The $27 million Al proxy war over Alex Bores ends in a draw

New York Assemblyman Alex Bores narrowly lost the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional District, ending a $27.41 million proxy battle between artificial intelligence companies Anthropic and OpenAI that turned a local race into a national referendum on AI regulation [1]. Bores, who co-authored the RAISE Act imposing safety requirements on frontier AI companies, finished second to Assemblyman Micah Lasher, 35 percent to 39.1 percent, according to the most recent ballot count [1]. Lasher, a protégé of retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler and a RAISE Act co-sponsor, was backed by a super PAC funded by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg [1]. Bores outperformed Jack Schlossberg, who received 10.8 percent, and George Conway, who trailed at 7.1 percent [1]. The primary took place on June 23, 2026, as part of New York's closed primary system, where only registered party members may vote [2]. The spending was lopsided. Pro-Bores super PACs — Jobs and Democracy PAC, Dream NYC, You Can Fight Back, and the Guardrails Alliance — spent $19.26 million combined, while Leading the Future, a $100 million super PAC funded partially by OpenAI, Palantir, and Andreessen Horowitz executives, spent $8.15 million opposing him [1]. Jobs and Democracy PAC received a $20 million donation from Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees and valued at an estimated $965 billion as of May 2026 [1][10]. You Can Fight Back was funded by a $3.5 million donation from Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, who told The New York Times he intended to counter OpenAI's influence [1]. Anthropic has positioned itself as a regulation-focused rival to OpenAI. The company develops the Claude series of large language models using a technique called "constitutional AI" to improve ethical and legal compliance [11]. In 2026, U.S. federal agencies began phasing out Claude after Anthropic refused to remove contractual prohibitions on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, prompting the Department of Defense to designate the company a supply-chain risk — a decision temporarily blocked by a federal judge on March 26 [11]. Bores acknowledged the unusual dynamics in a concession statement. "Though we've come up short tonight, the example set here was not the one the AI oligarchs intended," he said. "They set out to make people afraid to stand up to them. Instead, they learned just how ready people are to push back" [1]. The NY-12 contest was the most expensive of a broader AI-industry political spending campaign. According to Transformer's campaign finance tracker, both sides have spent a combined $50.1 million across 19 states, with the Texas primaries drawing $4.6 million across seven races [1]. The general election will take place on November 3, 2026, coinciding with other House races, Senate elections, and state and local contests [2]. While NY-12 is expected to remain Democratic, factors including inflation, the war with Iran, and data-center siting are likely to shape races elsewhere [1][3].