buy in favor of Foushee.
Way, in turn, was the candidate who AIPAC hoped would benefit from its attack ads against Tom Malinowski in the Sherrill race, but instead she lost to Analilia Mejia, ironically a fierce critic of Israel. The donors to Article One PAC are unknown—it has one connection to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for House Democrats—but if it’s revealed as AIPAC-supported, that would violate Foushee’s rejection of AIPAC support that she made last August at a public town hall.
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