The New York 12th Congressional District primary has become a high-stakes test of how much corporate tech money can shape a local election. The race is centered in Manhattan, but the outside spending around it has turned it into a proxy fight over AI safety, AI regulation, and political influence.
According to the source article, the tech industry has spent $27.83 million to influence the results. That level of spending has pulled national attention toward a House primary where voters may also be weighing affordability, Israel, Donald Trump, and the future direction of the Democratic Party.
How AI became central to the NY-12 primary
Alex Bores, a progressive New York state assemblyman, has become the unexpected focus of the AI money fight. The source article says Bores co-sponsored the first AI safety law in the country, which was successfully passed. But Bores and his campaign have repeatedly emphasized that AI safety was not intended to be the centerpiece of his run for the open NY-12 House seat.
That distinction matters. The campaign itself is not allowed to coordinate messaging with super PACs supporting it, and the source article says the Bores campaign has avoided discussing the Anthropic-aligned super PACs that have entered the race around him.
Still, outside groups have made Bores a symbol. Some are spending to support him. Others are spending to defeat him. The result is a campaign narrative that is partly about the candidates and partly about whether AI companies, tech billionaires, and aligned advocacy groups can define the terms of a congressional primary.
The money behind the outside fight
The largest frame around the race is the $27.83 million in tech industry spending. Within that, several super PACs and funding streams are central to the story.
Leading the Future, described in the source article as a $100 million super PAC focused on supporting AI-boosting candidates in congressional midterms, began airing anti-Bores ads last year. Its PAC, Think Big, has spent $8.15 million against Bores.
On the other side, pro-Bores PACs with tech oligarch funding have spent a combined $19.4 million, according to Transformer. The source article says that total is more than what the Bores campaign has spent during the entire campaign, and also more than what Leading the Future spent specifically to defeat him.
The pro-Bores side includes two safety-minded AI super PACs connected to Anthropic, along with a super PAC connected to Chris Larsen, the Ripple cofounder crypto billionaire. You Can Push Back was created by Larsen to back Bores and blunt OpenAI’s potential political influence in Congress.
Digital messaging raised new questions
The race also became tangled in claims about online activity. Jack Schlossberg, described in the source as the Kennedy family’s zillennial scion running for the open NY-12 House seat in Manhattan, posted on X that he was being astroturfed by bots and fake accounts working on behalf of Bores.
A Politico New York article followed up on those claims and identified a broader pattern of coordinated digital messaging. Politico verified at least eight new accounts on TikTok and Instagram that posted pro-Bores content.
Politico found enough evidence to suggest those accounts were connected to You Can Push Back. The source article says You Can Push Back declined to comment to Politico.
Politico also asked two other pro-Bores PACs whether they were behind the campaign. Both are connected to Anthropic: Dream NYC, which had an initial massive donation from a single Anthropic employee, and Jobs and Democracy, which is directly funded by Public First Action, a nonprofit advocacy group that received a $20 million donation from Anthropic itself.
A fourth PAC enters with a different message
The Guardrails Alliance has entered the race as a fourth super PAC, but with a different stated purpose. The source article describes it as a newly launched grassroots vehicle made up primarily of unions and non-gajillionaire tech workers.
Last week, the group pledged to spend $250,000 on pro-Bores advertising before the election. Its message is not simply that Bores should win. It is also aimed at calling out the corporate war around the race.
In an interview with The New York Times, cofounder Shaunna Thomas said the Guardrails Alliance was built as a counterweight to the billionaires fighting over the race. She said, “This is not about matching [Leading the Future] dollar for dollar, fighting them with money or another set of billionaires.” She added, “What this vehicle is meant to do is be a political home for people who are concerned about the way the anti-regulation A.I. tech sector is trying to manipulate elections.”
Why the result will be hard to read
Even with all the attention on AI super PAC money, the election may not produce a clean answer about AI politics. The source article says there has been no new public polling on the race, at least no new polls made without prediction market data, since May 21st. At that time, Emerson College found Bores was neck-and-neck with fellow state Assemblyman Micah Lasher.
Other forces are also shaping the contest. Lasher has connections to the New York City political establishment and backing from Michael Bloomberg’s super PAC. Schlossberg has connections to the Kennedy network. George Conway, a former Republican-turned-Never Trump political celebrity, is also running.
The source article also notes that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has declined to endorse anyone in NY-12. That makes this primary less about Mamdani securing a progressive mandate and more about the candidates themselves.
For voters, the AI spending may be only one part of a larger decision. The New Yorker informally canvassed the district and found Manhattanites concerned with affordability, Israel, pushing back against Donald Trump, and changing the direction of the Democratic Party.
If Bores loses, it may not be because of his AI safety position alone. If he wins, however, the result could be read as a sign that AI safety can give midterm candidates an advantage, even when the issue is amplified by outside money rather than placed at the center of the campaign by the candidate himself.