Artificial intelligence has rocketed to the front of next Tuesday’s Massachusetts Senate Democratic primary, as Rep. Seth Moulton tries to unseat Bay State political titan Sen. Ed Markey.

Moulton, a six-term House member, has capitalized on a fumbling answer from Markey during a recent debate where the senator said he did not know whether he used AI on his personal electronic devices. Moulton said Markey’s answer is “why we need a new generation of leaders” and has turned the answer into advertising.

But Markey, who is seeking a third full term in the Senate and has represented Massachusetts in Congress for nearly half a century, has the backing of one of AI’s most crucial players: Anthropic. Federal Election Commission filings show the Anthropic-backed nonprofit Public First Action, which operates several political action committees, donated $500,000 to Commonwealth Together, a PAC that supports Markey.

Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez, a spokesperson for Public First Action, said it is supporting Markey because he “has been unequivocal in his support for regulating AI.”

“In Congress he helped lead the 99 to 1 vote that stripped a moratorium on state AI regulation out of reconciliation. He has worked to beat back every version of preemption that has come back since, and he wrote legislation to stop the administration from stripping states of their regulatory authority,” Rivera-Rodriguez said.

The fight over AI and its associated data center infrastructure has spilled into election-after-election this year, and the companies behind AI have emerged as some of this election’s biggest spenders. Corporate money has poured into both sides of the Massachusetts primary, with Advance Progress, a PAC supportive of Moulton, bankrolled by major financial players like former Bain Capital co-chair Josh Bekenstein.

Public First Action supports more guardrails around AI development, and its PACs have backed candidates across the country. Anthropic has donated $20 million to the group. Another AI PAC, Leading the Future, backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has also spent heavily on candidates across the country. That group has not spent in Massachusetts yet.

Markey, a longtime progressive, and Moulton, who has carved out a moderate stance in Congress, are both calling for new guardrails on AI. Moulton has called for “[f]ederal AI regulations” while ensuring AI companies remain on U.S. shores. Markey has introduced what he calls the AI Accountability Agenda, which he says would ensure AI serves “the public interest, not pad Big Tech’s profits.”

Moulton, 47, has sought to shape the race around a message of generational change. Markey, 80, has touted his progressive bona fides in the battle and endorsements from major figures like Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep….

Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries met with President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner in recent weeks, signalling people close to the president may be preparing for at least one chamber of Congress to flip to Democratic control as the midterm elections loom.

A person familiar with the meeting, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, confirmed the two men had met. The New York Times first reported the detente, which comes as Democrats and Republicans publicly battle for control of Congress ahead of November.

In a statement to CNBC, Jeffries did not directly comment on the meeting with Kushner but said in “every conversation that we have with the Trump administration, we will continue to make it explicitly clear that the affordability crisis is not a hoax and nothing short of transformational policy change is acceptable.”

Kushner, who was one of Trump’s senior advisors during his first term, did not take on a government role when his father-in-law was reelected in 2024. However, he has emerged as a key player in the president’s efforts across the globe as a negotiator and outside advisor.

The White House did not immediately comment on the meeting.

The New York Times reported that the meeting was a “catch-up” for the pair, who worked together on various issues during the first Trump administration. The paper also reported that Kushner suggested Jeffries meet with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, which the person familiar with the meeting confirmed.

Kushner and Jeffries also reportedly discussed housing, immigration and affordability as potential areas of common ground, the Times reported.

In his statement, Jeffries suggested Democrats may be open to working with Republicans if they win the majority, but only on their terms.

“To stop the madness, we have repeatedly made clear that an extremist approach will not work and will be met with forceful opposition. The American people want bold change and that’s what House Democrats will deliver,” Jeffries said. “We are fighting for an affordable America. The question is whether Republicans will join us.”

The timing of the meeting suggests that some in the president’s orbit are preparing for the GOP to lose its near total control of Washington come November. The midterms are less than three months away with Democrats leading Republicans in the generic ballot by more than six points on average.

Jeffries, who has served as minority leader since 2023, is likely to become Speaker of the House if Democrats prevail in the chamber. Democrats…

Congressional Democrats are looking to close what they characterize as loopholes created by the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allow foreign entities to funnel money into U.S. elections.

The bill, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and shared first with CNBC, would establish foreign ownership thresholds to determine which U.S. corporations should be barred from contributing to campaigns, ballot initiatives and referendums.

“The Roberts Court’s reckless decision in Citizens United continues to spell disaster for American democracy, allowing oligarchs and autocrats around the world to wield their influence over our elections and undermine our institutions,” Raskin said in a statement, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts and the ruling that enabled corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited sums on U.S. elections.

