Many Americans are anxious about artificial intelligence. Progressive politicians think they can capitalize on that.

A growing number of progressive candidates are campaigning on their plans to regulate the AI industry and address the threat of workers being displaced. Their hope is the issue will help them gain support among the young, rural and working-class voters whom Democrats are eager to attract.

“There’s an opening, but you’ve got to be aggressive,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running in a Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters, told NOTUS. “You have people who are seeing AI thrust in front of them, whether they like it or not, in every aspect of their lives and people are incredibly anxious about what this technology means.”

AI’s rapid growth and the lack of government guardrails are quickly becoming a widespread concern among Americans.

Multiple polls show people are worried about AI-related issues: 51% of Americans don’t trust either Republicans or Democrats to do a good job at handling AI, according to an April poll by Washington Post, ABC News and IPSOS. A Politico and Public First poll from last month found that 43% of those surveyed said the risk of AI outweighs the benefits. And only 18% of Gen Z reports feeling hopeful about AI, according to recent polling from Gallup.

McMorrow said demonstrating that Democrats can push back on Big Tech will help the party make inroads with voters who supported Donald Trump in the last general election.

“People voted for him, and then they looked at the inauguration and he’s surrounded by all of the tech CEOs. He’s grifting and making all of this money for himself while this technology is pummeling people full force,” McMorrow said. “What we’re trying to do in our campaign, and hopefully show my party, is that people are looking for a party that fights for people. And that means we are going to have to take on tough fights.”

McMorrow has campaigned on multiple AI-related issues, including job loss, unchecked data center construction, online safety for kids and AI dynamic pricing.

AI concerns aren’t unique to Democrats: Some Republicans, including Sens. Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, have made AI regulation a political priority. But a majority of Republican candidates are supportive of the technology and the economic opportunities tied to AI and data centers.

Among Democrats, many candidates and lawmakers have focused most of their messaging on concerns about energy costs related to AI data centers.

Other progressive Democrats are leaning into other AI concerns in their campaigns. One of McMorrow’s opponents in the Michigan Senate primary, Abdul El-Sayed, proposed a data center regulation platform that includes job guarantees and water and energy usage agreements. New York Assemblyman Alex Bores has made his background on AI safety legislation, and the millions of dollars that outside groups have spent against him, an integral part of his messaging in his bid for Congress. Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, has pledged to restrict how the government and large corporations can use AI for surveillance.

Multiple progressives have railed against the environmental effects of data centers. Some, like Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, have joined Sen. Bernie Sanders in calling for a nationwide temporary pause in the construction of data centers.

The threat of job loss could be a particularly animating issue to voters, according to advocates for stricter regulations.

AI was the leading reason for layoffs in March and April, according to a report by employment data firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. These layoffs are mostly concentrated in the tech sector, but AI industry leaders have suggested the technology could displace workers in other areas as well.

The Working Families Party released a federal policy platform with long-shot policy proposals like a data center moratorium and a federal jobs program to guarantee jobs for people displaced by AI. Amirah Sequeira, the party’s director of federal affairs, said other Democrats would be smart to follow their lead.

“Politically, this moment is ripe for the call for a jobs guarantee, because we’re already seeing massive job loss because of AI,” Sequeira said. “If we want to win back the working class, this is the issue to do it on.”

Tech executives who are heavily invested in AI have funneled tens of millions of dollars into AI-related super PACs such as Leading the Future, which raised over $100 million last year and has spent roughly $11 million supporting Republican and Democratic pro-AI congressional candidates.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal argued that outside spending is preventing many Democrats from leaning heavily on AI and data center regulation.

“The real concern for many of our progressive members is that you have so much money coming in from all these AI companies that don’t want any real regulation that limit what they do,” the Washington Democrat told NOTUS. “Meanwhile back home, constituents are furious about data centers that are being put in without thinking about what it does to their energy cost or the environmental effects overall.”

Jayapal said Democrats need to show their base that they are taking the threats posed by AI seriously, while dismissing the notion that they are against innovation.

“It’s a technology that can be used for good — I don’t think progressives are saying that we don’t want any of the benefits,” she said. “Those of us who want regulation understand that there are good things that might come from this technology, but how do we deal with the risks?”

Lawmakers have always been slow to regulating emerging technologies, and the competing interests around AI makes the issue even more of a political jump ball.

But the current moment could also be an opportunity for progressives to show they have ambitious legislative plans, said Alex Jacquez, policy chief at the progressive advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative and a former adviser to President Joe Biden and for Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

“What legislators are not yet coming to terms with, it’s this idea of a much larger role for the federal government in the planning and deployment of this technology,” Jacquez said. “There is room for progressives to articulate a positive vision for how AI can work in people’s lives, and it starts with taking on and corralling the power of these billionaire and multitrillion-dollar companies from dictating the pace and the speed at every step of the way.”