With web search on, GPT-6.1 Sol named the Democrat in 97.4% of its major-party answers while Grok 4.7 named the Republican in 91.7%, the mirror image Convovo found across the 2026 midterm races. Turning search off left GPT’s lean almost unchanged at 96.0% Democrat, but Grok’s lean disappeared: it declined to pick in 27 of 30 sample races, and its only three picks named the Democrat. The result, from a forced-choice API prompt that the consumer apps themselves declined, suggests GPT’s lean is baked in while Grok’s depends on what it searches — a distinction that matters for anyone building voter tools on these APIs.
Sources & Notes
- Original story: Grok and GPT Split on Midterm Picks | Apollo Finds No AI Payoff Outside Tech
- Data sources: Convovo (2026). AI Ballot 2026; TechCrunch (2026). Forced to pick, Grok’s AI model chooses Republicans. OpenAI’s picks Democrats.
- Notes: Shares are of answers naming a Democrat or Republican candidate. The search-off sample covered 30 races: GPT named the Democrat 24 times, the Republican once, and declined 5 times; Grok declined 27 times and named the Democrat 3 times, so its search-off point rests on only 3 picks. The main test used a forced-choice prompt through the models’ APIs with web search on; the consumer ChatGPT and Grok apps declined to answer. The two models agreed in under 10% of races. For context, GPT still picked the Democrat in 57 of 67 heavily Republican districts and Grok still picked the Republican in 47 of 72 deep-blue districts.
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