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The Impact
A weekly look at the intersection of AI, advocacy, and politics from the team at MFStrategies | www.MFStrategies.com
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Starting today, MFStrategies is offering our
Political AI Playbook
free to candidates and causes nationwide!
The Political AI Playbook is a practical guide for Democratic campaigns and advocacy groups on integrating AI into communications, field, data, fundraising, and more—with real examples, risk notes, and step-by-step tips. Built for staff and consultants, it helps teams work faster and smarter in 2025 and beyond.
Plus, Hal and Addie cover this week’s news on
The Impact Podcast.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
On to the news!
Follow the money and the rulebook: a $100M, VC-backed campaign just launched to tilt AI policy, while Ohio became the first state to require every school district to set AI rules and cities are already writing theirs. Boston says 60% of staff use AI weekly, and one city made a PSA for $30 instead of $20,000. Washington is testing “ideology-neutral” AI in federal buys as new reports flag model bias, even in how think tanks get scored. Abroad, Nvidia is negotiating chip sales under China limits, South Korea is making AI its top growth bet, and the U.S. and China are pitching rival governance visions. The through-line: whoever sets the standards—PACs, principals, or policymakers—shapes the market.
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AI / Political News of the Week
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PR Newswire
Takeaway
A coalition of AI companies and investors launched Leading the Future (LTF), a national political operation to advance pro-innovation AI policy and U.S. leadership. Backed by more than $100 million from supporters including Andreessen Horowitz, Greg and Anna Brockman, Ron Conway, Joe Lonsdale, and Perplexity, LTF will operate federal and state Super PACs and 501(c)(4) groups ahead of 2026. Initial campaigns start in New York, California, Illinois, and Ohio under strategists Zac Moffatt and Josh Vlasto.
Why it matters
An industry-funded, bipartisan campaign infrastructure signals a new phase in AI policy where influence shifts from traditional lobbying to electoral spending. Expect intensified activity in primaries and statehouses on legislation, regulatory narratives, and candidate positioning around “innovation vs. risk,” with implications for federal rulemaking and U.S.-China tech competition. Policy, campaign, and tech leaders should anticipate scorecards, rapid-response operations, and targeted messaging shaping the 2026 landscape.
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The Statehouse News Bureau
Takeaway
Ohio became the first state to require every K-12 public district to adopt formal AI policies, enacted through the state budget signed last month. The Department of Education and Workforce will release a model policy by year-end, and districts must adopt their own by July 1; schools are not required to offer AI courses. Expected guardrails include privacy and data quality standards, ethical use, fair use, academic honesty, and clear classroom guidance for teachers and students.
Why it matters
Ohio’s mandate could set a template for other states as schools navigate AI’s rapid adoption and uneven local rules. Clear district policies can align classroom practice with legal, ethical, and workforce expectations while reducing ad-hoc decisions by individual educators. Vendors and curriculum developers will also take cues from these requirements, shaping the K-12 AI market nationwide.
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KCRG
Takeaway
With state and federal rules still evolving, cities and counties are setting their own AI playbooks for government staff—emphasizing accountability, privacy, and flexible, values-driven “responsible experimentation.” Boston, Tempe, and Lebanon (NH) illustrate the trend with governance committees, do/don’t lists, and guardrails that exclude sensitive uses like hiring and facial recognition. Adoption is already routine—60% of Boston employees use AI weekly—and early projects show notable cost savings, like an AI-produced public service video costing about $30 versus a $20,000 traditional estimate.
Why it matters
Local AI rules are becoming the de facto standards for public-sector tech, shaping procurement, training, and civil-liberties protections long before statewide or federal mandates arrive. Decisions made now will influence how police, permitting, communications, and social services deploy models—and whether bias, privacy, and transparency are meaningfully addressed. Policymakers, advocates, and vendors who engage early with city frameworks can help set templates that scale to higher levels of government.
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Cato Institute
Takeaway
Cato’s Matt Mittelsteadt critiques the White House AI Action Plan and a companion executive order that would require federally procured AI systems to be both “truth-seeking” and ideologically “neutral.” He argues that leveraging procurement to police “ideological bias” risks government influence over AI content, chills innovation as firms optimize for compliance, and harms U.S. international competitiveness by fueling perceptions of politicized American AI. OMB implementation guidance is due within 120 days, but the policy signal alone could already be reshaping incentives.
Why it matters
Federal procurement pressure can set de facto standards across the AI market when nine-figure contracts are on the line. Perceived government steering of model outputs could undermine trust abroad just as Washington promotes a “full-stack” AI export strategy, ceding market share to competitors that emphasize sovereignty and cultural alignment. Policymakers, campaigns, and advocacy groups should watch the compliance mechanisms and enforcement levers that could redirect industry priorities away from frontier R&D.
