# Alliance for a Better Future A Delaware-registered **electioneering communication filer** that made its first FEC filing of any kind on **2026-09-16** and has since disclosed **$3,833,088.00** in television advertising across four Senate races in seven days. It is the right's **anti-Big-Tech** AI money — the mirror image of [[Leading the Future]], which is the right's **pro-Big-Tech** AI money, and which the vault already tracks. Its backing coalition includes the [[Heritage Foundation]] and [[Family Policy Alliance]]. Its CEO is [[Janet Kelly]]. Its ads praise four Republican Senate candidates for wanting guardrails on AI, and attack [[Bernie Sanders]] by name for wanting the wrong ones. > [!important] The intra-right AI money fight now has real dollars on both sides > The vault has carried [[Leading the Future]] — the [[Andreessen Horowitz]]- and [[OpenAI]]-principal-funded > vehicle pushing federal preemption of state AI law — since mid-2026. ABF is the first organized, > eight-figure-ambition conservative money operating **against** that position, arguing for federalism, > child-safety mandates and workforce protection. This is not left versus right. It is two conservative > factions buying television against each other over who writes the AI rulebook. ## Registration and structure | Item | Detail | |---|---| | FEC ID | **C30003628** | | Type | **Electioneering Communication** filer, unauthorized — **not** a super PAC, **not** a PAC | | First FEC filing | **2026-09-16** (Form 9, file 2012270) | | Organization launched | **2026-03-23** (self-reported) | | Custodian of records | **Cassidy King**, titled ACCOUNTANT, of **Crosby Ottenhoff Group**, 421 Office Park Drive, Mountain Brook, AL 35223 | | CEO listed on filings | **Janet Kelly**, 614 N Dupont Hwy Suite 210, Dover, DE 19901 | | Address | 614 N Dupont Hwy Suite 210, Dover, DE 19901 — a Delaware registered-agent suite | | Affiliated charity | **Coalition for a Better Future**, a separate 501(c)(3) (self-reported) | | Website | betterfutureai.org | > [!warning] An electioneering communication filer discloses less than a super PAC, by design > ABF files **Form 9**, not Form 24 or Form 3X. Three consequences the vault should hold onto: > 1. **The filings carry no support/oppose position.** An [[Electioneering Communication]] legally > records only that an ad *clearly identified* a federal candidate within the pre-election window. > Every dollar below is recorded against a candidate's name with no direction attached. > 2. **There is no committee-level receipts report.** ABF has no Form 3X, so no Schedule A. A super PAC's > donors surface on a schedule; a c4-shaped EC filer's do not. > 3. **Its Schedule E is empty and will stay empty** unless it converts to independent expenditures. > Any sweep that reads only `/schedules/schedule_e/` will never see this committee at all. ## Spending **Three Form 9 twenty-four-hour notices, 2026-09-16 and 2026-09-18, totalling $3,833,088.00.** Read from the raw filing text at docquery, verified **2026-09-22**. The processed `/electioneering/` endpoint still returns zero rows for this committee — it lags the raw filings badly, and should not be used here. | Filed | File # | Communication date | Ad | Amount | |---|---|---|---|---| | Sept 16 | 2012270 | 2026-09-15 | "TRUST" | **$2,074,528.00** | | Sept 18 | 2013889 | 2026-09-19 | "TRUST ALT" | $693,514.00 | | Sept 18 | 2013897 | 2026-09-19 | "TRUST" | $1,065,046.00 | | | | | **Total** | **$3,833,088.00** | ### By candidate named | Candidate | Race | FEC candidate ID | Total | Share | |---|---|---|---|---| | [[Susan Collins]] | [[ME-Sen-2026]] | S6ME00159 | **$1,513,765.01** | 39.5% | | [[Mike Rogers (Michigan)]] | [[MI-Sen-2026]] | S4MI00595 | **$1,065,046.00** | 27.8% | | [[Ashley Hinson]] | [[IA-Sen-2026]] | S6IA00314 | $833,808.99 | 21.8% | | [[Roger Marshall]] | [[KS-Sen-2026]] | S0KS00315 | $420,468.00 | 11.0% | ### By vendor **M2 Placement** (10065 E Harvard Ave Ste 400, Denver, CO) took **$3,794,284.00 — 99.0%** of the total, all of it media placement. **Ascent Media LLC** (1001 Connecticut Ave NW Ste 206, Washington, DC) took $38,804.00, all of it production. Every placement line across all three filings carries the same expenditure date, **2026-09-10** — the buy was booked in one transaction and is being disclosed in tranches as the spots air. ### What the escalation shows The 09-16 filing split three ways almost evenly between Maine, Iowa and Kansas. The two 09-18 filings did something different: - **Maine got a second buy of $685,936** — 98.9% of the "TRUST ALT" filing. Collins is now the single largest beneficiary, with more than triple Marshall's total. - **Michigan appeared from nowhere.