Laurie Buckhout, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, is backed by Leading The Future, a super PAC funded in part by AI industry leaders, which has committed $140 million. Through its affiliate, American Mission, Leading The Future spent $500,000 supporting Buckhout during the Republican primary.
A super PAC is a type of political action committee that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money supporting or opposing a candidate.
Leading The Future is backed in part by AI industry billionaires, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
On its website, the group says part of their mission is “identifying, maintaining, and growing pro-AI candidates in order to support an AI innovation policy agenda at the state and federal level.”
Guardrails Alliance, a group consisting of AI experts, working-class people, and concerned citizens, is launching a $600,000 ad buy to highlight Buckhout’s support from Big Tech billionaires.
“The same AI oligarchs who are trying to build data centers across the country want to control who represents people in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District,” Shaunna Thomas, executive director of Guardrails Alliance, said. “The AI industry knows that Laurie Buckhout will do whatever they want and help them make sure that Congress does not pass regulations protecting the American public from AI, which is why they’ve spent over half a million dollars supporting her campaign.”
On its website, Guardrails Alliance says: “We are not anti-technology. We believe AI can be transformative, beneficial, and genuinely good for people. But that future requires rules, accountability, and a government that actually represents the public — not just its donors.”
Buckhout is currently running in one of the most competitive races in the entire country. North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District is one of just 17 “toss-up” races among the 435 House seats, according to the Cook Political Report. The district, which stretches from Oxford in Granville County all the way to the Outer Banks, and from the Virginia state line down to Goldsboro, encompasses all or part of 25 counties.
Rep. Don Davis (D-Greene County) is currently serving in his second term and seeking a third.
The race is a rematch of the 2024 election, when Davis narrowly defeated Buckhout.
“People in North Carolina deserve to have a member of Congress who will fight for them, not one who’s been bought and paid for by the AI industry,” Thomas said.