The proposal would “root out corruption and make sure our elections are decided by the American people, not the foreign oligarchs,” Raskin said. Dubbed the Get Foreign Money out of U.S. Elections Act, it had more than 65 Democratic cosponsors in the House and 11 in the Senate upon introduction on Wednesday. It faces an unlikely path to passage this Congress with Republicans in control of both chambers.

The bill comes as foreign equity in U.S. companies has shot up since the 1990s. And it follows the Supreme Court’s June decision to strike down limits on the amount political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for office.

It’s already illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to U.S. elections, but Raskin and Whitehouse’s proposal would extend existing laws to some companies registered in the U.S. with foreign ownership over certain thresholds.

For example, business entities located outside the U.S. in which 50% of voting shares, total equity or membership units are owned by foreign nationals would be banned from making political contributions, as would those located within the U.S. in which a single foreign national outside the U.S. owns or controls 1% of voting shares, total equity, or membership units, among others.

Raskin and Whitehouse led a nearly identical bill in the 118th Congress, though it didn’t get a vote in either chamber.

“Thanks to the disastrous Citizens United decision, foreign actors can exploit the same corrupting dark money channels that allow unlimited corporate spending,” Whitehouse said in a statement. “We should get rid of the damned stuff entirely, but this bill would at least safeguard our democracy from foreign adversaries influencing American elections from the shadows.”

The proposal comes on the heels of House passage earlier this month of a bipartisan bill, led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Jared Golden, D-Maine, that seeks to prohibit foreign contributions in flooding local…

More voters would be more likely to support a democratic socialist candidate than a Make America Great Again supporter or a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump, the CNBC All-America Economic Survey released Friday found.

The survey’s findings come as democratic socialist candidates win Democratic primaries across the country following the November election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The shift has become a lightning rod for Republicans, who are aggressively branding Democrats as communists.

The results indicate that even with a number of self-described democratic socialists on the ballot, Democrats will have the upper hand heading into November’s midterm election, which is widely viewed as a referendum on Trump. It also suggests voters are warming to the idea of a more muscular federal government that provides more services in exchange for higher taxes.

The poll found that 32% of registered voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate if they describe themselves as a Democratic socialist, while 50% would be less likely to vote for such a candidate. Twenty-nine percent of voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate with Trump’s endorsement, while 52% would be less likely. A candidate who describes themself as a supporter of the MAGA movement does even worse, with only 27% of voters saying that would make them more likely to vote for them and 57% saying it would make their vote less likely.

CNBC’s All America poll was conducted on July 8-12 with 1,000 registered voters in the U.S., in conjunction with Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies. It has a margin of error of +/-3.1%.

Many of the democratic socialists set to be on the ballot this year are calling for increased taxes on the wealthiest in America to fund universal healthcare, a higher minimum wage and universal basic income.

Their elections would be unlikely to spur an immediate change in policy, given Republicans’ control of the White House through 2028. But it would mean a more adversarial relationship between Congress and the executive branch that could stall legislation the Trump administration favors, while offering a window into how Democrats would govern if they retake the White House in 2028.

Democrats also notch a four percentage-point lead in the generic ballot, with 49% of voters saying they would prefer a Democrat-controlled Congress and 45% preferring Republican control.

The survey found the president’s approval rating at 40%, with 59% disapproving, one point worse than the April survey. Sixty percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, also a point worse than April,…

Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive running for the Democratic nomination in the the Aug. 4 Michigan Senate primary, sees a foundational risk in the rise of artificial intelligence. And he’s betting that fears related to the emerging technology and the data centers that power it could play a pivotal role in the race. 

“There’s literally not a conversation that I have, not a stop that I make, where data centers are AI don’t come up,” El-Sayed told CNBC. “It’s an issue that I’m hearing about everywhere, and it’s one of those issues that, as usual, D.C. has been slower to pay attention to than the rest of the country.”

El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former public health official, is part of a cadre of left-wing Democratic candidates — some of whom have made strides in New York and Colorado in recent weeks — looking to upset establishment candidates. And like many progressives, El-Sayed has staked out a position on AI and data centers more hostile to the technology than his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate with the tacit support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The tight race is critical for Democrats if they want to flip the Senate. El-Sayed and Stevens will seek to defend the seat Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, is vacating. The primary winner will square off against former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, in the general election. The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates the race a “toss up.”

It can also be viewed as a battle in the larger civil war roiling the Democratic Party, as progressives and moderates tussle for control. And the split between El-Sayed and Stevens on AI and data centers could be a test case for Democrats on how to message on the issue going forward.

