The Nov. 3 midterm elections are unlikely to produce major federal AI legislation, but the results could reshape how both parties approach the technology, four telecom policy experts said Wednesday during a Broadband Breakfast Live Online session in Washington.

The hardest obstacle remains preemption — the power of federal law to override state rules. A standoff over that question awaits the next Congress regardless of the outcome, said Blair Levin, senior fellow at NYU's Center on Technology Policy and former leader of the Obama administration's National Broadband Plan.

Why preemption is the sticking point

Democrats will likely win the House and refuse to pass an AI bill that broadly preempts state and local rules, Levin said. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is unlikely to sign one that leaves those state laws standing.

The conflict has already killed one attempt to restrict state authority. In July 2025, the Senate voted 99-1 to strip a 10-year ban on enforcing state AI laws from the budget reconciliation bill. Trump then issued a December executive order threatening some federal broadband funds for states with AI laws the administration considered "onerous."

That fight has made even narrower proposals politically suspect, said Joel Thayer, president of the Digital Progress Institute. Proposals get labeled "a gift to big tech" before their scope and legal effects receive serious discussion, he said.

A narrow deal is still possible, argued Evan Swarztrauber, principal at CorePoint Strategies and a former adviser to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Broad preemption is not viable, but preemption limited to safety testing could be.

How large a Democratic win?

Gas and grocery prices will matter more to most voters than AI policy, Thayer said. Whether they can "afford eggs" matters more than where a data center was built.

Levin focused on the conclusions politicians might draw afterward. If former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat challenging Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio, wins while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott loses, the narrative could become that "Sherrod was right on data centers and AI, and Abbott was wrong," Levin said.

Those outcomes could convince "everybody else in the political business" that "the revolt against AI and data centers is real, and politicians have to be sensitive to that," he added.

Abbott, who faces Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, froze new data center grid connections in August after connection requests reached more than five times the grid's record peak. Levin called the move a reversal of Abbott's earlier welcome of data center investment.

The size of Republican losses would also matter, Swarztrauber said. A narrow Democratic House majority could let Republicans claim vindication for their light-touch approach — protecting households from data center electricity costs and pressing companies to act without extensive new regulation, as in the White House's Ratepayer Protection Pledge signed by AI companies in March.

A Democratic wave large enough to flip the Senate could instead push Republicans toward tougher bills. Swarztrauber pointed to:

• Sen. Josh Hawley's AI liability work, including the AI LEAD Act with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., which would classify AI systems as products subject to product liability law
• The bipartisan FRONTIER Act from Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Lori Trahan, D-Mass., which scales requirements to developer size, with independent audits and incident reporting for the largest

Data centers as the AI backlash's face

"Most Americans don't live next to a data center, yet they are very broadly unpopular," Swarztrauber said. The buildings are "the physical manifestation of the technology."

Thayer called the data center "a Rorschach test," with people reading broader frustrations with AI into the facilities. Local land-use and energy concerns are legitimate, if "a bit overblown," he said.

Nicholas Garcia, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, said the industry could rebuild trust by building differently. The public pictures a hyperscale campus powered by on-site natural gas turbines — what he called the "worst possible version" of development. He supports smaller inference-focused facilities, developed alongside community broadband and fiber networks with more renewable power.

Companies should "stop with the NDAs," sign community benefit agreements, explain tax revenue benefits, and drop "phony promises" about lasting jobs, Garcia said. He also argued that administration cuts to solar subsidies work against its goal of advancing AI, since cheaper AI tokens depend on electricity investment.

Skepticism crosses party lines

AI "has a massive trust problem," Garcia said, but party affiliation does not neatly explain positions on the technology. Moderator Drew Clark, Broadband Breakfast's CEO, noted that skepticism already links Steve Bannon and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

After a large Democratic victory, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Hawley could seek the Republican nomination against Vice President JD Vance on an anti-AI platform — "the candidate of the Bannon wing of the MAGA movement," Levin said.

Whoever passes regulation could also own the fallout, Levin warned. He predicted an AI market bubble would eventually burst, and the party that legislated beforehand could be blamed regardless of cause. "The facts are kind of irrelevant," he said; the parties would play "a game of chicken." Current federal policy amounts to "trust the White House, and the White House trusts AI," which he called untenable long term.

Could broadband become collateral damage?

Opposition to AI infrastructure could weaken support for speeding broadband construction, Swarztrauber warned. Carriers have told him residents are beginning to lump proposed 5G sites together with data center developments.

"I hope that broadband doesn't become a casualty of the AI bad blood," he said.

Broadband investment itself is unlikely to earn either party much credit. "Voters don't give blame or credit" for the $42.45 billion BEAD program, created in 2021, Levin said.

Swarztrauber cited a recent report describing hyperscaler contract clauses that prohibit fiber providers from using data center connections to serve nearby homes. Fiber built for rural data centers should instead support BEAD-funded and privately financed broadband deployments, he argued: "If hyperscalers can't find a way to do the right thing there, I think that tells you a lot about why people don't trust AI."

Broadband Breakfast plans its next forum on broadband and AI in the next Congress on Dec. 1.