Conservative AI Group Tells Republicans to Rethink AI Policy After Midterm Losses

The post-election memo comes from the Alliance for a Better Future, which is led by Janet Kelly, a former Virginia Republican official. The group describes its focus as pro-family and pro-worker AI policy, and its advisory council includes organisations such as the Heritage Foundation. Semafor received the memo first.

The memo says it is "impossible to ignore the strong impact Super Intelligence policy had on this election and how connected it is to economic concerns in particular." It adds that if Republicans recalibrate correctly, AI "can be an asset in 2028 for both our country and our party."

The Case Against a Light Touch

The group argues that liberal campaigns linked economic worries to anti-elite, populist feeling about AI, a combination the memo calls a "deadly one-two punch." According to the memo, those concerns moved AI up voters' list of issues so quickly that Republicans missed it. It also says Republican candidates and their allies did not answer Democratic attacks that tied them to a pro-AI, pro-data centre message.

The group warns that future Republican candidates would be making a mistake if they fully embraced the Trump administration's light-touch regulatory agenda, and it says it favours stronger AI guardrails than the White House does. "It would be political malpractice for Republicans not to course correct their SI policy positions and risk permanently ceding this issue to Democrats," the memo says.

What the Group Recommends

The memo calls for legislation on chatbots and children, for turning Trump's voluntary AI accord into law, and for economic policies that help workers. It also urges companies to put more effort into uses such as curing disease and less into what it calls "experiments that only benefit the developers themselves."

Why It Matters

The memo adds to signs that the politics of AI in the United States are changing after an election in which Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress. Local measures to restrict data centres also did well on Tuesday's ballots, and Texas elected a governor who backs a moratorium on data centre construction. If conservative groups start arguing for tighter AI rules as well, the industry could face pressure on regulation from both parties, not just from the new Democratic majorities. For companies building AI products and infrastructure, including Gulf investors with large stakes in US data centres, that raises the chance of federal rules on child safety, accountability and the local effects of data centres.