Amid growing anxiety over the risks posed by rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology, potential Democratic presidential candidates are rushing to show that they take the warnings seriously — while Donald Trump brushes off concerns — and to acknowledge that they need a reluctant Washington to step up.

On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to speed up the implementation of a California law that requires independent oversight of AI companies and the use of “kill switches,” so that developers can shut down their systems.

"California will do what it can.

But this nation needs to get in the game.

Washington, D.C. needs to do its job," Newsom said on his podcast Friday.

The order came a day after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, also expected to be a leading Democratic presidential prospect, gave a speech outlining the steps he is taking locally to confront AI risk.

Like Newsom, he admitted that states have clear limits when it comes to regulating a global technology.

These efforts come as AI leaders have issued dire warnings about the potentially catastrophic threat posed by rogue AI agents.

The country has begun to grapple with the impact of a technology that could bring tremendous gains in areas like medical research and automation, but could also unleash deadly viruses, cause widespread economic upheaval, and help terrorists inflict harm.

While Trump has angrily dismissed the warnings as a “HOAX,” Democratic lawmakers and candidates across the country are giving speeches and proposing legislation, sensing a political opening as the midterms and the next presidential race approach.

After a series of hacks revealed AI agents conspiring to deceive humans, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk have all called for greater government oversight of the industry.

Trump has responded by asserting that he is “the only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs.”

Democrats wasted no time in seizing upon it.

Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat seeking reelection in a state Trump won two years ago, said at a campaign rally last weekend that “a capable president would move swiftly to secure and reassure the American people, rush inspectors into frontier labs, fortify the nation against bioterrorism, demand legislation from Congress, and lead the world toward an AI treaty.”

Ossoff, seen as a possible contender for 2028, said that elderly politicians have little understanding of AI technology.

"An old institution, barely able to use email, drifts half-asleep into a technological revolution while the president dismantles safeguards and calls us fools for worrying," he said.

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Another prospective White House contender, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, told Politico he will introduce legislation next week to establish a fund to which AI companies would contribute to support workers affected by the disruption.

In his speech, Shapiro called for new federal regulations mandating independent, third-party oversight and enhanced transparency, and urged policymakers to “prioritize safety above all else.”

He noted that within his own state he has already signed an executive order establishing “real guardrails governing how Pennsylvania uses generative AI.”

He acknowledged, however, that states face evident limitations.

“It is going to necessitate leadership and collaboration on a national scale and, indeed, an international one,” he said.

Alex Bores, a New York State lawmaker soon to leave office, who lost his congressional primary this summer after AI companies, angered by an AI safety bill he had championed, spent millions to defeat him, said: “The salience of this issue has climbed dramatically.”

“People are demanding tangible action on this,” he said.

“Both sides of the aisle appear to be discussing the necessity of doing something here.”

Bores, who recently launched a political advocacy group aimed at influencing how his party responds to the technology, said he was encouraged by governors who seemed to be moving away from calling on the federal government to act and toward crafting their own regulations.

“Although federal intervention is undoubtedly necessary, we equally require governors to fulfil their responsibilities and drive policies through at the state level,” he remarked.

“The shift in sentiment over recent days has been heartening.”

Although it is still early, polling indicates a growing ideological divide over AI, with Democrats becoming more alarmed in recent years, while Republicans have become less concerned.

According to a June Pew Research Center poll, Democrats are more inclined than Republicans to express being “more concerned than excited” regarding the increasing integration of AI into everyday life.

Roughly half of U.S. adults overall report that the growing integration of AI into everyday life renders them “more concerned than excited.”

A separate Pew Research Center poll conducted in June revealed that approximately 7 in 10 U.S. adults believe AI will bring about job losses in the U.S. over the next 20 years — a figure that has risen by 7 percentage points since 2024.

Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, has been urging Republican Senate leadership to expeditiously establish a select committee on A.I.

“I worry about this as a true existential threat.

This is the first time that we’ve created technology to destroy humanity that could be controlled by not humans,” he said on MSNOW.

While potential 2028 candidates have been eager to weigh in on AI, the issue has been less potent in many local races, where some fear the kind of spending that Bores faced.

At a rally on Wednesday in New York’s fiercely contested 17th Congressional district, the audience applauded as Democratic candidate Cait Conley pledged to prohibit data centers that power AI and cloud computing.

Yet no explicit reference was made to the broader technology or its associated risks.

Exceptions have, on occasion, been made.

In Michigan, both candidates for a closely contested Senate seat have called for some degree of slowdown.

At a town hall on Sept. 11, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed said AI was keeping him up at night, describing it as an existential risk.

“We need to all hit pause,” said El-Sayed, who advocates halting frontier research and imposing new public oversight, including converting AI companies into public benefit corporations, establishing a new regulatory agency, and prohibiting the use of AI to deny medical care, make hiring or firing decisions — or fire a weapon.

On Monday, following Amodei’s warning, Republican nominee Mike Rogers took to an X post to call for a slowdown in AI.

“I believe we must slow down AI development so that the government and its partners can catch up and put stricter protocols and guardrails in place to protect us from the rapid advancements we’ve seen,” Rogers wrote.

Bores said that data centers had fueled such backlash not only because of concerns over their immediate local impact, but also because, “It is the first time that AI is meeting democracy.”

“Naturally, they’re funneling all of their anxieties about it into the campaign against data centers,” he said.