The fight over artificial intelligence is here, and the populist right is lacing up its gloves.
In recent weeks, the battle lines within the Republican Party over AI regulation have come squarely into view. Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) delivered a blistering rebuke of unfettered AI development and a call for defending working people in a speech at a Washington think tank that elicited raucous applause. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis again lambasted the Trump administration for attempting to preempt state-level regulation, calling it “bad policy” and “even worse politics” — comments that come just days after his hand-picked attorney general sued OpenAI. And a string of prominent GOP candidates, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have campaigned on taking on Big Tech.
It all adds up to a muscular intervention by populist conservatives who are breaking with President Donald Trump’s far more laissez-faire approach to AI development. These leaders on the ideological right see artificial intelligence as a defining issue for them in 2026 and beyond, and they’re willing to defy the GOP’s traditional preference for pro-business, deregulatory policies.
“The Republican Party has a choice to make — perhaps the defining choice of its next half century,” Hawley wrote in an essay on AI this week, building on the speech he delivered earlier this month at a gala hosted by the conservative think tank American Compass. “We can be the party of the donor class and the share price. Or we can be the party of the covenant: the party of the worker and the family and the small town; the party that remembers our commitment to justice for all, to the sanctity of the individual, to the dignity of labor, to the priority of the poor.”
The schism has shades of a potential 2028 Republican primary, in which contenders will have to stake out positions on AI development, the digital arms race with China and voter fears over technology and data centers. In recent weeks, however, the pro-regulation right can claim tangible victories: Earlier this month, when the White House released its much-awaited executive order on AI, it signaled the administration’s greatest appetite yet for tightening the screws on Big Tech, potentially opening the door to mandatory vetting or federal pre-approval of advanced AI systems.
It was a dramatic change for an administration that previously prized competition with China above all else — a “let them cook” philosophy, as former White House AI czar David Sacks told POLITICO — and was forced by the arrival of Mythos, a model created by Anthropic that caused ripples across industries and governments for its potential to wreak havoc on cyber systems around the world.
Still, though, the White House executive order retained much of the administration’s anti-regulation posture. Trump, after briefly postponing the order, said his top priority was allowing the industry to continue to innovate unimpeded.
The administration has also attempted multiple times to pass a federal preemption law that would stop states from creating a patchwork of laws. The effort has ultimately not gained enough steam with Republicans, who historically push for states’ rights, and instead the president signed an executive order in December that threatened to withhold funding for states that try to regulate AI.
“It is the policy of the Trump Administration to sustain American AI dominance over China to protect our national security and ensure we remain the world’s leading economy,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement.
The White House strategy has faced no steeper headwinds than in Florida, where DeSantis has led the rebellion against Washington’s efforts to preempt state-level regulation. State Attorney General James Uthmeier, a DeSantis appointee up for election in November, filed a lawsuit this month against OpenAI and its founder Sam Altman, claiming the company rushed ChatGPT to market, putting speed and return on investment over consumer safety. Uthmeier’s case, alongside an ongoing criminal investigation into Open AI, is fueled in part by allegations that two Florida students used ChatGPT to commit gruesome crimes.
Florida’s GOP governor, meanwhile, is a constant critic of AI, frequently raising fears of how the technology could ultimately upend the economy by displacing countless workers. Over the last few months, DeSantis has railed against what he calls the “mindless slop” AI creates and warns deepfakes and manipulation could pose “a potential existential crisis for self-government.”
On Thursday, DeSantis, following POLITICO’s reporting that the White House is hoping to leverage a slate of children’s safety laws to preempt state action, took to task the White House’s regulatory strategy. “Preempting states re: AI without enacting a sensible federal framework is just an amnesty for Big Tech,” DeSantis wrote on social media.
Other red states have joined the fight. In Texas, the Republican-controlled legislature last winter revolted at the White House’s efforts to preempt state-level regulation. In Utah, lawmakers and religious groups have found a novel approach to promoting tech advancement while installing moral guardrails after the White House stopped one AI bill in its tracks. In Tennessee, the White House reportedly pushed back against legislation that would have regulated AI companies.
Americans are largely uncertain about how to feel about AI. A POLITICO Poll conducted in April found that a plurality — 43 percent — of Americans think the risks of AI outweigh the benefits, even as a 37 percent plurality in a March POLITICO Poll said they would support a data center being built in their area.
But Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of some safeguards on the technology: According to a Fox News poll last month, 80 percent of Americans think it is “extremely” or “very” urgent for the government to address AI regulation.
“The political winds are shifting in favor of AI safety and security, and have been for some time,” said Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI, a nonprofit that promotes safeguards for AI. “Conservatives in particular want to see safeguards on AI. They are worried about its potential for harms to kids, massive job losses, and its impact on families and communities.”
On the stump, it is becoming increasingly common for Republicans to play the part of anti-tech crusader. Paxton, who won the GOP U.S. Senate nomination over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, has campaigned on his efforts to rein in social media companies’ harm on children. “In Washington, I will not stop fighting to protect Texas children from Big Tech hurting our kids,” Paxton said in his victory speech last month. His governor, Greg Abbott, who is running for reelection, proposed a crackdown on data center expansion across the state this week.
In elections across the country, data centers are becoming a bread-and-butter issue for some conservatives. In the South Carolina gubernatorial primary, Rep. Nancy Mace called for a one-year pause on data center construction in her state, and Rom Reddy, who conceded his bid Tuesday, said he supports “no data centers, period.” In Georgia, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones — in a runoff for the state’s governor race — has called for an end to the state’s tax breaks for data centers. Stacy Garrity, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania governor, called for a statewide data center moratorium and slammed Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro for his endorsement of development. Anti-incumbent sentiment has taken on an anti-data center flavor in some primaries: Utah Reps. Celeste Maloy and Blake Moore have faced heat from primary challengers who criticize data centers.
But no Republican officeholder has been as brazen in his opposition to unfettered AI development as Hawley. The two-term senator from Missouri has long added a populist touch to his crusade, advocating for working people in the face of potential job loss. And while Hawley has been unafraid to bring his faith into the arena — he quoted the Apostle Paul in a broadside against Silicon Valley’s “tech barons” at last year’s National Conservatism Conference — his language has become even more openly religious in recent weeks.
In the wake of Pope Leo XIV’s pro-worker encyclical, Hawley — an evangelical Christian — has called for his party to embrace pro-human regulation and unite against the excesses of godless technology. At a black-tie gala last week hosted by American Compass, Hawley warned that the battle over AI would test the “great moral covenant that binds us together as a nation.” He drew a comparison between “the laws of God” and “the gods of capitalism” — a distinction he emphasized, through capitalization, when an expanded version of his speech was published in First Things, a conservative religious journal.
“Hawley’s perspective provides a unique lane that can unify AI skeptics and AI accelerationists,” said Ryan Neuhaus, co-founder of American Intelligence, a conservative online magazine for debates over AI. “It recognizes the fallen nature of man and that, ultimately, AI is a tool that can be used for both good and bad ends. If we have the wisdom to use that technology to help Americans pursue the good life and restore the permanent things, there is little reason to be in opposition to it.”
Hawley’s march, however, has earned some criticism from the tech industry.
“A lot of us feel that they’re speaking to a very insulated group. I don’t think they’re making any new ground,” said one AI industry lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak openly. “It’s kind of like sugar. We all know we shouldn’t eat Dunkin’ Donuts, but a lot of us go buy Dunkin’ Donuts once a week,” the lobbyist added, saying that although the nascent tech poses real dangers, a lot of fears may ultimately be squashed once people realize how these tools can improve their lives.
Still, Hawley’s framing is garnering support among Republican voters. An Institute for Family Studies survey published earlier this year found that of five tested messages related to AI, two resonated most with GOP voters: Hawley’s statement that AI is “against the working man, his liberty and his worth” and “undermining our most cherished ideals,” and Pope Leo XIV’s statement that AI developers must “develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.” Pro-AI statements from Sacks, Altman and technologist Marc Andreessen scored the lowest.
“If we take AI seriously, I think it’s quite important for religious and moral leaders to be engaged with how we’re adopting it, and for those leaders to be engaged in the conversation about what it means for us as humans, as families, as communities, and more broadly, as a republic,” said Abigail Ball, executive director at American Compass, the Washington think tank that hosted Hawley last week.
Gabby Miller, Alec Hernández and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.