A Democratic primary in New York City has become ground zero for the artificial intelligence industry's battle over how the technology will be regulated, with rival camps of wealthy executives and venture capitalists pouring tens of millions into a single congressional race.
The clash centers on NY-12, a heavily Democratic Manhattan district where Democrat Alex Bores, a former tech worker turned state legislator, is running for Congress. Bores authored the Raise Act, a state law requiring major AI developers to disclose safety plans. The proposal triggered an aggressive response from the industry, which sees strict regulation as a threat.
AI-focused Super Pacs have raised roughly $100 million for the 2026 midterms, with nearly half concentrated on the NY-12 race alone. Leading the Future, a bipartisan Super Pac network created to back pro-AI candidates, has spent $8.2 million attacking Bores through television ads, mailers, and text messages. The group's $75 million war chest comes from just four donors: venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna.
The tech executives argue that AI regulation should follow a federal standard rather than a patchwork of state laws, which they contend would cede technological dominance to China.
Bores' resistance to the industry's preferred approach touched off a counter-offensive. A rival coalition of Super Pacs, including You Can Push Back and Jobs and Democracy, has spent $11 million defending him and criticizing the spending as an attempt by "rightwing billionaires" to buy the race. Jobs and Democracy is funded in part by Anthropic, an AI company, which has contributed $20 million while positioning itself as the conscience of the industry by publicly warning of AI risks.
The primary has evolved into what Brad Carson, founder of Public First (which oversees Jobs and Democracy), calls "the AI civil war." Bores has framed the race as a referendum on whether regulation of AI is possible at all.
New York's 12th district presents an ideal battleground for the conflict. Nearly one-fifth of the county's workforce holds jobs in categories that AI could plausibly displace, primarily white-collar positions such as software development, marketing, and financial analysis. Brookings Institution research identifies the area as potentially one of the most politically volatile regions for AI-related workforce anxieties.
The two Super Pac networks' conflicting messages have elevated Bores from underdog status to contender in what was already a competitive race. His main opponent, state assemblymember Micah Lasher, also supports AI guardrails.
The spending blitz mirrors crypto's 2024 campaign playbook, when more than $200 million in political action committee spending helped crypto-aligned candidates win the vast majority of targeted races. That effort included a $40 million campaign against Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.
AI faces a significant political obstacle that crypto did not: public opinion. A YouGov poll found two-thirds of Americans believe AI is advancing too rapidly, and only one in five expect positive economic effects. These views span both parties.
The industry's funding strategy also reveals internal contradictions. Anthropic, the company financing much of the opposition to Andreessen Horowitz's Super Pac, competes directly with OpenAI in the AI market. Both companies' executives are now backing competing political efforts, even as the industry publicly advocates for regulatory frameworks.
A fourth Super Pac, Guardrails Alliance, launched this week with explicit plans to counter Leading the Future. Unlike other AI-focused groups, it announced it will not accept corporate donations and counts labor unions and former Indeed CEO Chris Hyams among its backers.
Author James Rodriguez: "The tech industry's willingness to spend nine figures to defeat a single state legislator over AI safety reveals how threatened the sector feels by regulatory momentum."
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