POLITICO Decoded Podcast: Midterm Blue Wave Rattles AI Stocks Ahead of Anthropic's IPO

POLITICO's Decoded podcast used its Nov. 6 episode, "The blue wave hits Anthropic's IPO," to examine how Democrats' midterm wins and voter opposition to data centers hit tech stocks weeks before Anthropic's planned Nasdaq debut. Hosts Calder McHugh and Sam Sutton also looked at what comes next for the AI safety coalition that backed winning candidates.

Nov 07, 2026 - 16:31

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POLITICO's technology podcast Decoded used its Friday episode to examine how Democrats' midterm victories are colliding with what could become the largest initial public offering on record. The episode, "The blue wave hits Anthropic's IPO," was released at 4:55 a.m. ET on Nov. 6, 2026, and runs about 16 and a half minutes, according to the show's Apple Podcasts listing and its Megaphone feed.

Co-hosts Calder McHugh and Sam Sutton split the episode into two segments: how financial markets reacted in the days after the Nov. 3 election, and what comes next for a coalition of AI safety advocates that backed winning candidates this cycle. The episode accompanies that morning's edition of the Decoded by POLITICO newsletter, bylined by Sutton, McHugh and Christine Mui and published at 6:55 a.m. EST.

From relief rally to sell-off

On the podcast, Sutton said he had expected a rough Wednesday for stocks after election night, when Asian markets were selling off and U.S. stock futures were weak. Instead, he said, Wednesday was "a very, very good day" for investors, including for companies closely linked to the AI boom. Thursday was different. Sutton called it "an absolute bloodbath" on the tech-heavy Nasdaq and said investors appeared to be "waking up to the fact that elections have consequences."

The companion newsletter reported that the Nasdaq fell 5.5% in a single session on Thursday, Nov. 5, leaving it 10% below last month's record high, which puts tech stocks in correction territory. CNBC separately reported that it was the Nasdaq's steepest drop in 19 months and that chipmakers and so-called neoclouds took the biggest losses.

Sutton said a strong appetite for limiting data centers would weigh on chipmakers such as Nvidia and spill into the wider AI ecosystem. He pointed in particular to Texas, which he said holds more than a quarter of planned U.S. data center capacity. CNBC reported that local communities voted against data center-related ballot measures in 40 of 41 cases, and that more than half of voters told an NBC News exit poll that AI data centers were a "crucial" or "major factor" in their choice for Congress.

Anthropic's timing

Anthropic filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 26, 2026, and plans to list its Class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "ANT," according to the company's announcement. The share count and price range had not been set at the time of filing. Yahoo Finance, citing the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, reported that the company is aiming to debut as soon as the week of Nov. 16, and calculated that Nov. 16 is the earliest possible trading date under SEC rules.

On the episode, Sutton said Anthropic's prospectus had been explicit about risks including political change, compute shortages and backlash against data centers, and that "we've seen all of that play out in the last couple of days." The newsletter quoted the recently amended prospectus as warning that "politically sensitive or polarized environments" could lead to policies that hurt the business. CNBC reported that the amended filing lists purchase commitments and lease agreements totaling about $895.4 billion, "substantially all of which is related to compute and infrastructure." CNBC also reported that investors see Anthropic aiming for a valuation of $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, down from a $2 trillion target floated in recent months. Anthropic declined to comment to CNBC.

Sutton told listeners he spoke with Stephen Myrow, a managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors and a former senior Treasury aide during the global financial crisis. The newsletter quoted Myrow: "How people can legitimately say that they can confidently value Anthropic right now is nuts." Sutton said on the show that Myrow considered Thursday's market reaction an overreaction. The newsletter also cited Morningstar senior equity analyst Malik Ahmed Khan, who wrote that Anthropic could "actually benefit from increased AI regulation from Democrats," and Richard Bernstein of Janus Henderson Investors, who said a "conservative valuation might be appropriate for any AI equity or debt offering" without commenting on any specific company.

The AI safety coalition after the election

McHugh said many Anthropic employees have signed non-binding pledges to give away much of their wealth, and he predicted that money from the IPO could flow into philanthropy and political spending heading into the 2028 cycle.

The second half of the episode drew on McHugh's POLITICO Magazine feature, "How Big Tech Lost the Midterms," which follows three advocates: Brad Carson, Jay Shooster and Rishi Bharwani. On the podcast, McHugh described Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, as the head of the think tank Americans for Responsible Innovation and the leader of the Public First super PAC network, which he said received two $20 million donations from Anthropic. He described Shooster as a California-based bundler of direct campaign donations and Bharwani as a Washington tech policy veteran focused on child safety.

McHugh said the coalition is split between people focused on catastrophic or existential risk and people focused on harms already happening, such as data center expansion, children's use of chatbots and the power of tech executives. He said it remains an open question which priorities will win out. He singled out two incoming House Democrats, Manny Rutinel and Scott Wiener, and called them the members with the deepest background in AI safety policy ever to serve in Congress. He also noted that freshmen rarely shape their party's position on an issue.

The newsletter added that Alex Bores, a New York lawmaker and AI safety advocate, was convening six potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates in San Francisco this weekend. It said polling by his group, Who Decides, found that 76% of likely 2028 primary voters in six early states said states should be able to pass their own AI laws.