AI will become the central campaign issue of the 2026 midterm elections in the USA

Electricity costs are rising – as is the fear of people losing control. Artificial intelligence will become the central campaign issue of the 2026 midterm elections.

AI data centers are less popular in the USA than nuclear power plants. According to a Gallup poll, 71 percent of Americans in their region are against it - also because of rising prices due to the high electricity consumption of the systems. Building permits for data centers are being withdrawn because local politicians are under pressure. Donald Trump, on the other hand, continues to see the building as a major growth engine and is hoping for a new regulation under which the tech companies will bear the additional electricity costs in the future. But that won't change the skepticism among the electorate until the midterms in November.

“The industry is afraid of the midterm elections,” reports Silicon Valley correspondent Philipp Alvares de Souza Soares. Given the high investment amounts, they need an AI-friendly policy. For co-host Christian Lammert, Professor of North American Politics at the Free University of Berlin, it is not a question of whether innovation is wanted. What is more important is who benefits and who bears the costs: “The AI ​​question is whether the profits are simply privatized while the power grid, environmental consequences and the numerous conflicts are socialized.”

Contrary to the demands of the industry, Donald Trump rejects the global regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) – or “superintelligence”, as he would like to call it from now on.