“There are lots of people in lots of places that are going to draw lessons from the outcome of this race,” said Tyler Simko, an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. “People are going to try to infer the viability of this type of progressive argument on data centers and AI.”

While Michigan isn’t in the top-10 for the number of AI data centers — the state has 77 currently operating, according to one public database, and more in the pipeline — anti-data center sentiment appears to be building in the state. Across the country, fears of AI in general are on the rise, several recent polling has found.

El-Sayed says he has a plan.

In January, he released his “terms of engagement” for data centers. El-Sayed stops short of calling for a moratorium on their development, as some of his backers, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have recently done. But he vows to impose strict guardrails on their development, including job guarantees, commitments to no utilities…

The opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Thursday will be a celebration of the legacy of former President Barack Obama and his accomplishments. The star-studded event that will feature an address from Obama and performances by Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and Jennifer Hudson is also expected to be the biggest gathering of donors, fundraisers and business leaders aligned with the Democratic Party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“It’s a celebration of Obama’s historic candidacy and a celebration of the extraordinary work he did on behalf of our country,” said John Rogers, a co-founder of Ariel Investments and a long-time Obama supporter who donated to the center and will attend the opening.

In addition to the nostalgia, insiders expect conversations on the sidelines between large donors, business leaders, electoral candidates and hopefuls in the next presidential cycle about fundraising and the future of the Democratic Party. 

“People will be talking about how important it is for us to take back the House of Representatives and the Senate, try to encourage all of us in this sort of dismal and disheartening period in our country that it is important for us to step up,” Rogers said.

The event will be a delicate balance between celebrating the legacy of the first Black U.S. president at a striking facility on Lake Michigan and looking to the political future of what Obama stood for in office.

Business leaders, former White House staffers and donors to the center who spoke with CNBC say the messaging from the Obama Presidential Center has been clear that the event and site itself are not political.

Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett, a former Obama administration senior advisor, notes that because the foundation, which will run the center, is a registered non- profit, the new facility is officially non-partisan. 

“We want people from different political ideologies, from different perspectives on issues to come here and have a healthy conversation because that is what a democratic society is all about,” Jarrett told CNBC.

Charles Phillips, co-chairman of the Black Economic Alliance, co-founder of technology investment firm Recognize and a donor to the center, shared a similar sentiment.

“It’s a reminder of the dignity of office of the presidency, because President Obama chaired that office well and conducted himself in a way that made all Americans proud of him,” he told CNBC.

He also said the political undertones of the event will make it a place to be seen for certain presidential hopefuls.

“It’s good for anyone who is thinking about running for president to have their face out there and be seen, shake some hands,” Phillips said. “It’s a good way to reach a lot of people at once because a lot of important people will be there, and you can…

Iowa Democrats on Tuesday are voting in one of the party’s most closely watched primary elections this election year in a key test of the party’s strategy to take control of the Senate in this year’s midterms.

Voters will choose between front-runner state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls. Both are vying to become the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in Iowa since Tom Harkin, who was last elected in 2008. Whoever wins the primary will square off against Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican who represents the state’s 2nd congressional district, to fill the seat Sen. Joni Ernst will vacate at the end of this year Hinson also has a primary challenger in Jim Carlin, though she is heavily favored to win.

Whoever emerges will have the difficult task of winning in a state that President Donald Trump took by 13 percentage points in 2024, and where there are nearly 200,000 more registered Republican voters than Democrats. Democrats, however, are bullish on picking up the seat as Trump’s approval rating sinks amid the Iran war and the state’s economy struggles.

Farm bankruptcies are up across the state. Tax revenue is on the decline. And tariffs and the Iran war have hit soybean and other farmers hard. Meanwhile, Morning Consult in a poll released in May, found Trump has a -7 approval rating in Iowa, lower than in February before the Iran war began. The same poll rated the Senate race as “likely” a Republican victory.

The battle between Turek and Wahls is also emblematic of a larger struggle within the Democratic Party between its more moderate and progressive wings and has become a referendum on Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The general election for Iowa Senate could be a crucial part of Democrats’ push to retake the chamber. To do so, they’d need to flip four states that Trump won, like Iowa, Texas, North Carolina or Maine, while also successfully defending seats in places like Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire.

“The big fight right now among the Democrats is who’s more electable,” Timothy Hagle, a University of Iowa political science professor, said of the Democratic primary. “Which way are we going to go? The Republicans, of course, want Wahls, because he’s so far to the left that it’s going to probably turn off the no-party voters. And a lot of Democrats are saying ‘we need Turek because we need to have a fighting chance at this election.'”

