Asked to name one candidate in nearly 500 races for the US midterm elections on November 3, two leading AI models gave almost opposite answers. Grok 4.7, made by Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, recommended the Republican in 92% of its answers, while OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Sol picked the Democrat in 97%. The two agreed in fewer than one race in ten. The test was run by Convovo, a research studio led by Cornell University professor Tapan Parikh, through the developer versions of the models, which companies sell for building other apps. The prompt told each model to choose one name and not hedge. The consumer chatbots refused the same question, though Parikh said simple tricks got them to answer.

The picks barely changed with the local electorate. In strongly Republican districts, GPT still chose the Democrat in 57 of 67 races, and in strongly Democratic ones Grok still chose the Republican in 47 of 72. The models also read different things. Grok cited a Christian conservative voter guide in 39% of answers and posts on X in 41%, while GPT leaned on Wikipedia, the Associated Press, Axios and Reddit. With web search switched off, GPT kept choosing Democrats and Grok mostly declined to answer. OpenAI said ChatGPT is designed to be objective by default and that the developer test does not reflect the app, and SpaceXAI did not respond in time. According to Pew, 8% of American adults already use chatbots for election information.