How AI is changing the way politicians run for office
On a recent afternoon, Alex Bond stood outside his home in York, Pennsylvania, ticking off the political topics that interest him most. After gas prices and taxes, he named data centers—massive warehouses that consume vast amounts of energy to run artificial intelligence.
“The AI is terrible,” said Mr. Bond, a 29-year-old account manager at a company that provides ankle monitors. “And it will probably kill us all.
He spoke to a pair of political canvassers sent to Pennsylvania’s competitive 10th Congressional District on the recommendation of Janelle Stelson, the Democratic candidate, in an old-fashioned door-knocking operation.
Little did Mr. Bond realize that his comments would soon be processed in one of those AI data centers.
After their chat ended, one of the payers who volunteered Swing lefta Democratic political group, recapped what Mr. Bond said on a phone app. This note was then analyzed by the AI tool along with hundreds of other notes from similar door knocks that occurred in the district. The AI tool synthesized what voters like Mr Bond were saying and contributed messages that the campaign could use to tailor its messaging and convert credentialed voters like him into supporters.
“Everything a person says is a data point,” said Violet Kopp, one of the payers and Swing Left’s East Coast program manager.
Republican and Democratic candidates and strategists, once wary of or overwhelmed by AI tools, are now rushing to improve their campaigns. Those who do could reap the rewards in November’s midterm elections and ultimately in the 2028 presidential campaign. Those who don’t could be far behind.
But this seismic shift in how politicians run for office is also being met with pushback on many fronts, including among voters and campaign staff who distrust AI and fear its potential to destroy jobs, sap energy and harm the planet.
Surveys show that Democrats are more suspicious of AI tools than Republicans, and progressive strategists have struggled with how to deploy the tools in their campaigns without rattling off volunteers or union workers who fear losing their jobs. Republican strategists said they were getting fewer complaints from staffers, though conservative voters still tend to be concerned about AI
Caught in the middle, political candidates are more eager than ever to reap the benefits of AI while avoiding the political mudslinging of the many costs.
“It’s a political liability,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican strategist and director of the organization Center for Campaign Innovationa non-profit organization focused on encouraging conservative campaigns to adopt new technologies. “If voters don’t like AI, they don’t want to know that their candidate’s campaign is using AI to do things like draft emails or create press releases or edit videos. So you’re just not going to see people bragging about it. But it’s happening.”
AI-generated videos and images are the public face of this overhaul. Spencer Pratt, a Republican running for mayor of Los Angeles in this year’s primary, boosted his profile with AI-generated content mocking his opponents and creating dystopian images of Los Angeles. He eventually lost his bid.
But behind the scenes, campaign managers and consultants quickly built AI into nearly every tool for analyzing voter data, creating campaign materials, and writing custom messages for micro-segments of the electorate.
A new survey published by the Technology and Policy Newsletter Anchor changeshowed that 87 percent of activists and strategists use AI daily as part of their work. The tools are the focus of one progressive nonprofit’s monthly conference calls, which attract hundreds of attendees to share tips on using artificial intelligence to improve campaign operations or write targeted messages.
Opposition researchers are also using AI to sift through campaign finance data to uncover potentially damaging stories. American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic-leaning group, has used artificial intelligence to investigate about 250 Republican candidates and politicians and credits the technology for helping. dig into 17 House Republicans who are in relatively safe districts. “AI shows flags to people who vet projects, scale them up and get them out the door,” said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge.
Artificial intelligence is a top priority for Kate Gage, the company’s chief executive Higher Ground Institutea progressive incubator that pushes progressive groups to adopt new technology.
“Basically, my whole life right now is figuring out how to get campaigns to figure out what the use cases are,” she said.
Ms. Gage’s group hosts hundreds of strategists each month during digital “AI open mics” where they share tips on how to re-engineer old-fashioned campaign strategies with AI. This burst of interest has filled an online database of nearly 100 different AI tools for writing campaign reports or managing voter data. One idea describes turning brief policies into weekly social media posts using ChatGPT and other AI tools.
Ms. Gage said the tools have revolutionized political organizing, allowing campaigns to conduct more sophisticated research more quickly. “We had a lot of unstructured information and data, but we weren’t able to analyze it.”
Her work is part of an awareness campaign to encourage candidates, strategists and party officials to use artificial intelligence in ways that will transform campaigns. Artificial intelligence is the ultimate testing ground, AI advocates say, allowing campaigns to create upgrades that will ultimately get the next president elected.
The campaign for Saikat Chakrabarti, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in California’s 11th congressional district, has replaced nearly every tool it would normally pay for — from app-finding apps to phone banking software — with its own versions using AI tools coded by just three employees.
The pressure did not always go smoothly. One progressive group said it sent out angry emails about how AI is interfering with campaigns.
Those concerns could slow the adoption of artificial intelligence in Democratic campaigns while Republican campaigns rush forward, giving one side an advantage in razor-thin contests.
“I think it’s a strategic mistake on their part,” said Mr. Wilson, director of the Center for Campaign Innovation. “Because Republicans are saying, ‘Okay, how can we use this to help us win and give us an advantage?’
Like Ms. Gage, Mr. Wilson is training political operatives to adopt AI
The Republican Party has rushed to build artificial intelligence into almost everything, Mr. Wilson said, tending to rely on private companies backed by significant funding rather than the nonprofit model favored by Democrats.
The parties also took different approaches to the technology itself. In a blog post on the ethics of artificial intelligence, Mr. Wilson wrote that creating AI-generated videos of an opponent is acceptable as long as they reflect what the candidate actually said. In contrast, a course on AI offered by the National Democratic Education Committee said activists should never create such content because it “undermines democratic discourse and voter trust.”