Bernie Sanders just dove headlong into one of the biggest fights of the midterms

The rapid deployment of artificial intelligence is quickly becoming one of the central issues of the 2026 midterm elections, with battle lines over the disruptive technology dividing both party coalitions and the tech industry itself.

Dueling super PACs are threatening to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to promote their respective visions of AI, while a popular backlash against data centers across the country is fueling a populist pushback against the technology. Cross-cutting forces could quickly make arguments about how AI will affect jobs, energy prices, privacy and child safety a focal point for primaries across the country.

“Mark Zuckerberg spent 10 years in the sun before everyone realized there were harms associated with social media,” said Alex Bores, a New York Democratic assemblyman and congressional candidate whose work on a state-level law regulating the technology made him the first declared target of a pro-AI super PAC. “With AI, this is happening much faster. And that’s why there are so many elected officials listening to our neighbors about the need to give Americans a voice in the development of AI.”

Three distinct camps are emerging to discuss the technology, and members of each group exist in both parties: There are industry forces with an essentially accelerationist view of the technology, arguing that any attempt to restrict it risks the United States losing an all-important battle with China. These groups are closely allied with the White House, which has taken a pro-industry, light-regulation view and created a super PAC with plans to spend $100 million.

There’s also a populist backlash: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently marked a milestone by proposing a complete moratorium on building the data centers driving the AI ​​boom.

“This process is moving very, very quickly and we must stop it,” Sanders he said in a social media video In announcing his proposal, he noted that technology could lead to massive job losses and greater isolation among young people. “We need all of our people involved in determining the future of AI, not just a handful of billionaires.”

Sanders’ proposal is highly unlikely to become law any time soon, but it could become a rallying cry for progressives and other candidates willing to take a hardline populist stance against AI itself and the construction of data centers, which have faced fierce backlash locally. However, candidates who embrace it risk angering the aforementioned well-funded super PACs.

A third group, of which Bores is a member, is enthusiastic about the technology but argues that regulation is needed to help Americans adapt to it and limit the potentially catastrophic risks associated with its implementation. AI companies and researchers aligned with this view have launched their own nonprofit groups and super PACs, and are expected to spend $50 million on the midterm elections.

Polls have made it clear that Americans have a positive view of AI, but want greater oversight of the technology: The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, published survey earlier this month shows that about two-thirds of Americans want the government to regulate AI for security and privacy reasons, even if the regulations will slow AI development in the United States compared to China.

But an outright ban on the technology was not very popular: By a margin of 62% to 18%, Americans preferred regulating AI to banning further research. But when faced with a ban or unregulated development of the technology, voters were nearly split: 30% favored a ban, versus 34% who favored continued development.

Silicon Valley Warriors

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David Sacks, a venture capitalist and podcaster who serves as the White House AI czar, is perhaps the public face of the accelerationist camp. An ally of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, he successfully convinced Trump to take a pro-industry stance and was the lead author of a legally questionable executive order banning most state regulation of AI.

The tech industry has argued that complying with different regulations in each state would be an unacceptable disadvantage when the industry is in a Cold War-style race with China to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence technology possible.

“We have to be unified. China is unified,” Trump said as he signed the order this month. “They have one vote, that’s President Xi. He says do it, and that’s it.”

Leading The Future, a pro-industry super PAC that plans to spend $100 million in the midterm elections, is putting financial power behind this worldview. Backed by leaders at OpenAI and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the group is explicitly modeled after groups backed by the crypto industry, which have spent tens of millions of dollars on campaigns to force both sides to pay attention to their goals in 2022 and 2024.

Multiple operatives from both parties privately acknowledge that Leading The Future’s expected war chest is enough to make it a top three force; the others being the cryptocurrency industry and pro-Israel groups, each campaign must take into account in a competitive primary.

“Right now, [AI] “It’s just not a big enough issue for voters to risk getting on their radar,” said one Democrat running a campaign in a competitive House primary, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “That could change if the anger over these things grows and grows.”

In addition to attacking Bores, the group has also endorsed Chris Gober, a lawyer running for an open seat in Texas, a gerrymandered district that stretches from the outskirts of Houston to Austin. The ad from the group backing Gober, a Republican election lawyer who represented both Musk and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in high-profile cases, does not directly mention AI.

Leading The Future did not respond to News themezone’s request for comment.

Most Republican candidates are expected to largely align with Trump’s relatively laissez-faire position, although some right-wing populist forces (including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and the Institute for Family Studies, a conservative think tank) are urging the GOP to take a much more skeptical view of technology.

