Artificial intelligence is barging into the workplace and transforming the battlefield. Now, it’s coming to the ballot box, promising to rewrite the DNA of politics.
Driven by a flood of Silicon Valley money, AI has emerged as one of the biggest financial forces in this year’s U.S. elections, fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars from tech billionaires led by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman. Their goal is simple: elect a slate of candidates who will heed their calls for looser government oversight of the nascent technology.
All that spending has run headlong into deepening bipartisan resentment of AI itself, touched off by the nationwide proliferation of data centers and intensified by companies embracing the technology in a bid to reduce labor costs. In polls, voters increasingly blame AI for electricity bills that have surged as much as 267% and say they fear that it will eventually take their jobs, an extension of the lasting economic unease that has defined the last several U.S. elections.
On the campaign trail, AI is reworking the playbook for how to run for office, just as it’s changing the way business is done across the economy. There’s now a mad dash by candidates and consultants to deploy the technology for an edge in producing ads and targeting voters. At the same time, the AI models used as a tool by cash-strapped campaigns can be wielded by opponents and outside agitators to spread disinformation and doubt among the electorate.
“This is the first AI election from a substantive perspective,” said Beth Simone Noveck, director of the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University. “It’s front and center in the substance of the conversation.”
November’s congressional contests promise to be the most consequential in years, serving as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s stewardship of the economy — especially his bet on the AI boom as an engine of growth. For Trump, there’s more on the line than just his economic legacy: losing Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate threatens to unleash an effort to impeach him for a third time and to initiate a wide range of investigations into his administration.
AI’s influence has permeated nearly every aspect of the midterms, from financing to core issues facing voters, and it’s poised to play an even bigger role in the 2028 race to succeed Trump. The campaign is unfolding against an AI-fueled market rally that points to risks that the technology could widen the gap between rich and poor, a concern highlighted by Pope Leo XIV in a 43,000-word missive on AI that urged governments and industry to keep it from “dominating humanity.”
Younger voters in the U.S. increasingly see AI wiping out entry-level opportunities, and polls show their rising hostility toward the technology. Graduates at the University of Arizona booed former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt when he brought up AI in a commencement speech, signaling that a crucial bloc remains unconvinced about the benefits promised by the tech industry.
Races across the country show signs of AI’s pervasive presence. In Louisiana, a super political action committee promoted the first AI-generated ad in the state, depicting a blue-haired liberal protester and mustachioed barista horrified over a Republican congressional contender. In Texas, the conservative PAC Citizens for Sanity in June began running an AI-enabled ad against Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico depicting him wearing a dress and singing lovingly about transgender children.
“The AI genie is out of the bottle,” Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who’s made AI issues a central plank in his reelection campaign, said in an interview. “You can almost not make a better bogeyman than, ‘Oh my gosh, are the robots going to take over? Are we going to have jobs?’”