A New York state assemblyman’s campaign for a seat in Congress has triggered a massive spending war between rival corners of the technology industry, turning a Manhattan Democratic primary into one of the most expensive and closely watched races in the country.
Assemblyman Alex Bores, a former computer engineer, is competing in the June 23 Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat covering upper and midtown Manhattan — one of the wealthiest and most heavily Democratic districts in the nation. The seat is being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler.
The trouble for Bores began after he championed legislation in Albany to regulate artificial intelligence. A political group called Leading the Future, backed by investors in OpenAI, responded by pouring more than $7 million into advertising aimed at derailing his congressional run. The group’s donor list includes prominent Silicon Valley figures, major venture capitalists, and former members of President Donald Trump’s Republican administration.
Bores publicly criticized the spending, warning that it could discourage other state and federal lawmakers from attempting to place guardrails on the rapidly expanding AI industry. His story quickly gained national attention as a symbol of a grassroots politician being outgunned by tech money.
But the story didn’t end there. A separate faction of the tech world stepped in to support Bores. Political groups partly funded by Anthropic — the company behind the AI chatbot Claude — have spent more than $10 million on his behalf. Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, an investor in Anthropic, has pledged an additional $3.5 million to support Bores.
The race has evolved into a proxy fight over two very different philosophies about how government should handle AI and the broader technology sector. Complicating the picture is Bores’ history working for the data analytics company Palantir, which he left during Trump’s first term, citing concerns about the firm’s involvement in immigration enforcement.
“The lines are being drawn, and this primary is very much an expression of that,” said Morten Bay, a research fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California. “The core divide is regulation — whether you’re for or against it.”
The split reflects a broader divide within Silicon Valley itself. Some tech leaders have aligned with Trump and his administration’s push to roll back government regulations, while a significant portion of the industry remains more traditionally Democratic and supportive of some level of government oversight.
Leading the Future — whose donors include OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, all major Trump supporters — has spent $7.6 million through a subsidiary to oppose Bores. The group says it supports AI regulation in principle but believes Congress, not individual states, should lead that effort. The organization also argues that Bores is the one candidate who has been financially captured by outside interests.
“As we have said from day one, Anthropic, its investors and the dark-money groups it funds would spend millions to send Alex Bores to Congress, and that is exactly what has happened,” said Josh Vlasto, a co-lead of Leading the Future.
Bores points to his legislative record as evidence of how he would approach AI policy in Washington. The measure he led, called the RAISE Act, is regarded as one of the most comprehensive attempts by any state to regulate artificial intelligence. It requires large AI companies to submit reports on protections against “catastrophic” risks — scenarios such as AI triggering nuclear meltdowns or creating dangerous new viruses — that could harm more than 50 people.
Leading the Future initially opposed the RAISE Act before ultimately accepting a revised version that was signed into law. Despite that outcome, the group has made clear it still views Bores’ positions as extreme.
The RAISE Act is the type of state-level regulation that would be wiped out under a proposed federal AI framework backed by Trump, which would prevent states from passing their own AI rules in favor of a single national standard. However, Congress has made little progress toward creating such a standard, leaving the AI industry largely without federal oversight.
Bores’ rivals in the primary have echoed Leading the Future’s argument that he is simply a pawn in a corporate battle between tech giants. Among those in the race is Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy family heir and social media personality.
“You’re in the middle of a civil war between OpenAI and Anthropic. It has nothing to do with standing up to Trump’s mega donors,” Schlossberg said.
Bores and his supporters reject that framing, saying opponents are trying to muddy the waters for voters.
“This race started with AI megadonors pledging $10 million to stop me because they were afraid after I passed the strongest AI safety law in the country,” Bores said in a statement. “Since then, everyone who supports AI regulation and safety — from teachers to tech workers, from AI safety advocates to progressive activists — has united to take the other side. This isn’t one company versus another, this is one ideology versus another: regulate the powerful and protect people, or don’t.”
Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, runs a political action committee called Public First, which has spent more than $6 million supporting Bores through a subsidiary. Carson said the group was created specifically to counter Leading the Future and grew out of a nonprofit he helped fund to advocate for AI regulation. He pushed back on the idea that his organization is simply doing Anthropic’s bidding, saying it raised $30 million from nongovernmental organizations before Anthropic contributed $20 million.
“It’s not like two billionaires fighting it out,” Carson said. “It’s two philosophical movements fighting it out. All of them have wealthy supporters.”
Chris Larsen, the cryptocurrency billionaire backing Bores, said in a statement that his involvement “resulted directly from OpenAI’s threats to make examples of candidates who seek common-sense regulation.”
Bay, the University of Southern California research fellow, noted that the Manhattan district is an unusual target for groups aligned with Trump’s political movement, given how liberal the electorate is. Bores’ top competitor in the race, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, also supported the RAISE Act. Carson said his group is pulling for Bores but would be satisfied with a Lasher victory as well.
“He’s very good on AI issues too,” Carson said. “We win either way.”
