The AI boom is scrambling the American political landscape. Potential Democratic and Republican candidates for the 2028 election are starting to stake their territory on a rapidly evolving technology.

Companies are pouring record sums of money into developing AI, as Americans grow wary that the technology will drive widespread job losses and reshape privacy rights and national security. It’s setting the stage for AI to become a major theme in the next presidential election.

“AI will force itself onto the political agenda in 2028,” Chris McGuire, an AI policy expert at the Council of Foreign Relations, said in a blog post. “When it does, the American people will expect policymakers to have serious answers ready.”

AI companies aren’t shy about flexing their election-year political muscle. This year’s midterms are awash in nearly $265 million in planned spending from super PACs with ties to Anthropic and OpenAI, a pair of the biggest AI companies. There’s also growing bipartisan recognition that voters’ angst about quick AI adoption without safeguards is becoming a flashpoint in national, state and local elections.

Rising electricity bills that voters blame on power-hungry data centers have caused some 2028 Democratic hopefuls to temper their enthusiasm for AI. Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro released a plan that would obligate data centers to cover the cost of their own energy sources so residential ratepayers aren’t footing the bill.

In Pennsylvania, average household electricity rates jumped 14% last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. “That’s why I am putting clear guardrails in place to hold developers accountable to protect consumers, strengthen communities, and put Pennsylvanians first,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro isn’t the only potential 2028 Democratic candidate adjusting to a political landscape increasingly shaped by AI-related concerns among voters. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is widely viewed as another top Democratic contender and has positioned himself as a major foe of President Donald Trump at the state level. Last year, he said he’d consider a presidential run once the 2026 midterms are over.

Newsom has long enjoyed deep relationships with Silicon Valley’s tech titans, stretching back to his time as San Francisco mayor in the early 2000s. Even then, Newsom has been increasingly vocal about AI’s potential excesses, and he’s spoken up about limiting its ability to disrupt the workforce.

In late May, he signed an executive order to compel state agencies to work alongside labor groups, economists and AI industry leaders to draft policies to soften the blow for white-collar workers at risk of seeing their jobs vanish due to AI. Some ideas in the mix include new job training for professionals and improving the social safety net.

The same order also prodded California officials to study “universal basic capital,” a spin on the universal basic income proposal that powered tech executive Andrew Yang’s insurgent campaign in 2020. “This moment demands that we reimagine the entire system — how we work, how we govern, how we prepare people for the future,” Newsom said in a news release.

Populist proposals are gaining traction on the left. On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders — a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate — said he’d soon release a plan to establish a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time, 50% tax on the stock of AI companies that would issue direct payments to Americans.

“Since A.I. is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity,” he said in a New York Times op-ed.

When it comes to AI development, Republicans have broadly adopted a hands-off approach to regulation as the Trump administration prioritizes accelerating its development. It’s a more cohesive approach compared to Democrats who are more split on AI policy and how to tackle its disruptive effects.

Last week, Vice President JD Vance expressed caution about how AI might replace the ability of humans to make life-or-death decisions in combat.

“As AI transforms the battlefield — in some ways positively, in some ways not — I ask that you be jealous and selfish about your role as the decision-maker in warfare,” Vice President JD Vance said during a graduation speech at the Air Force Academy.

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig

The U.S. spent $50.8 billion in data center construction in April, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released this week. The sum outpaced spending on public transportation infrastructure for the first time.