** [[Mike Rogers (Michigan)]] was named in no earlier filing and received **$1,065,046 in a single notice** — the largest one-candidate ABF buy on record, and a fourth state added within 48 hours of the first. ## Politics and positioning ABF's stated pitch is that AI innovation is good but that Big Tech must not develop it without consumer and child protections. It says it will spend **at least eight figures across 2026** on federal and state advocacy, lobbying and public education. Against $3.83M disclosed, that claim is mostly unspent. Its three self-published policy pillars are **"American AI the American Way"** (governing AI through federalism and subsidiarity — which is the anti-preemption position, and the direct negative of [[Leading the Future]]'s core ask), **"Protecting the American Family"** (child safety, parental control), and **"Workforce and Economic Impact"** (AI that augments rather than replaces human labor). The ad itself does more than praise. Fox News Digital, which got the first buy exclusively, describes "TRUST" as running images of [[Bernie Sanders]], [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]] and [[Rashida Tlaib]] on screen over a line about the same people who fail you writing an AI rulebook for their own benefit. [[Janet Kelly]] framed the buy to Fox as a contest with China that the United States can only win by building technology Americans trust, and named Sanders as the person not to cede it to. > [!question] The named-candidate gap is worth watching, not yet worth alleging > The ad as described attacks Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib. The Form 9s name only Collins, Marshall, > Hinson and Rogers. Sanders was last elected in 2024 and is not on the 2026 ballot, which is a clean > explanation for his absence from the filings; Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib are both up in 2026, which is > not as clean. EC disclosure attaches to the candidates the filer identifies. **This is an open question > about what the filings capture, not an allegation that anything was omitted improperly.** Resolve it by > reading the actual spot before writing anything stronger. ## The people Leadership, as the organization publishes it: - **[[Janet Kelly]]**, CEO — former Secretary of Health and Human Resources to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, with a background in child welfare and family-policy advocacy. - **Tim Estes**, Board Chair — founder of Digital Reasoning, now CEO of AngelQ. - **Ari Kagan**, COO — founded an AI software startup; previously led AI outreach to policymakers at FAI. - **Brad Littlejohn**, Chair of Policy Council — Director of Programs at [[American Compass]]. - **Gary Marx**, **David Rexrode** and **Trey Walker**, advisors — between them six presidential campaigns, nine Supreme Court nomination fights, senior RNC and RGA roles, and a South Carolina governor's chief of staff. This is an experienced Republican operation, not a startup. The Policy Council — formally a working group of the affiliated 501(c)(3), not of ABF itself — draws from [[Heritage Foundation]] (Emma Waters), [[Conservative Partnership Institute]] (Rachel Bovard), [[Family Policy Alliance]] (Amanda Banks, a former Indiana state senator), the Institute for Family Studies, NCOSE, and the Digital Childhood Institute. > [!note] One name on that council does not fit the pattern, and it matters > **Jason Van Beek** is Chief Government Affairs Officer at the [[Future of Life Institute]] — an > AI-existential-risk organization with no conservative-movement lineage — and was previously **General > Counsel to Senate Majority Leader [[John Thune]]**. An AI-safety group and the Heritage-adjacent > family-policy right sitting on the same policy council is the clearest evidence the vault has that the > anti-preemption coalition is **cross-ideological**, held together by a shared opponent rather than a > shared worldview. The Thune connection is separately notable: Thune's own leadership network is > simultaneously running [[Texas PAC]], the largest independent-expenditure program of the cycle. ## Money out: the MAGA Inc contribution Fox News Digital reported on 2026-09-14 that ABF had made a **previously unreported $1,000,000 donation to [[MAGA Inc]]** the week prior. If accurate, this is the most structurally significant thing about ABF: a c4-shaped entity with no receipts disclosure of its own writing a seven-figure check into the president's super PAC. ⚠️ **It is not on file.** A search of FEC Schedule A for "Alliance for a Better Future" as contributor, 2026 two-year period, returns **zero records** as of 2026-09-22. [[MAGA Inc]] is a monthly filer, so a contribution received in the week of September 7 would first appear on the report covering September, **due October 20, 2026**. Until then this is single-source and press-reported. Do not carry the $1M into any aggregate on this page or on the [[MAGA Inc]] page. ## Relationship to the rest of the AI-money map | Vehicle | Type | Position on AI regulation | Funded by | |---|---|---|---| | [[Leading the Future]] | Super PAC | Pro-preemption; against state AI law | [[Andreessen Horowitz]], [[OpenAI]] principals | | **Alliance for a Better Future** | EC filer | Anti-preemption; federalism, child safety, labor | Undisclosed; [[Heritage Foundation]] and [[Family Policy Alliance]] coalition | | [[AI Accountability Super PAC]] | Super PAC | Unknown — registered 2026-09-14, no money, no program | Undisclosed | | [[Fairshake PAC]] | Super PAC | Crypto analogue; the template both sides are copying | Crypto industry | **ABF and [[AI Accountability Super PAC]] are not related on any evidence available.** The 2026-09-17 sweep flagged the question because the names point the same direction. They share **no officer, no treasurer or custodian, no address, no vendor and no disclosed funder**: ABF is Dover, Delaware with Cassidy King of Crosby Ottenhoff Group in Alabama and Janet Kelly as CEO; AI Accountability is Sacramento, California with John Fernandez as treasurer and custodian. Absent contrary evidence, treat them as unconnected. ## Open questions - **Who funds it.** ABF files no Schedule A. Unless it registers a PAC or its donors surface through a 501(c)(4) disclosure elsewhere, the $3.83M has no traceable source. This is the entire point of the structure. - **Whether the $1M to [[MAGA Inc]] appears on the October 20 monthly report.** That report is the single document that would convert the Fox account into a vault-grade fact. - **Whether ABF converts to independent expenditures.** An EC filer that starts filing Form 24s has decided to take an explicit support/oppose position, which is a strategic choice worth recording the day it happens. - **Whether Michigan was the start of a list or a one-off.** A fourth state arriving 48 hours after the first three, at the largest single-candidate amount yet, reads like a program scaling. - **Whether any of the four candidates acknowledges the help.** Fox reported that the offices of Collins, Marshall and Hinson did not respond to requests to clarify their AI positions. ## Watch triggers - **Any Form 24 or Form 3X filing** — conversion from EC to IE, or the appearance of a receipts schedule. - **A fifth state, or any single candidate above $2M.** - **October 20** — [[MAGA Inc]]'s monthly report, for the $1M. - **Any officer, vendor or funder overlap with [[AI Accountability Super PAC]]** — currently none; re-check if either files again. ## See also - [[Leading the Future]] — the opposing AI money - [[AI Accountability Super PAC]] — the other new AI-named committee, unrelated on present evidence - [[Heritage Foundation]] · [[Family Policy Alliance]] · [[American Compass]] · [[Conservative Partnership Institute]] - [[MAGA Inc]] · [[Texas PAC]] · [[Senate Leadership Fund]] - [[ME-Sen-2026]] · [[MI-Sen-2026]] · [[IA-Sen-2026]] · [[KS-Sen-2026]] · [[2026 Senate Races Hub]] - [[Electioneering Communication]] · [[Dark Money]] · [[501(c)(4)]] · [[Independent Expenditure]]