OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane argued in a new essay that the 2028 presidential election could be a defining moment for AI, urging politicians to develop policies addressing Americans’ concerns about the technology rather than simply echoing anti-AI sentiment and opposition to data centers. Lehane compared AI’s potential to reshape the economy with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, noting that Americans today share a similar anxiety about losing control over their economic futures, and called for a third path that lets people share in AI’s benefits, setting out five policy priorities covering worker protections, education, AI safety and data center development. His proposals include tax incentives for workers to learn AI skills, easier capital access for entrepreneurs and new models of employee ownership and profit-sharing, alongside enforceable safety standards, independent evaluations, public oversight and the ability to shut down AI systems, plus age-appropriate protections around AI companions for minors. Lehane warned that keeping AI out of classrooms could deepen inequality and that politicians backing a data center moratorium risk America’s lead over China. The essay follows a Democratic midterm victory driven by cost-of-living frustrations, with data center opposition emerging as a bipartisan concern in several races. Kate Brennan of the AI Now Institute told TechCrunch the rhetoric marks a notable shift from OpenAI’s earlier focus on accelerating development and reducing regulation, describing the New Deal comparison as ahistorical at best and calling the safety stances disingenuous given OpenAI’s opposition to California’s SB