Analysis cited by Wired found that two Polymarket election markets, tied to Ethiopia and Romania, generated over $600 million in trading volume, much of it after the races had concluded. Researchers identified $284 million in questionable trades around Ethiopia's election and found that 99.6% of trading volume in a Romanian election market during certain periods was flagged as likely wash trading. Polymarket said it flagged and blocked the Ethiopia-related accounts but did not explain why the activity continued for months first.
news.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-17
New Federal Election Commission filings covering July through September show Democratic candidates outraising Republican rivals directly across Senate and House races. Republicans are compensating with massive outside super PAC spending, led by the Senate Leadership Fund's record $272.9 million haul and the Congressional Leadership Fund's record $94.4 million, both fueled heavily by billionaire donors including Elon Musk.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-16
Analysis of Polymarket's offshore platform found two global election markets generated over $600 million in trading volume, with most activity concentrated on long-shot candidates who lost. In Ethiopia's election, where incumbent Abiy Ahmed won decisively, only $173,000 was bet on his victory while more than $41 million was traded on his chief of staff winning instead, part of over $285 million wagered overwhelmingly on losing outcomes. Former Polymarket trader Chris Park found that roughly $284 million of that volume came from pairs of accounts repeatedly trading with each other.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-16
The Senate Leadership Fund, the main Republican Senate super PAC, raised a record $272.9 million in the third quarter and holds over $155 million in cash ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms. Elon Musk contributed $158 million of that total through a Texas PAC tied to Ken Paxton, in two donations of $75 million and $83 million. The Democratic Senate Majority PAC raised $151 million in the same period and had $111.8 million on hand.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-15
Ahead of the Nov. 3, 2026 midterm elections, CNET reports a wave of AI-generated political ads, some disclosed and some not, including manipulated content targeting Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and James Talarico. A CNN analysis cited in the report found campaigns and groups have spent more than $16 million on AI-generated ads this cycle, following a 2024 incident where an AI voice clone of Joe Biden was used in illegal robocalls that led to a $6 million fine.
cnet.com
· 2026-10-14
A military intelligence source and internal documents describe Task Force Raider, a U.S. Cyber Command unit based in San Antonio, Texas, working within a government-wide election security group ahead of the midterms. The unit's activities reportedly include sending mass anonymous text and voice messages abroad, deleting social media posts, and taking down websites, with the mission reportedly designated a 'no fail' top priority by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
kenklippenstein.com
· 2026-10-14
Elon Musk has given more than $276 million to Republican political groups since July, newly disclosed figures show, including $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund and over $76 million to his America PAC. The contributions push his known federal political spending for the 2025-26 cycle to about $366 million, surpassing his 2024 presidential election spending, with disclosures arriving ahead of a Thursday FEC filing deadline.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-12
A super PAC running ads meant to influence Maine's Senate race reportedly aimed its campaign at the wrong Portland, targeting Oregon's largest city instead of Maine's. The mix-up means the ad spending likely reached an audience with no stake in the Maine election.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-12
Cleta Mitchell's Election Integrity Network is telling supporters to call and email nursing homes, care homes and assisted-living facilities ahead of the midterms, alleging without evidence that left-wing groups are manipulating residents' ballots. The group has distributed a toolkit and shared maps identifying care facilities in competitive congressional districts, calling residents potential targets for "political predators." Mitchell cited a disputed 2020 Wisconsin case, rejected by the state's election commission, as justification; neither she nor the network responded to requests for comment.
wired.com
· 2026-10-12
Anthropic updated its usage policy on Thursday, adding explicit bans on election interference, weapons software, and surveillance. The policy also now formally prohibits users from engaging in prolonged, cruel verbal abuse of Claude, building on an August update that let the model end harmful conversations. Anthropic says the abuse rule targets only extreme, purposeless cruelty, not frustration, pushback, dark creative writing, or testing.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-08
Anthropic has revised its usage policy for the first time in over a year, adding rules covering election interference, weapons development, surveillance, and financial and health uses. A new provision also bars "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward Claude, building on last August's feature letting the chatbot end conversations with persistently abusive users. The company says conversation termination remains its main enforcement tool and the rule targets only extreme, purposeless cruelty, not frustration or creative testing.
theverge.com
· 2026-10-08
Federal filings analyzed by WIRED show Elon Musk's America PAC has spent $21 million of its $26.7 million total this cycle on seven competitive US Senate races. The spending as of October 6 skews heavily toward attacking Democratic candidates rather than directly supporting Republicans, with roughly double that ratio overall and triple in Senate contests specifically. This year's total spending is about a third of the $85.9 million America PAC had spent by the same point in 2024, when most money went to the presidential race.
wired.com
· 2026-10-07
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