AI boom tests GOP’s midterm affordability pitch as price pain spreads
Republicans are warning that their ability to deliver on lowering everyday costs, one of their core campaign promises heading into the 2026 midterms, is being tested by an AI-driven chip...
By Fox News · Fox News
Republicans are warning that their ability to deliver on lowering everyday costs, one of their core campaign promises heading into the 2026 midterms , is being tested by an AI-driven chip shortage that has spilled into consumer markets. "When you have a big race like we have with AI, there are secondary effects that we need to be very concerned about," former Rep. Patrick McHenry, who served as House Financial Services Committee chairman, told Fox News Digital, adding, "It is hurting Republicans." Tech industry reports have for months been raising alarm over a global chip shortage. In January, a report predicted that this year, 70% of the high-end memory chips produced would go toward data centers, which store AI memory, constraining all other downstream technology and driving up prices, directly undermining Republicans' affordability agenda. AFFORDABILITY: THE ISSUE THAT BOOSTED TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS IN 2024 DEFLATED THEM IN 2025 "We see this from our handheld devices to our computers, to TVs," McHenry, a North Carolina Republican congressman turned policy advisor, said in an interview. "Even autos are impacted, and even things such as what we think of as average everyday things that aren’t particularly high tech, like the things we use to manicure our lawns are impacted by rising prices of chips, so there’s a lot of secondary effects across consumer goods and should be a huge concern." Heading into 2026, President Donald Trump framed the midterms as a referendum on cost of living, saying in a Politico interview the elections "will be about pricing." Historically, the party in control loses seats during the midterms. One Republican strategist told Fox News Digital that AI's well-documented dominance over the chip market should be viewed as hurting voters' pocketbooks. The strategist called on the three largest chip manufacturing companies to expand production, which he said would help bolster the GOP's campaign message. "America must win the artificial intelligenc…