Twenty-four million dollars. For one congressional primary. In Manhattan. The AI industry and its opponents turned New York's 12th district into the most expensive guinea pig in modern campaign history, and when the dust settled Tuesday night, the guy they spent the most money trying to destroy came in second place anyway.
What Actually Happened in NY-12
Michael Lasher won the Democratic primary for New York's 12th congressional district, backed by outgoing representative Jerry Nadler and the full weight of the party establishment. Alex Bores, a state assembly member who sponsored an AI safety bill and consequently became the tech industry's least favorite person in the tri-state area, finished second. Jack Schlossberg, of the Kennedy family, finished a distant third. Former Republican turned anti-Trump content creator George Conway was also in the race, because of course he was.
According to The Guardian, more than $24 million flooded into this single Manhattan contest, making it one of the most expensive congressional primaries in New York history. Pro-AI PACs dropped more than $8 million specifically to go after Bores, per data from Tech Influence Watch. Anti-AI, pro-regulation groups spent more than $16 million to counter them. Twenty-four million dollars total, in a primary, for a House seat.
The Tech Money Behind the Chaos
The names funding this circus are not subtle. Leading the Future, the super PAC that led the charge against Bores, is bankrolled by OpenAI president Greg Brockman alongside venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Those three men, combined, have raised more than $75 million through that committee this year alone, according to The Guardian. That is not a typo.
On the other side, Public First Action, which broadly supports AI regulation, received more than $20 million from Anthropic. So the two most prominent AI companies in the country were essentially funding opposing armies in a Manhattan congressional primary. Elon Musk has his America PAC. California crypto billionaire Chris Larsen created the freshly minted You Can Push Back Super PAC and personally put $3.5 million into backing Bores. This is the battlefield now.
The Ads Were Exactly as Bad as You'd Expect
When you have $24 million burning a hole in your pocket and a single target, you get creative with how you spend it. The Jobs and Democracy PAC, which supported Bores, bought an ad that ran as the apparent front page of the New York Daily News, mimicking an actual news page well enough to enrage the newsroom's own union. Mimicking a newspaper front page to run a political ad is the kind of move that gets you roasted at journalism school, but here we are.
The anti-Bores ads, funded by pro-tech money, went after him for his past work at Palantir, the surveillance technology company with deep ties to ICE. "He made hundreds of thousands of dollars building and selling the tech for ICE, enabling ICE, and powering their deportations while making bank," one Leading the Future ad declared. Bores says he left Palantir over exactly that work, and he sent the PAC a cease-and-desist letter alleging false statements. The PAC presumably filed it in the trash.
Here's the Part Where It Gets Genuinely Funny
After all of that, after $8 million in opposition spending, after the attack ads and the fake newspaper front pages and the cease-and-desist letters, Michael Lasher won. The man the tech industry actually wanted to stop finished second. And Lasher? He co-sponsored the exact same AI safety bill that made Bores a target in the first place. The Guardian confirmed it: Lasher was also a co-sponsor of the Raise Act.
So the industry spent millions trying to make an example of an AI regulation supporter, and the guy who beat him supports the same regulation. That is a $24 million investment with a return of approximately zero. Lasher even addressed the AI companies directly in his victory speech. "I have some news for the two big AI companies who've taken such an unusual interest in who won this congressional seat," he said. "I won't be taking my cues from either of you when it comes to protecting our kids, our jobs, our environment." That's a victory speech that starts by telling your future donors to go to hell, which is either admirably principled or extremely short-sighted, possibly both.
Why This Is Only Going to Get Worse
NY-12 was not the endgame. It was the warmup. The Guardian makes clear that with November's midterms approaching, the same groups that just torched $24 million on a single Manhattan primary are fully equipped, and highly motivated, to do this in race after race across the country. Leading the Future has $75 million. Public First Action has $20 million from Anthropic alone. These are not small operations running out of steam.
The larger AI regulation fight is now explicitly a campaign finance fight, and it is going to land in districts that have no idea it's coming. What happened in NY-12 is the template. Identify a candidate who threatens the industry's preferred policy position, bury them in attack ads, spend whatever it takes. The fact that it didn't work cleanly this time will not discourage anyone. If anything, both sides just learned that they need to spend more.
The Dingo Take
Let's be honest about what $24 million in a single House primary actually means. It means that whatever a member of Congress does on AI policy, they will be operating with the full knowledge that the industry can make their next campaign a financial hellscape. You don't have to spend the money every time for the threat to work. NY-12 is a warning shot dressed up as a race.
The result was almost satirically useless from the tech industry's perspective, since they spent $8 million against a candidate who lost to a candidate with identical policy positions. But the point was never really about Bores. The point was to establish, loudly and expensively, that crossing the AI industry has a cost. They made that point, even in losing. Especially in losing, maybe.
And here's what gets buried in the campaign finance numbers: the $24 million bought a lot of misleading attack ads, a fake newspaper front page that embarrassed actual journalists, and a victory speech where the winner's first move was to publicly tell two of the most powerful companies in the world to mind their own business. That last part is the only genuinely encouraging thing to come out of any of this. Whether Lasher means it once he's in Washington, surrounded by the people who write the checks, is the only question that actually matters.
