WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, The Tech Oversight Project issued the following round-up of election night speeches showing that winning Democrats touted tech accountability in their victory speeches – signaling potential action on tech and AI in the coming Congress. 

The Tech Oversight Project recently released new research, The AI Election: How Democrats Are Campaigning on Tech Accountability to Win Control of Congress, detailing the widely-used tech accountability pitch Democrats made to voters – attacking Republicans for their coziness to Big Tech and data centers that raised the cost of living. Our findings showed that Democrats in the tightest elections across the country made tech accountability a key focus of their pitch to voters, including 75% of DCCC Red-to-Blue races, 90% of Senate toss-ups, and 100% of gubernatorial toss-up races.

“Democrats used tech accountability messaging as a way to paint Republicans as corrupt and weak on issues that mattered most to voters. Attacking Big Tech for the cost of living, corruption, and billions in tax breaks was a potent message, and it speaks volumes that Democrats across the country aren’t letting their foot off the gas. They’re making it loud and clear that tech accountability will feature heavily in a Democratic Majority, and that they will deliver relief for regular people,” said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project.

Democrats calling out the Big Tech Industry: 

• PA-Gov: Josh Shapiro

“It’s how we made sure that Big Tech doesn’t get to write the rules that shape our future, but instead, the folks in our local communities get the final say.”

• GA-Sen: Jon Ossoff

“Meanwhile, the titans of Silicon Valley dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the artificial intelligence they’re creating risks human extinction… we’ve been too long mired in a small and selfish politics, bought by big money, unmoored from fixed moral principles, and resigned to intractable division.”

• TX-Sen: James Talarico

“But the billionaires who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens, they want us at each other’s throats. They want us focused on how we’re different instead of on how we’re the same. They want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them. The real fight in this country is not left versus right. It is top versus bottom.”

• ME-Sen: Troy Jackson

“Donald Trump and the billionaires need to understand one thing very clear, something about your new senator. I don’t owe them a damn thing. We beat a failed trillionaire [Elon Musk]. So, what do you think of us now?”

• NH-Sen: Chris Pappas

“It was made even harder by the tens and tens of millions of dollars that poured into New Hampshire from Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and corporate special interests who are just fine with the way things are going right now. They threw money, attack ads, and outright lies at us every day for months. But we beat them anyway, didn’t we? We were never the big money campaign. We’re the people power campaign.”

• MA-Sen: Ed Markey

“I’m thinking of the neighbors and advocates who are giving Big Tech the big finger on polluting data centers. No community should have a data center if they don’t want it. They should have the right to say no. The American people did not sign up for this. You can’t gut Medicaid by a trillion dollars and then give a trillion-dollar tax break to billionaires.”

• NM-2: Gabe Vasquez

“We proved that money can’t buy votes. And that billionaires cannot buy New Mexicans. And that New Mexico is not for sale. We ran a people powered campaign, outspent by tech billionaires and MAGA money and Elon Musk by more than $3 million. And despite their mentiras, and despite their movidas, together, we proved that el pueblo unido jamás será vencido.”

• FL-14: Kathy Castor

“Very powerful special interests spent over $25 million to defeat me, and these were largely big tech companies and CEOs, AI executives, polluters, who do not like that I’m an outspoken advocate for AI regulations.” (Reporter: “this campaign was proof that what she called people power can overcome a flood of special interest money.”)

Democrats Promising to Make Big Tech Pay for Data Centers: 

• OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown

“Higher utility bills, higher grocery prices, higher drug prices. Starting today, Ohioans have a senator who puts working people first. Ohioans voted for change because we all know the system is rigged… I do not work for the utility companies. I do not work for data centers. I do not work for Wall Street. I work for you. I work for Ohio.”

• SC-Sen: Annie Andrews

“A South Carolina where a family can afford to fill up a gas tank, put groceries on the table, and get the childcare they need without worrying about going broke. Where decisions about our communities are made by the people who live in our communities, not the billionaires or data center companies in Washington, DC. And where the next generation can afford to build a life and raise a family here. That’s the future that I’m fighting for.”

• TX-Gov: Gina Hinojosa

“It is because what he has done to public schools is one example of a governor doing the bidding of the moneyed interest and not the people of Texas. Data centers are another example. There are people all across the state very angry at this governor who no longer fears the voters, and voters are fighting back in this election.”

• NH-Sen: Chris Pappas

“Tonight’s results are a wake-up call for corporate special interests and billionaires who have been rigging the economy, for the cowards in Congress who have enabled healthcare cuts, tariffs, and war… Across this state, Granite Staters are showing the fighting spirit… organizing against corporate landlords buying up homes and jacking up the rent, opposing big data centers that harm our communities and our wellbeing, and stopping an ICE detention center.”

• MA-Sen: Ed Markey

“I’m thinking of the neighbors and advocates who are giving Big Tech the big finger on polluting data centers. No community should have a data center if they don’t want it. They should have the right to say no. The American people did not sign up for this.”

Democrats Calling Out Dangerous AI: 

• FL-14: Kathy Castor

“Very powerful special interests spent over $25 million to defeat me, and these were largely big tech companies and CEOs, AI executives, polluters, who do not like that I’m an outspoken advocate for AI regulations.”

• GA-Sen: Jon Ossoff

“Meanwhile, the titans of Silicon Valley dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the artificial intelligence they’re creating risks human extinction.”