2028 Dems dodge on Bernie's push to pause AI development

Democratic presidential hopefuls are scrambling to seize on the growing public backlash against AI. But none will go as far as Bernie Sanders and his recent call to halt the technology's development.

• Axios asked nearly 20 Democrats who are seen as potential White House contenders whether they support Sanders' call for AI CEOs to "stop building machines that humans cannot control." Only one directly answered the question.

Why it matters: The politics of AI are changing as fast as the technology itself, and 2028 aspirants are struggling to articulate their vision on it — including how they'd manage its potentially catastrophic risks.

• Some Democratic strategists fear the party will be caught flat-footed on the issue in 2028 as a result.
• Meanwhile, many Republicans — and some Democrats — have been whipsawed on AI, and now are trying to prove their anti-AI bona fides after having cozied up to top AI companies and their plans for data centers.

Driving the news: Besides quizzing the potential Democratic candidates on Sanders' proposed technology pause, we asked them if they back a moratorium on AI data centers — and if they're concerned that regulation could cost the U.S. the AI arms race.

• None embraced Sanders' proposal to halt the technology. But tellingly, almost no one criticized Sanders' neo-Luddite position, either.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was the only potential 2028er who offered something of a critique: "This is talking around a problem instead of trying to solve it. A pause is fine — but then what?"

• "The real question," Emanuel said, "is how the time it buys gets used to build a comprehensive plan that meets America's energy needs instead of masking them."
• Emanuel called for permitting reform and requiring Big Tech hyperscalers to pay for upgrades to the energy infrastructure.
• About half the potential contenders simply didn't respond, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
• New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and California Rep. Ro Khanna, both progressives, are the only potential 2028 candidates who've expressed support for a data center pause, to varying degrees.

Zoom in: Some Democratic strategists say their party's presidential hopefuls have been too slow to develop a clear populist message on AI. They worry that could create an opening for Republicans to capitalize on the voter rebellion over data centers in 2028.

• Adam Carlson, a progressive pollster, described Democrats as "overly cautious" about the topic.
• "It's a big strategic error for the Democratic Party writ large not to be the one that's owning this," he said.
• "What if JD Vance comes out and is the first major presidential candidate to support a data center moratorium, other than AOC?" Carlson asked. "That's a huge miss. And then everyone who comes out after is going to be seen as slow to the punch against JD Vance."

Zoom out: Candidates running in this year's midterm elections — Democrats and Republicans alike — have been quicker to embrace ideas such as a data center pause.

• It's a response to voters sharply turning against the projects over the past year: A recent Fox News poll found that 70% of voters oppose building an AI data center in their community.
• Michigan Senate GOP nominee Mike Rogers backs a one-year moratorium on new data centers. Amy Acton, the Democrat running for Ohio governor, is calling for a "conditional moratorium." Stacy Garrity, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania governor, supports a "pause."

Some potential Democratic presidential candidates who've been reluctant to back a moratorium have sought to show voters they're taking a hard line on data centers.

• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's administration has railed against "irresponsible" data centers, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has revoked their tax breaks — stark reversals from their previous positions.
• A spokesperson for Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly said there should be "no data centers in communities that don't want them."
• Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker's teams both cited a bill they co-sponsored that seeks to force data centers to foot their own energy costs.
• "Americans should not have to pay higher electric bills and other costs to subsidize the data centers being built by the richest corporations on the planet," Van Hollen said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy's office, meanwhile, referred us to a Substack post in which he wrote about a recent trip to Silicon Valley, where he said he "could divine very few 'American values' (juxtaposed against 'Chinese values')" guiding AI development.

• "Any talk about ethical or moral AI is just whitewash," Murphy's post said.

The two most left-wing presidential prospects, AOC and Khanna, have raced to take the most aggressive stance on data centers.

• Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff, Mike Casca, noted that AOC is "leading the data center moratorium bill in the House." He declined to comment on Sanders' idea of halting AI technology.
• Khanna told us he supports a pause on data center construction in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — "places where these centers have been shoved down the throats of communities." (That's a shift from his previous stance.)
• Khanna didn't directly address Sanders' AI tech stoppage plan. He said he discussed AI with Pope Leo recently and believes the technology "must be developed in accordance with the principles" of the pope's first encyclical on the subject.
• Carlson speculated that presidential hopefuls might be waiting to see the outcome of the Nov. 3 midterms before staking out clearer positions.

The other side: Many Republican and Democratic politicians championed data centers in the recent past, arguing that they raise tax revenue for local governments and create construction jobs.

• If the technology is going to be built anyway, it might as well help their constituents and local labor unions, their thinking went.
• But even some Republicans have become alarmed that the blowback over data centers could hurt them, given that President Trump and his administration have been leading champions of the technology.

Flashback: As far-out as Sanders' AI pause might sound, he has a history of shaping the debate over AI.

• He was the first member of Congress to back a data center moratorium late last year. At the time, most Democrats who were asked about the proposal rejected it.
• Now, 2026 candidates across the political spectrum are saying there should be state-level pauses on data centers. New York also passed a one-year moratorium on hyperscaler data centers.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, meanwhile, announced last week that the company has temporarily paused some technological training.