Alex Bores AI proxy battle ends in $27M draw
▼ Summary
– Alex Bores narrowly lost the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional district to Micah Lasher, ending a $27 million proxy war between Anthropic and OpenAI.
– Bores was a New York state Assemblyman and former tech employee who authored the RAISE Act, which imposed safety rules on frontier AI companies.
– The RAISE Act became state law, but it provoked opposition from Leading the Future, a $100 million pro-AI super PAC.
The $27 million AI proxy war between Anthropic and OpenAI ended in a stalemate last night. Alex Bores, the New York state Assemblyman whose campaign was unexpectedly turbocharged after being targeted by a pro-AI super PAC, narrowly lost the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District. The race effectively became a referendum on AI regulation, with deep-pocketed tech interests pouring unprecedented cash into the contest.
Bores, a former tech industry employee, had coauthored and passed the high-profile RAISE Act, which imposed guardrails and safety requirements on frontier AI companies. A version of that bill was signed into state law last year. But the legislation made him a prime target for Leading the Future, a $100 million super PAC that spent heavily to unseat him. The group’s ads painted Bores as hostile to innovation, while counter-campaigns from Anthropic-aligned donors framed the race as a battle for responsible AI governance.
Despite losing by a slim margin, Bores’s near-victory signals that AI safety remains a potent political issue. The outcome suggests that voters in the district are deeply divided on how to balance technological progress with public protection. For now, both sides can claim a partial win: the pro-regulation camp proved its message resonates, while the industry-backed forces demonstrated they can still sway a tight primary. The fight over AI’s future in Congress is far from over.
(Source: The Verge)
