The polling place light flared against a Manhattan evening and there was an ad van idling two blocks away. I watched a volunteer fold a glossy flyer and felt the scale of a fight I could almost count in dollars. You could see, in small gestures, how Washington had become a marketplace.
I’m going to walk you through what actually happened in NY-12, why the AI industry spent tens of millions to tilt a primary, and what that fight means for federal AI laws you care about. Read this as if you were standing on a street corner where money, power, and policy collide—you’ll spot the moments that matter.
A billboard over a campaign office said, “Who’s protecting our jobs?” The first fact is blunt: outside groups dumped more than $40 million (€37 million) into the race for Jerry Nadler’s open Manhattan seat.
That kind of spending turned a state assembly primary into a national spectacle. Much of the cash was aimed at Assemblymember Alex Bores, who campaigned on a federal AI safety agenda: the RAISE Act, formal safety protocols for major AI companies, and an AI Dividend to compensate workers displaced by automation.
On the other side, a super PAC called Leading the Future — backed by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and AI search firm Perplexity — spent about $8 million (€7 million) to stop Bores. That buy was surgical: ads, mailers, targeted digital pushes aimed at shaping the narrative that a Bores win would threaten growth and innovation.
Who funded the AI super PAC in NY-12?
The list reads like an industry directory: venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, executives tied to OpenAI (including Greg Brockman), investors linked to Palantir, and technology startups such as Perplexity. Their goal was straightforward: blunt Bores before his policy agenda reached Congressional committees.
A volunteer handed me a RAISE Act flier at a subway stop. The second observation: the opposition didn’t just spend — other AI-aligned groups poured in roughly $20 million (€18 million) backing Bores.
Anthropic-backed groups supplied the bulk of that support, with additional funds from PACs like Dream NYC and You Can Push Back. Chris Larsen’s reported $3.5 million (€3 million) contribution was a headline figure that signaled this wasn’t a two-person fight — it was a micro-war among billionaires and firms over how AI gets governed.
Bores’ platform read like a policy playbook aimed at accountability: mandatory safety protocols, public reporting requirements, and an economic safety net for displaced workers. That made him both a champion to AI safety advocates and anathema to investors worried about regulatory friction.
Did the PAC defeat AI regulation advocates?
Not entirely. The super PAC won its short-term objective: it heavily targeted Bores. But the race didn’t simply produce a pro-industry coronation. Micah Lasher, who beat Bores, co-sponsored the same RAISE Act in Albany — so the policy momentum that worried tech investors remains alive on the ballot.
A campaign staffer showed me his phone and the push alerts were relentless. The third observation: the industry’s efforts felt organized like a chessboard, every donor a deliberate move.
That metaphor captures how players strategize: venture firms, corporate execs, safety advocates, and wealthy libertarians each deployed capital to shape candidates and messaging. The result was a flood of messaging, both pro- and anti-Bores, that framed the contest as a proxy for national AI policy.
For the tech backers, the objection was simple — strict rules, created fast and broad, could slow product releases, raise compliance costs, and shift global competitiveness. For the safety camp, the worry was the opposite: lax rules could let risk accumulate unchecked, with harms ranging from job disruption to systemic misinformation and infrastructure strain.
An election night watch party emptied and supporters drifted into the rain. The fourth observation: Bores conceded, but his loss didn’t erase the policy he helped push.
Bores lost the Democratic primary to Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who, despite being the beneficiary of the anti-Bores effort, also helped sponsor the RAISE Act — a nuance the spending blitz couldn’t change. After the result, Lasher told supporters he would not “take cues” from big AI companies when it came to protecting families, jobs, and the environment.
That line mattered. It signaled that even with tens of millions flowing into a single district, partisan money can steer outcomes without fully rewriting the policy script. You should register that the industry won a headline but not a total victory.
What does this mean for federal AI regulation?
Expect an intensifying tug-of-war. Companies like OpenAI and investors tied to Andreessen Horowitz will keep shaping races and narratives. Anthropic and safety-minded donors will keep funding candidates who favor disclosure, audits, and labor protections. Congress may now see more bills founded on the RAISE Act’s framework, even as industry pushes for narrower rules or voluntary standards managed by platform players.
I’ve covered fights where capital tries to buy silence. This one felt different: it was noisy, public, and messy. You watched billions in attention compressed into a single zip code, and the result was not a clean victory for either side but a clearer map of where policy battles will be fought next.
Which matters more to you — fewer corporate gates on innovation or a legal floor that attempts to keep AI from burning everything it touches?