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Skidmore College News
Takeaway
Skidmore alum Matt Walsh ’13 is shaping national security policy at the intersection of biotechnology and AI, drawing on a chemistry background, campus leadership, and research training. After roles at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins, he now supports frontier AI developers in assessing biological risks of pre-deployed tools and has studied how AI access may alter the capabilities of malicious actors. The profile spotlights the dual-use challenges that complicate governance.
Why it matters
AI-biology convergence is accelerating faster than traditional oversight, elevating biosecurity as a core AI policy concern. Cross-disciplinary leaders who can translate between labs, model developers, and policymakers are crucial to crafting rules that curb misuse without impeding lifesaving innovation. Pre-deployment bio-risk evaluations are poised to become standard practice for AI labs and a focus for regulators and funders.
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Bloomberg
Takeaway
Andreessen Horowitz has joined a new $100 million political network, “Leading the Future,” aimed at shaping U.S. AI regulation. The group plans to back pro-innovation policies and push back on what it considers excessive rules through a mix of super PACs and 501(c)(4) groups, with initial campaigns in New York, California, Illinois, and Ohio.
Why it matters
A $100 million, industry-backed network signals a new phase of organized political spending to influence how the U.S. sets AI rules—touching safety, competition, labor, and national security. The effort formalizes Silicon Valley’s growing political muscle under the Trump administration and could shape state and federal outcomes ahead of the 2026 cycle.
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American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Takeaway
An AEI analysis asked five flagship LLMs to rate 26 U.S. think tanks across 12 criteria and found a consistent pattern: center-left organizations scored highest while right-leaning groups scored lowest, including sizable gaps on objectivity, research quality, and moral integrity. Sentiment analysis of the models’ explanations mirrored the scores, with more positive language used for left-of-center institutions. Robustness checks across prompts and additional models suggest the pattern reflects internal model behavior rather than search or user effects.
Why it matters
LLMs are increasingly gatekeepers for background research, shaping who gets cited, invited to testify, and ultimately funded. Systematic downgrading of right-leaning institutions could create feedback loops that narrow policy debate and skew training data over time. Model builders, think tanks, and users may need audits, transparency, and controls to prevent AI-mediated reputations from silently tilting the public-policy ecosystem.
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The Hill
Takeaway
Nvidia says it is in ongoing talks with the U.S. government about whether and how its next-generation AI chips can be sold in China under current and potential export restrictions. The company emphasized it will comply with U.S. rules and could tailor products to meet requirements, but acknowledges policy outcomes may curb access to a major market.
Why it matters
Export decisions on top-tier AI accelerators will shape who gets cutting-edge compute and how quickly advanced AI capabilities diffuse globally. The outcome will ripple across data center buildouts, cloud pricing, investment plans, and supply chains in Asia, while spurring Chinese efforts to develop domestic alternatives and shifting competitive dynamics for U.S. firms.
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Reuters
Takeaway
South Korea elevated AI investment to the top of its policy agenda to counter slowing growth and strengthen technological competitiveness. Officials signaled a push to expand support for compute infrastructure, semiconductors, and economy-wide AI adoption and commercialization.
Why it matters
Policy direction from one of the world’s leading chip and electronics hubs will influence global AI supply chains, regional standards, and public–private investment flows. Expect intensifying national AI strategies to increase competition for talent, capital, and data center buildout across the Indo-Pacific, shaping opportunities for startups and multinationals alike.
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The Loop
Takeaway
Two July 2025 policy releases laid out competing AI governance visions: a U.S. plan under the Trump administration centered on deregulation, national innovation, export controls, and military-adjacent R&D; and China’s Global AI Governance Initiative (GAGI) calling for multilateral standards and UN-led cooperation. The essay argues both are strategic communications designed to shape who defines AI norms, with Washington emphasizing technonationalism and Beijing projecting a state-led model through soft power. The result is a legitimacy race where AI governance becomes a proxy for the future international order.
Why it matters
AI rules are coalescing around rival models, forcing governments, firms, and civil society to align on standards and alliances. Competing blueprints risk market fragmentation and a governance vacuum where high-risk uses proliferate without consistent oversight. Emerging economies could become pivotal swing states in which vision sets global norms and access to AI benefits.
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Worth Thinking About
“The risk of competing government blueprints is not just fragmentation, but a global governance vacuum in which power, not principle, dictates outcomes.” — Elif Davutoğlu
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