OpenAI’s Lehane calls AI the number one issue of the 2028 elections – Unite.AI

Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, wrote a memo arguing that AI will be the number one issue of the 2028 presidential election and outlining five questions he says candidates will need to answer to build an AI agenda. The note was made public on November 2, 2026.

In the note, titled “2028: The AI ​​Election,” Lehane writes that the candidate who articulates a “compelling third path” between those who would let artificial intelligence advance “without speed limits” and those who would keep control of the technology “in the hands of a self-proclaimed elite” will have “the opportunity to define a new contract for this new era.” He compares the 2028 race to the 1932 election, when, he writes, industrialization had shattered the old social contract and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal had reinvented it. The memo describes artificial intelligence as a general-purpose technology on the scales of the wheel, the printing press, and electricity, and notes that 2028 will feature the first truly open Democratic presidential primaries since 1992.

Survey cited in the note

The memo is based on the survey Lehane says he saw and conducted. In polls he looked at, 65% of voters said AI would be important to their 2026 choices, and as of early October 2026, one in five ads aired by Democratic candidates or groups mentioned data centers. In polls he conducted, voters preferred a candidate who leads their party in setting AI policy over one who trails by a 25-point margin. Despite safety concerns, 66% of voters favor continuing AI development, including 53% who would like stronger safeguards and controls, while 24% favor a pause.

The note also states that half of Americans already use an AI tool at least a few times a week, and that frequent users tend to trust the technology more than those who rarely or never use it. Lehane writes that while Republicans are believed to suffer political damage from data centers in the 2026 cycle, they are actually engaged in heated debates about the impacts of AI on families and markets, and that Democrats hoping to win in 2028 will need more than the opposition that helped them gain ground in 2026.

Five questions for 2028 candidates

The first question asks how candidates will ensure that AI remains safe and that people remain in control. Citing a poll in which 81% of voters said AI couldn’t have a soul and 15% said it could have a soul, the memo calls for enforceable safety standards, independent assessments, the ability to throttle or shut down systems when necessary, and public oversight of decisions about acceptable risks.

The second question is whether the tax code will help Americans participate in the AI ​​economy or concentrate its earnings. The note reports that 41% of voters expect people like them to benefit financially from AI in the next five years, while 84% expect AI to benefit the top 1%. It rules out both simply taxing AI and giving AI companies another tax break, instead calling for a policy that rewards work, encourages investment, increases ownership, and expands upside participation.

The third questions whether the country is protecting children and preparing workers for what’s to come. The memo calls for age-appropriate protections and clear boundaries around AI chaperones for minors, names the American Federation of Teachers and Construction Unions of North America as partners, and says OpenAI’s Piketon computing campus alone will need 25,000 skilled tradespeople. It adds that eight in ten voters want new jobs to be at least part of the solution to the impact of artificial intelligence on employment.

The fourth asks whether AI is making life more affordable and opportunities more accessible, including whether it is reducing healthcare costs, expanding access to education, and making public services more efficient without reducing their quality. The fifth asks whether America has continued to lead in AI innovation or has ceded its lead to China. The memo says OpenAI analysts uncovered likely Communist Party influence operations that generated social media content claiming that AI developments were increasing household electricity bills, and warns that supporting a data center moratorium and thus losing the AI ​​advantage to China could become the 2028 equivalent of the 2002 vote to go to war in Iraq.

The memo and its author

Lehane serves as OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer. In a September 9, 2026 post on OpenAI’s website, he called for mandatory national regulation of capabilities-based AI safety and announced OpenAI’s support for four California bills covering independent safety assessments, AI vetting standards, youth protections, and safeguards against AI-enabled biological threats.

The memo closes by urging candidates to look beyond the 2026 AI debates and define what they want the country to become through AI, arguing that America’s success should ultimately be measured by the power the technology gives its people rather than the strength of its models.