Republican and Democratic campaigns now run on AI at nearly every step, from vetting opponents to micro-targeting voters, according to a New York Times report. The technology is still a political minefield, and Europe is taking a very different approach. In Pennsylvania's hotly contested 10th Congressional District, 29-year-old Alex Bond recently told two canvassers from the Democratic group Swing Left that he thought AI was 'terrible.' What he didn't know: his comments were then processed by an AI-powered app that synthesizes hundreds of similar conversations and feeds actionable insights back to the campaign.
According to a survey by the newsletter Anchor Change, 87 percent of campaign strategists now use AI daily. Beyond the publicly visible layer of AI-generated images and videos, campaign managers have woven the technology into nearly every workflow. They're analyzing voter data, producing campaign materials, and crafting tailored messages for micro-segments of the electorate. The Democratic opposition research group American Bridge 21st Century used AI to vet roughly 250 Republican candidates.
Both parties are all in on AI, but they play by different rules. Despite the boom, AI remains a political risk. Polls show that Democratic voters are more skeptical of the technology than Republicans. Progressive groups report angry emails about AI use, and unionized staffers worry about their jobs. Republican strategists, by contrast, face less internal pushback. 'If voters don't like AI, they don't want to know that their candidate's campaign is using AI to do stuff like draft emails or create press releases or edit videos. So you're just not going to see people bragging about it. But it is happening,' Republican strategist Eric Wilson told the New York Times.
Source: thedecoder
