Politics

How a Democratic heavyweight is using AI in the midterms

Published

5 months ago

January 27, 2026

A Democratic opposition research powerhouse is putting massive troves of its work product online ahead of the midterms. And it’s using artificial intelligence to help everyone from campaigns to podcasters figure out how to navigate it.

The project from American Bridge 21st Century, shared first with Blue Light News, reflects an expansion of its efforts ahead of the 2026 midterms — as well as the evolving nature of political campaigning, including oppo research, in an increasingly fragmented media environment.

“Swing voters are generally speaking getting their information very ambiently,” American Bridge President Pat Dennis said in an interview.

A challenge in recent election cycles, he said, has not been a lack of opposition research, but rather how to best convey it when more voters are getting political news from podcasts, social media influencers or group chats. “If people can’t find it or read it, it’s no good,” Dennis said.

The new tool, titled Research Books, is a public-facing website featuring opposition research on dozens of Republican candidates in races that American Bridge has identified as crucial to deciding control of Congress. It also includes select statewide candidates.

Pages for each candidate feature messaging around key votes, candidate-specific research and — in some races — videos from Democratic trackers and sample media based on the oppo that closely resemble campaign ads.

It also includes an AI-powered search tool that aims to bring together different sources about a candidate into cohesive messaging. (The AI agent only probes the super PAC’s internal database, not external sources or the wider internet.)

Results from the search link back to original sources, which include news articles, videos and public records. The tool also integrates with other external large language model platforms such as ChatGPT.

The notion of publishing opposition research files online, rather than keeping them closely held by party operatives for strategic deployment, is not entirely new for American Bridge. Ahead of the 2020 election, the group posted 1,043 pages of opposition research about President Donald Trump online for use by other Democratic groups.

Sharing such research publicly is a way for super PACs to avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws that prohibit direction coordination.

Because the new research tool is publicly available online, it could similarly be used by Democratic campaigns or other outside groups — though American Bridge hopes the uptake is broader than that, including among influencers and voters.

For its initial public rollout, Research Books includes 15 GOP House incumbents in seats Democrats are hoping to flip this year, along with Republican Senate candidates in four seats Democrats are trying to flip, as well as Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is seeking reelection.

The initial list also includes 15 candidates for governor or attorney general in key states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire and Iowa.

The inclusion of attorney general candidates, newer territory for American Bridge, reflects in part the greater role that they have played in suing the Trump administration, Dennis said. He expects the tool to include more races and candidates as the midterms near, with the super PAC seeking to help Democrats cast a broad net.

“There are times where opposition research can fundamentally reshape a race, so we prefer to take an expansive view on this,” he said.

Politics

Iran set to progress at World Cup

Published

32 minutes ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Iran’s adventure through a World Cup beset by geopolitical complexity and logistical complications will likely continue after the team landed a frenetic 1-1 draw against Egypt. The high-stakes encounter kicked off hours after a tenuous peace between Washington and Tehran was threatened by American strikes on Iranian military installations along the Strait of Hormuz. Read the full story from Seattle by Sasha Issenberg and Sophia Cai here.

Politics

The “Pride Match” that wasn’t

Published

2 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

SEATTLE — As a lesbian who was born in Egypt, Noha Mahgoub could have chosen to dress for what local organizers branded a “Pride Match” in colors associated with either her sexual orientation or her country of origin. The 43-year-old Democratic legislative aide — one of the top staffers in Washington state government — chose the latter, arriving in a red Egyptian national team jersey, a black hat emblazoned with YALLA and red-white-and-black tricolor facepaint.

“I’ve seen Pride shirts, I’ve seen Pride face paintings,” she observed from a concourse minutes before national anthems began echoing around Lumen Field. “It’s been really great, but I’m seeing a lot more Egypt and Iran and people cheering for their countries and singing their songs.”

