The Democratic primary in New York’s 12th Congressional District on Tuesday has become the most expensive proxy fight in the AI industry’s campaign spending spree, drawing $44 million in super PAC contributions — nearly half of all AI-focused political spending this cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data and campaign disclosures.
State Assemblymember Alex Bores, a former tech worker who authored the Raise Act — the second state law in the U.S. requiring major AI developers to publish public safety plans — entered the race as an underdog but has emerged as the central figure in what Brad Carson, founder of the super PAC network Public First, called “the AI civil war.” Leading the Future, a bipartisan network of super PACs created to back pro-AI candidates, has poured $8.2 million into the primary, blanketing the district with attack ads on television, by text, and by mail.
The group is funded by a $75 million war chest from just four donors: venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman with his wife Anna, according to FEC data. “The message Leading the Future was sending,” Carson told The Guardian, was: “Regulate AI, and we will find you, wherever you are.”
Leading the Future did not respond to a request for comment.
The anti-Bores blitz triggered a counter-assault by a different set of super PACs advocating for stronger AI safeguards. You Can Push Back, funded by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, and Jobs and Democracy, the Democrat-focused subsidiary of Public First — founded by Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma — have spent $11 million to combat Leading the Future’s messaging. Public First’s funding is opaque; it is bankrolled by a dark-money group not required to disclose donors, though Anthropic has publicly announced a $20 million contribution. Carson said Public First has raised another $45 million from various industries, including people working at major AI labs.
On Thursday, another AI-focused super PAC launched: Guardrails Alliance, explicitly built to counter Leading the Future. Its backers include several labor unions and Chris Hyams, the former Indeed CEO who stepped down last year over AI concerns. A spokesperson said it will not take corporate money.
Bores has framed the primary as a referendum on the industry’s influence. “This is the first congressional race in the country where the dividing line is: can we regulate AI at all?” he said in a campaign video. Formerly considered the underdog, polls now show him in a tight race with state Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who has also campaigned in favor of AI guardrails and curbing Big Tech power.
The race’s intensity is fueled partly by geography. The Brookings Institution has named New York City the nation’s most “AI-exposed” county, where one-fifth of the workforce holds jobs AI could plausibly replace — predominantly white-collar roles such as software developers, marketers, and financial analysts. Brookings called such counties potential “hotbeds for some of the AI era’s most agitated voters.”
Beyond NY-12, the super PACs have spent millions in primaries across Utah, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, and Kentucky — many centered on the rural data center buildout — often against local backlash. Public First has supported candidates advocating for AI advancement, including $1.5 million for Texas House candidate Carlos De La Cruz and nearly $1 million for Representative Celeste Maloy of Utah. It has also spent heavily on lawmakers overseeing AI legislation, including $1.6 million behind Representative Valerie Foushee, who co-chairs the House Democratic Commission on AI.
The playbook mirrors crypto’s 2024 blitz, when more than $200 million in PAC money helped crypto-aligned candidates win the overwhelming majority of targeted races. But AI lacks crypto’s investor base, and public opinion is more skeptical: a recent YouGov poll found two-thirds of U.S. voters believe AI is advancing too quickly, and only one in five think its economic impact will be positive overall — views held evenly across party lines.
“The dynamics of Wall Street and the opaque sense of elites making decisions about us that don’t benefit us — I think AI companies are increasingly being seen in a similar light, whether you’re on the right or the left,” said Henry Ajder, a generative AI expert. He noted that even the most cautious AI executives face a “constant pressure to release new models quickly,” creating an inherent tension with calls for slower development.