Cooler but still well above normal this week

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

The rise of AI assistants is rewriting the rhythms of everyday life: People are feeding their 

 and leaning on AI for everything from planning trips to

Now, one organization suggests artificial intelligence can go beyond making daily life more convenient. It says it's the key to reshaping American politics.

"Without AI, what we're trying to do would be impossible," explained Adam Brandon, a senior adviser at the Independent Center, a nonprofit that studies and engages with independent voters.

The goal is to elect a handful of independent candidates to the House of Representatives in 2026, using AI to identify districts where independents could succeed and uncover diamond in the rough candidates.

In a time when control of the House balances on a knife's edge, winning even a handful of seats could deny either party from getting a majority and upend the way the House currently operates.

It's a bold proposition in a system that hasn't seen a new independent candidate win a House seat in 35 years.

But data shows a rise in moderate and independent voters. 

 43 percent of Americans — a record high — claiming the independent label in 2024. Exit polls that year 

showed 34 percent of voters identified as independent

"There's a huge chunk of people who for different reasons can't stomach either of the two parties," said David Barker, a professor of government at American University. "It's the first time in a long time where a plurality of Americans are now identifying as independents, and so that does seem to signal a pretty important shift."

Brandon said that shift is what makes the time right to disrupt the status quo.

"It's like Uber and taxis. You had a system with an obvious flaw, that had entrenched operators and took a radical change to go completely around it," he told NPR. "And that's what we're feeling now. People are so stuck into 'Republican' and 'Democrat' and we're like, well, there's something else."

Trying to throw a wrench into the stranglehold of a two-party system is an uphill battle, pushing against political orthodoxy and plenty of skeptics.

But the Independent Center's strategists are a far cry from political newbies.

"We're political fighters," said Brandon, who served as president of FreedomWorks, the conservative grassroots group that helped turn Tea Party activists into a political force before closing its doors last year. "We have built a team of people that know how to do this. We're not going to be pushovers." 

Brandon works closely with Brett Loyd, who runs The Bullfinch Group, the nonpartisan polling and data firm overseeing the polling and research at the Independent Center. He previously worked on President Trump's polling team, when the president was a candidate.

"I'm a statistician. I kind of joke that I worked for the RNC because they offered me a job before the DNC," he said with a smile. "My job is numbers and sentiment and game theory. It's not necessarily Republican or Democratic."

He makes it clear the goal of their work isn't to erase partisanship altogether.

"This isn't going to work everywhere. It's going to work in very specific areas," Loyd said. "If you live in a hyper-Republican or hyper-Democratic district, you should have a Democrat or Republican representing you."

But with the help of AI, he's identified 40 seats that don't fit that mold, where he said independents can make inroads with voters fed up with both parties. The Independent Center plans to have about 10 candidates in place by spring with the goal of winning at least half of the races.

Brandon predicts those wins could prompt moderate partisans in the House to switch affiliations.

"I had one Republican [member] tell me in his office, 'I'm too chicken**** to do this right now,'" he recalled. "'But if you can do this, I will join you.'"

From mining Reddit to matching on LinkedIn

Their proprietary AI tool created by an outside partner has been years in the making. 

While focus groups and polling have long driven understanding of American sentiments, AI can monitor what people are talking about in real time.

"Polling is a snapshot in time — a Tuesday at 11 when you got the phone call or you were at the focus group, this is how you felt, but then you went home and your views changed. We can watch that," Brandon said. 

They're using AI to understand core issues and concerns of voters and to hunt for districts ripe for an independent candidate to swoop in.

"A district that's 50 percent Republican and 50 percent Democratic that keeps flip-flopping because of who showed up on a given night, is that something that is truly independent versus a district in Arizona where a plurality is independent but they're plugging their nose and voting?" Loyd explained. "We're looking at voter participation rates. What districts have really low turnout because those people aren't excited to go to the ballot box."

He's also looking at districts with younger voters, who he said embrace the independent message. 

"When I say Gen Z and millennials, people keep rolling their eyes and they're like, 'the kids,'" he said. "Well, those kids are going to 

From there, the next step is taking the data and finding what the dream candidate looks like.

The Independent Center is recruiting candidates both from people who reach out to the organization directly and with the help of AI. 

They can even run their data through LinkedIn to identify potential candidates with certain interests and career and volunteer history.

"Usually they're not self-promoting, but their actions leave a footprint," Loyd said, giving the example of someone volunteering at an event covered by the local paper. "We ask our AI to find that footprint."

The AI also informs where a candidate is best placed to win.

Brandon points to one instance where a candidate was poised to run in their home district. The AI showed the district next door is a better bet. 

"Thirty minutes way, perfect fit," he said. "And that's what [that person's] going to do, because we found they matched up perfectly."

‘What’s wrong with spoiling something people don't like?’

One criticism Brandon and Loyd acknowledge they hear often is the idea of "

" — nonwinning candidates whose presence on the ballot affects which candidate wins.

"It's a partisan, archaic line," Loyd said. "What's wrong with spoiling something people don't like?"

He said the people criticizing independents getting into races as spoilers have an entrenched interest in the current system.

"The Republican and Democratic establishments still live in a world that's binary. It's Coke or Pepsi, it's Ford or Chevy, it's MSNBC or Fox News," he said. "That works for people that watch MSNBC and Fox News. Everybody else? We don't live in that binary system anymore."

Brandon said the only thing to do is lean in.

"We're going to embrace the spoiler because what we're spoiling is a pretty corrupt system."

Politics and Government News

Homepage

Barbara Sprunt

Author

Using artificial intelligence to identify congressional districts where independent candidates could win, an organization called the Independent Center is aiming to disrupt the two-party system.

An independent effort says AI is the secret to topple 2-party power in Congress

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox