The defense sector has donated nearly $5 million to members of Congress via political action committees and individual donations so far this year, according to a new report by NOTUS.
The defense industry donations — comprising both traditional firms like Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon) and Northrop Grumman and newer companies like Anduril — make up only a small percentage of the cash going to Congress, according to OpenSecrets. Even so, the industry has enormous sway in politics through these contributions and through lobbying efforts.
Republicans and Democrats alike benefit from these donations and notably, plenty of this money is directed at congressional decision makers who can influence legislation around defense acquisition, including the National Defense Authorization Act.
California Rep. Ken Calvert raised roughly $200,000 in campaign funds from PACs and individuals affiliated with companies like RTX, BAE Systems, Leidos and others. Calvert, a Republican, is the head of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and will face a battle to keep his seat during the midterms this year.
And it’s not just company PACs contributing, but individual donors — powerful corporate leaders like Anduril co-founder Brian Schimpf, who donated $7,000 to Washington Rep. Adam Smith last quarter.
Smith is the Democratic leader on the House Armed Services Committee, which has a broad jurisdiction over defense matters including “acquisition and industrial base policy [and] technology transfer and export controls,” according to the committee’s website.
All in all, Smith received nearly $130,000 in donations from defense industry PACs and individual executives last quarter, according to NOTUS’ reporting, which is based on publicly available documentation from the Federal Election Commission.
Yet these donations do not exactly translate into government contracts; it’s not that straightforward, according to Greg Williams, the director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight.
“A big part of the push over the last year or so is to deregulate the defense acquisition process,” like pushing for faster procurement and an expanded ability to bypass oversight mechanisms in that process, according to Williams.
One example of that is the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery (SPEED) Act, which Smith and HASC Chair Mike Rogers, R-Ala., co-sponsored. Rogers received $68,000 in defense industry donations, including $7,000 from Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, in the first quarter of 2026.
Defense firms — whether they’re primes like RTX or newer entrants — have long expressed frustration with what they call a tedious and overly bureaucratic acquisition process. But the DoD’s own independent inspector general has repeatedly found these firms overcharging, which is a problem only likely to get worse with fewer regulations, according to Julia Gledhill, a research analyst for the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center.
“The United States has production capacity limits,” she told Military Times. “Policymakers should be figuring out how to operate within those limits rather than assuming money and deregulation will solve their production problems.”
And there are real risks, too, particularly given that the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation has essentially been gutted under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“Gutting the office of the DOT&E increases risk that the Pentagon will develop weapons that the military doesn’t need and that don’t work as intended, threatening service members’ safety,” Gledhill added.
Last week Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., who raised $32,500 from defense industry PACs by March 31, introduced a bill allowing the Secretary of State to issue loans — and set terms for those loans — to foreign countries in order to purchase U.S. arms. That arrangement could encourage the U.S. to increase arms sales to other countries, since the government would expect to be paid back with interest for the loans as opposed to the non-repayable grants system currently in place.
“This bill would ensure we continue to arm our partners and allies under terms that put America first,” Mast said in a press release. “At its core, this is about increasing integration with our allies, deterring adversaries, and strengthening our defense industrial base.”
Much of this new legislation also references the need to strengthen the defense industrial base, which Williams cautions may not provide the economic boost Americans are looking for.
“It’s widely understood that a dollar [spent on] defense creates far fewer jobs than dollars spent otherwise,” Williams said. “And so the idea that you’re supporting the economy by supporting the defense manufacturing base, I think that just doesn’t hold water.”
The combination of threadbare campaign finance regulation, a poor economic outlook and an increasingly militarized foreign policy could be a boon for defense firms. However, it could be perilous not just to the military, but to the democratic system overall, Gledhill said.
“I look at it as legalized corruption,” she added.
