In the race to succeed longtime Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th congressional district, state Assemblyman Alex Bores has emerged as a frontrunner in the Democratic primary after drawing millions in attack spending from a super PAC tied to OpenAI and other tech firms.
The primary, set for June 23, has turned into a proxy battle over AI regulation. Leading the Future, funded by executives from OpenAI, Palantir, and a16z, has spent an estimated $2.4 million on ads targeting Bores since December 2025 for his role in passing the RAISE Act, one of the first state laws restricting frontier AI models.
Bores, who entered the race last October, had placed his first ad buy only on May 11. Campaign spokeswoman Alyssa Cass said the opposing ads helped raise the issue’s profile. “AI regulation is his strength, but it’s gonna take us a lot of work to make this a salient issue in the district,” Cass told The Verge. “And they, starting in December, started doing that work for us.”
Political operative Lis Smith noted the high cost of New York media. “The New York media market is the most expensive media market in the country,” Smith said. “You’d kill for any bit of air time.”
Josh Vlasto, spokesperson for Leading the Future, countered that Bores is aligned with Anthropic and Effective Altruist groups. “From day one, we have said what is now playing out in plain sight: Alex Bores is bought and sold by Anthropic, its investors like Chris Larsen, the Effective Altruist community, and a network of dark money fringe tech groups,” Vlasto said.
Other candidates include fellow Assemblyman Micah Lasher, backed by Mike Bloomberg’s super PAC and Nadler’s political network; Jack Schlossberg, grandson of John F. Kennedy; and George Conway, who has drawn Never Trump support. An Emerson College poll last week showed Bores trailing Lasher by just two points.
The ads from Leading the Future highlighted Bores’s past work at Palantir and accused him of hypocrisy on immigration enforcement. Bores responded with a cease-and-desist letter, stating he left the company over its ICE contracts, and called the attacks ironic given the Palantir ties of some funders.
Additional spending came from groups linked to Anthropic, including a $20 million donation to Public First Action. This rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic drew coverage from The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Politico, giving Bores national visibility rare for a House primary.
Internal polling for the Bores campaign indicated that voters exposed to the negative ads were more likely to support him. The attacks also drew earned media that highlighted Silicon Valley efforts to influence the Manhattan race.
Bores authored the RAISE Act, signed into law in December, which imposed restrictions on releasing advanced AI models. The legislation positioned him as a proponent of safety rules amid debates over federal oversight.
Leading the Future previously backed efforts that helped defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Katie Porter in 2024 through a related crypto industry PAC. Its backers include Joe Lonsdale, Marc Andreessen, and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman.
Smith described the free media exposure as a gift for an unknown candidate. “You’d kill for any earned media, you’d kill for any paid media,” she said. “So the fact that he’s getting all this paid media, when he was a virtual unknown outside of extremely political insider circles before — it’s a gift.”
The outcome of the June 23 primary will determine who faces the general election in a heavily Democratic district. Both sides continue to pour resources into the contest over who should shape AI policy.