In the space of two years, artificial intelligence has gone from a committee-room curiosity to one of the most contested issues of the 2026 midterms. President Donald Trump claims to have directed more than $2.7 trillion into the AI industry. The lobbying dollars have followed: 11 of the largest technology and AI companies and their trade associations spent $41.8 million lobbying the federal government in the first six months of 2026, according to Issue One, roughly 10 percent more than a year earlier.
This past spring, more than $27 million from groups linked to OpenAI and Anthropic poured into a single Democratic congressional primary in Manhattan. The sudden emergence of AI as a political issue has turned zoning fights over data centers into attack ads. And it has pushed a question that once belonged to science fiction—will humanity be wiped out by killer robots?—into cable news bookings.
What artificial intelligence hasn’t done, unlike nearly every other topic in the public discourse in the year 2026, is sort itself cleanly into the two parties. On abortion, guns or immigration, a party label tells you most of what you need to know about a candidate. On AI, it tells you less.
Some members of Congress have told reporters they’ve used AI only a handful of times; others say their offices rely on it. Some lawmakers abhor data centers while others see them as vital. Some think AI should be regulated by the states, others that it ought to be a purely federal matter.
Instead of a party line, AI policy is a patchwork that shifts from district to district and state to state. To map where lawmakers actually stand, Newsweek built the AI Policy Scorecard. It positions all 537 sitting members of Congress, including senators, representatives and nonvoting House delegates, on a scale from AI Skeptic (1) to AI Booster (5).
That score is based on the stances each member has taken in five areas: Regulation & Governance, Data Centers & Energy, Jobs & Economy, Safety & Privacy, and National Security & China. The scores draw on the official record: roll-call votes and bill sponsorship from the soon concluding 119th Congress, as well as a wide review of public statements made in speeches, interviews, press releases and social media posts. The Booster end describes the agenda the hyperscalers and the investors financing the buildout have pressed on Washington: minimal regulation for the sake of technical progress, safety risks as engineering problems to be solved later, vast economic gains worth the job displacement, urgent data center construction at scale, and a race with China that is America’s existential national security challenge of its time.
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