Indeed, despite FIFA’s announcement that rainbow flags would be permitted in the stadium, few were visible as the match began. Instead, the stands rippled with the colors of the two Middle Eastern countries on the field, including many of the pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun flags that FIFA has attempted to ban under a stadium code of conduct that prohibits political displays.

Mahgoub had seen Egypt’s national team in person only once before, as a child while the team was angling to qualify for the 1990 World Cup. Since then, Mahgoub and her family relocated to Washington state, where she said the local Egyptian-American community has become enlivened by new arrivals coming to work at Seattle-based tech companies.

“You know how it is, you start calling everybody your cousins — a lot of cousins that I wasn’t related to,” Mahgoub said. “Well, I think a lot of them are here.”

Politics

Why Belgium’s prime minister isn’t cheering on the Red Devils

Published

5 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ah, Belgium. The country of fries, chocolate, Kevin De Bruyne and, some might say, chronic political division.

Beyond Brussels, a mighty international melting pot, the country is split between Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia and a small German-speaking community. Those linguistic divisions are mirrored in its politics: Belgium has separate party systems on either side of the language border, as well as a highly devolved federal structure that gives significant powers to its regions.

Today, Belgian politics is as fragmented as ever. It took 234 days to form a federal government after the June 2024 election (yes, you read that right). The delay was driven largely by the fact that no camp came close to winning a majority, forcing months of negotiations between parties with sharply different ideological and linguistic bases.

Flemish nationalism has also become a growing force, shaped by two right-wing nationalist parties: the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), which wants to transform Belgium into a looser confederal state and ultimately give Flanders far greater autonomy, and the far-right Vlaams Belang, which openly campaigns for Flemish independence.

So, you might think the 2026 World Cup would offer Belgium’s leader a rare opportunity to rally and unify the country behind a shared national symbol, right?

Wrong.

Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who hails from the N-VA party, has expressed almost no public support for the Red Devils, Belgium’s national soccer team.

That contrasts with leaders in nearby countries that also qualified for the World Cup. The leaders of the Netherlands, Germany and France have all publicly backed their squads, whether on social media or through public appearances.

The reason may be simple: De Wever just doesn’t care for the sport.

A Belgian official told Blue Light News: “The prime minister is not a soccer fan, so he doesn’t seek to project that image publicly. To do otherwise would not be authentic.”

Flemish media have indeed reported that the prime minister has little interest in soccer. In a podcast appearance a few years ago, he said the sight of people “going totally crazy in a group in the stands” left him feeling “ice cold.”

But politics is likely part of the story too. De Wever has led the Flemish nationalist N-VA since 2004. Throughout his political career, he has argued that Flanders should have far greater autonomy and that Belgium should evolve into a confederal state. For a politician with that background, overt displays of Belgian national unity probably don’t come naturally, and in fact contradict emphasis on Flemish autonomy.

This is not the first time the N-VA’s relationship with the Red Devils has attracted attention. In 2015, after Belgium reached No. 1 in the FIFA world rankings, Francophone Socialist Party leader Laurette Onkelinx asked the Chamber of Representatives to applaud the team. All parties joined in, except the N-VA.

During Euro 2016, the N-VA had to deny it instructed ministers and MPs to avoid publicly celebrating the Red Devils so as not to appear too Belgian, after rumors circulated in Belgian media.

One of De Wever’s few comments about this year’s World Cup concerned Belgium’s official tournament song. His complaint: It did not contain a single word of Dutch.

“My staff have confirmed to me that not a single word is sung in Dutch. That is, to put it mildly, not elegant,” he said, in keeping with his ideologies of promoting Flanders, when asked about the song during a parliamentary committee hearing.

Sport is often treated as a vehicle for national unity. In New Zealand, Belgium’s opponent in today’s match, elite teams have successfully woven elements of Māori culture into their sporting traditions, most famously through the prematch haka, which has helped create a shared cultural identity that connects Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders.

In Belgium, however, this World Cup has not yet become that kind of unifying project. At least not from the very top.