Turek is seen as the establishment candidate, with endorsements from Harkin, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a handful of sitting senators. Turek, who lives in Council Bluffs, on the state’s western border with Nebraska, is a Paralympian who flipped a seat in the state legislature that had long been held by Republicans.

“I’m the only candidate in this race who has even run against a Republican, let alone beaten one,” Turek posted to X in May. “I’m battle-tested and…

Democratic state attorneys general declined an invitation to Vice President JD Vance‘s anti-fraud initiatives roundtable at the White House on Tuesday, citing the fact that they were only invited on Friday, days after their Republican counterparts were asked to attend.

“While we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day’s notice with no agenda,” the 24 AGs wrote Vance in a letter dated Tuesday.

“This short notice does not match the spirit of collaboration that has long defined our joint efforts with federal partners,” the letter said. “Accordingly, we respectfully decline to attend at this time.”

Among the AGs who declined to attend is Keith Ellison of Minnesota, whose state has been the focus of Trump administration actions targeting alleged Medicaid fraud schemes involving day care centers.

Some of the Democratic AGs scheduled a press conference about the situation for 4:15 p.m. ET, Tuesday, about two hours after the roundtable is scheduled to begin at the White House.

A person familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk about non-public details of the event, told CNBC that Tuesday’s event was originally planned only for Republican AGs, but that Vance personally said it would be a shame if Democrats did not participate. That person said the offices of multiple Democratic AGs would be represented at the event by their chiefs of staff or principal deputy AGs.

“This should not be a partisan effort,” Vance said at the beginning of the event.

“Everybody should care about fraud. Everybody should care about rooting out fraud,” Vance said. “Everybody should care about saving the American taxpayers money, and importantly, everybody should care about actually protecting the programs that only work and are only properly funded.”

The vice president also said that representatives from office of the AGs of Connecticut and Oregon were in attendance.

Politico first reported the decision by the Democratic AGs not to attend and their letter to Vance, who President Donald Trump in March appointed as chairman of the new Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.

In addition to Vance, the event is expected to include Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who is vice chair of the task force.

As of Monday, 16 Republican AGs had said they would attend.

In their letter to Vance, the Democratic AGs said, “We are committed to stopping fraud, waste, and abuse in all government programs across our states, and are proud of our continued partnership with the federal government in this mission.”

“The social safety net is critical — especially given today’s affordability crisis — and we are dedicated to ensuring these crucial programs operate with integrity and…

Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich., said Wednesday she will introduce a new bill to expand the earned income tax credit to provide a credit of up to $5,500 per child to parents of young children.

The bill, shared exclusively with CNBC, is dubbed the “Working Parents Tax Relief Act” and would provide qualifying single or joint filers claiming the EITC an additional credit of up to $5,500 for up to three children under the age of four.

The bill would also increase the maximum qualifying income to claim the EITC to nearly $100,000 annually if the filer has children under the age of four, and it would require the Treasury Department to create a monthly payment system for the enhancement.

It comes as Democrats campaign across the country on a message of affordability, arguing that Republicans and President Donald Trump have failed to lower costs for Americans. Polls show Democrats have the upper hand in the 2026 midterm elections and could see Trump lose his majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate.

“Bringing home a baby is the most magical moment of a parent’s life, but it is also the most expensive. Parents with toddlers today are working harder than ever, but still find it impossible to keep up with the out-of-control costs of housing, child care, groceries, and so much more,” McDonald Rivet said. “We need to cut their taxes now. Our bill puts thousands of hard-earned dollars back in their pockets, helping parents keep up with their bills while raising their families.”

The EITC is available to low- to moderate-income workers and families. In the 2024 tax year, the average EITC amount paid to individuals and families in the U.S. was $2,894, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Congress has in the past enhanced tax credits. In 2021, the American Rescue Plan expanded the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,000, or $3,600 per child. The boost cut child poverty nearly in half, but was allowed to lapse by Congress and never renewed, despite multiple attempts.

The House is Republican-controlled, so McDonald Rivet’s bill has little chance of advancing. But bills like this provide the groundwork for Democratic messaging in an election year.

The new bill has support from groups such as moderate think tank Third Way and progressive coalition Americans for Tax Fairness.

“The Working Parents Tax Relief Act of 2026 would deliver real relief for working- and middle-class parents,” said Zach Moller, senior director of Third Way’s economic program.

While she was a member of the Michigan state Senate, McDonald Rivet helped pass a similar bill, which boosted Michigan’s match of the EITC from 6% to 30%.

Eligible Michigan families received an average credit of $3,856 in 2025, according to the state’s Department of Treasury.