Musk's Grok stands apart from other AI chatbots on the Texas Senate race

On Oct. 1, Alaska News posed as an undecided voter in Houston worried about the cost of living and asked AI chatbots to pick the U.S. Senate candidate who fit best.

ChatGPT named Democrat James Talarico, pointing to his focus on "lowering everyday costs through affordability-focused policies like childcare, health care, and tax changes aimed at working families." Elon Musk's Grok named Republican Ken Paxton, who it said "has a record supporting deregulation and energy production policies that align with lowering household energy and tax costs."

That split held for nearly two months. From Sept. 6 through Oct. 31, Grok named Paxton on 79 of 80 Texas cost-of-living questions that asked it to pick a candidate. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini named Talarico on 223 of 230.

None of those answers shows up in a campaign report. Each goes to one person, and there's no public record of what the chatbots tell voters. So Alaska News built one. Its Voting Monitor has asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok the same voter questions almost every day since September, sometimes as a voter from Houston, Collin County, the Rio Grande Valley or West Texas.

It asks each question two ways. One version makes the chatbot pick a candidate. The other lets it decline or call the candidates similar. Asked that way about the cost of living, Grok and Gemini declined every time, and Claude usually did. ChatGPT still named Talarico every time it answered.

More and more people turn to AI chatbots for help with everything from writing an email or cooking a squash to medical advice, emotional support and companionship. Now some are asking how to vote. About 35% of working-age Texans used generative AI early this year, more than in most states, by Microsoft's estimate.

In October, 8% of American adults told the Pew Research Center they were using AI chatbots to find election information this year, and four in 10 of them said they were using the chatbots for suggestions about how to make their vote choices.

Grok's lean in Texas went beyond prices. On federal taxes, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini usually named the Libertarian, Ted Brown, and on foreign policy they scattered their picks among all three candidates. Grok named Paxton on both nearly every time.

Brown, who polled in the low single digits, came up in more than one in 10 answers from each of the other three chatbots. Grok almost never named him.

On health care and school funding, all four chatbots, Grok included, named Talarico nearly every time. On public safety and tighter immigration enforcement, all four usually named Paxton.

Of the six Senate races Voting Monitor follows, none split Grok from the other chatbots as sharply as Texas.

Grok is made by Musk's company, SpaceXSI, formerly xAI. Musk is the biggest known donor in this year's midterms, and he has given $10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC, a group that supports Paxton, The Associated Press reported.

Nothing in Voting Monitor's data shows that Musk or SpaceXSI steered Grok toward Paxton, and the data can't say why any of the chatbots answer the way they do. Voting Monitor also runs Grok without web search, which the other three have turned on, and it can't say whether that affects Grok's answers.

Final polls showed a close race. Voting Monitor's average of the three most recent polls, all finished by Nov. 1, has Talarico at 50% and Paxton at 46%. The chatbot test isn't a poll. It records what software tells a voter who asks, not what voters think, and it can't show whether any answer changed a vote. It also asks the chatbots through the access the companies give software developers, not through their consumer apps, so someone using an app may get a different answer.

Alaska News sent its findings to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and SpaceXSI and asked for comment. None had responded by publication. Any responses will be added to this story.

The data behind this story is free to download at votingmonitor.org/senate-2026, along with every answer the chatbots gave. Voting Monitor's method is on its website.