Corporate AI super PACs spend $27.83M in NY-12 primary

Corporate AI super PACs have poured $27.83 million into the New York 12th Congressional District primary, concentrating outside political spending behind or against the candidates as voters head to the polls tonight. That outside spending has reshaped the race and made the contest a proxy fight over which tech companies will influence Congress.

Who spent the money and where did it come from?

Tech-industry spending in the NY-12 race totals $27.83 million, with pro-Bores PACs backed by tech oligarch funding accounting for $19.4 million of that total and the anti-Bores effort Think Big spending $8.15 million. Public First Action, a nonprofit advocacy group that funded one super PAC supporting Alex Bores, received a $20 million donation from Anthropic. Dream NYC, another pro-Bores PAC, received an initial massive donation from a single Anthropic employee. You Can Push Back, a super PAC created by Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, also backed Alex Bores.

Those figures mean outside groups have outspent the Bores campaign itself, according to Transformer, and placed enormous outside influence on what had been a local primary.

How did tech companies and oligarchs intervene in the campaign?

The intervention took both traditional ad buys and digital messaging. Politico’s reporting tied coordinated digital activity to You Can Push Back, and it verified at least eight new TikTok and Instagram accounts posting pro-Bores content. Jack Schlossberg, a rival candidate, publicly alleged he was being astroturfed by bots and fake accounts promoting another candidate.

The pattern of intervention also split along regulatory lines. Leading the Future, a $100 million super PAC that backs AI-boosting candidates, ran anti-Bores ads through its arm Think Big, which spent $8.15 million specifically to defeat Bores. In response, safety-minded groups connected to Anthropic and Larsen-backed spending ran pro-Bores messaging, producing $19.4 million in pro-Bores outside spending, according to Transformer. Legally, the Bores campaign has avoided coordinating with those super PACs and has downplayed ties to the Anthropic-aligned PACs.

A newly launched group called the Guardrails Alliance entered to counter billionaire spending, pledging $250,000 in pro-Bores advertising and describing itself as a political home for workers and unions rather than another billionaire-backed vehicle. As cofounder Shaunna Thomas put it, "This is not about matching [Leading the Future] dollar for dollar, fighting them with money or another set of billionaires." The Guardrails Alliance said it was built as a counterweight to feuding billionaires.

Why it matters

The scale of outside spending shows how a single local primary can become a national battleground over AI policy. Alex Bores co-sponsored the first AI safety law in the country, and his candidacy has been cast by outside groups as the test of which tech interests win influence in Congress. The spending also presents a political risk: even safety-minded corporate involvement can be framed as outside meddling and become a liability for a candidate. As one strategist noted, "I’m gonna be honest with you, [Bores] wasn’t exactly a well-known quantity prior to becoming a target of these AI companies."

What to watch

Tonight’s NY-12 House primary result will be the immediate signal of whether heavy outside AI-industry spending moved voters. Public polling has been scarce since Emerson College’s May 21 poll, which found Bores neck-and-neck with Micah Lasher, so the vote itself will provide the clearest read. If Bores wins, it will suggest an AI safety position can survive or even benefit from high-profile corporate backing; if he loses, the defeat may reflect other local dynamics such as Lasher’s establishment ties and Bloomberg super PAC support.