The risk of populists

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Nathan Sage, a mechanic and Navy veteran who ran for the Democratic Senate nomination in Iowa with Sanders’ support, was among those who quickly took up the call for a moratorium. In an interview, Sage said concerns about AI-related job losses and “young people talking to AI instead of people” were rampant during a 99-county tour of the state he completed earlier this year.

“When it comes to AI, it’s the wild west,” he said of the unregulated nature of the industry. “It seems like another ploy by billionaires and billionaires to make more money while taking money from the working class, and the working class really doesn’t make anything.”

Sage’s position is not without precedent. Democrats lost a state legislative seat in Virginia in November, largely due to anger over the proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia. Concerns about the amount of water and electricity used by data centers have played a major role in fights from Arizona to Maine, despite the industry’s efforts to show that the concerns are overblown.

But the position is not without political risks. Sage, who is competing with state Sen. Zach Wahls and state Rep. Josh Turek in the primary for the chance to fight Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, could easily find himself on the receiving end of a publicity blitz.

“I’m going to do what Iowans want,” Sage said, adding, “People will come to this room and put money into this race anywhere they want, but I need to do the right thing.”

National progressive operatives also downplayed the political risk of angering the wealthy tech industry, noting that many Sanders-style candidates would likely face heavily funded negative ad campaigns anyway.

But it’s not just the tech industry that could see opposition to data centers as a red flag. With data center construction increasing while the rest of the economy is largely stagnant, construction unions have become heavily reliant on data center work to provide employment for their members.

“These projects support the lives of our members, and those who do this work every day experience history differently than what is gaining traction online,” the executive director of the Wisconsin Building Trades Council wrote in an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel last month amid multiple fights over data centers in the state. “The digital future our world is moving towards is tied to this infrastructure and, when done right, can be a powerful catalyst for community growth.”

Sage argued that unions were being shortsighted by supporting projects with high long-term costs. “A couple hundred jobs are being created in the creation of data centers and they are being replaced with pollution in our water, high energy costs and fewer jobs across the market,” he said.

The intra-industrial war

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Bores, who is running in an extremely crowded primary to replace outgoing Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th District, has become the focal point of the midterm AI wars from the start. The 35-year-old data scientist, who joined the state legislature in 2023, is a lead sponsor of the RAISE Act, which created safety standards for the highest-tech artificial intelligence models and fines for companies that didn’t meet them.

Even before Hochul signed it into law shortly before Christmas, Leading The Future was spending on digital ads targeting Bores through a separate PAC it funds. The ads label Bores “wrong on AI” and suggest he will cost the state jobs. Bores welcomes the fight.

“They see me as their biggest obstacle in their quest for unbridled power over American workers, over the education system and our children, over our climate and our energy bills, and they are right about that,” he said, noting that the amount Leading The Future plans to spend against them has already increased from $1 million to $10 million. “I mean, they’re seeing that they’re deeply unpopular.”

But Bores is no Luddite: He points to the possibility that AI could help find cures for his mother’s multiple sclerosis and says his “optimism” about the technology is what leads him to push for legislation covering everything from how to protect children who use technology to how to deal with the massive disruptions projected in the labor market.

The assemblyman also has supporters from the AI ​​industry, some of whom helped raise money for Hochul as she considered the RAISE Act, and could soon see support from Public First. Many of these supporters are associated with the effective altruism movement, a philosophical approach that often focuses on existential threats such as those posed by superpowered AI.

AI industry ads attacking Bores allude to this divide, linking supporters of regulation with a particularly nefarious supporter of effective altruism. “It’s backed by groups founded by convicted felon Sam Bankman-Fried,” an announcer intones. “Is he really who he should be?” How to shape AI safety for our children?

Bores dismissed the attempt to link him to the convicted crypto fraudster. “They’re desperate,” he said of Leading The Future, arguing that the intra-industry divide is more about researchers fighting with executives and noting that the RAISE Act was backed by two winners of the Turing Award, the highest award in computer science.

“The people who are developing the technology, who understand it, want there to be reasonable regulations,” he said. “The bosses at the top, who are primarily focused on profits, don’t want there to be any regulation.”

As the desire for regulation only grows across the political spectrum, Bores argued, AI advocates must understand that only a moderate position can fend off populist anger.

“If the industry’s voice ends up being dominated by this extreme minority of Leading the Future, then proposals like banning all data centers will gain more traction,” he said. “Instead, [industry should be] coming to the table and really getting involved in how we can make sure this technology benefits the many instead of the few.”

Correction: This article previously incorrectly stated when Alex Bores began serving in the New York Legislature. He did it in 2023.