AI Super PACs Spent $27 Million—and Lost a Manhattan Primary

On June 23, Manhattan's 12th District Democratic primary became the most expensive AI proxy war in American politics — and the industry's regulation nemesis lost by four points to fellow Assemblyman Micah Lasher.

The score: With 94% of scanners reporting, Lasher led at 39.0% to Bores's 35.0%, per unofficial New York City Board of Elections results and The Associated Press. Jack Schlossberg finished third at 10.8%.

The money:

• Leading the Future — backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Andreessen Horowitz, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale — spent $8.15 million attacking Bores.
• Pro-Bores PACs (Jobs and Democracy, Dream NYC, You Can Push Back, Guardrails Alliance) spent $19.26 million defending him, including a $20 million Anthropic seed to Public First's network.
• Total AI-industry spending on one candidate in one primary: $27.41 million, per FEC filings reported by The Verge.

Why Bores was the target: The 35-year-old assemblyman co-authored New York's RAISE Act, which requires frontier AI developers to publish and follow formal safety protocols. Leading the Future made him its first major target — attack ads warned state rules would create a "chaotic patchwork" that would "crush innovation."

Why this wasn't a clean win for OpenAI: Lasher, the victor, also co-sponsored the RAISE Act. At his watch party Tuesday, he told the two AI giants who bankrolled the race: "I won't be taking my cues from either of you when it comes to protecting our kids, our jobs, and our environment," per Gizmodo.

Bores, conceding, struck a different note: "They set out to make people afraid to stand up to them. Instead, they learned just how ready people are to push back."

The bigger picture:

• NY-12 was the second most expensive House primary on record, per AdImpact — and the AI industry's most expensive single-race bet.
• Bloomberg called it a "$29 million proxy battle over who will control the future of AI."
• The Transformer campaign finance tracker shows $50.1 million in combined AI super PAC spending across 19 states so far — NY-12 is the biggest line item.
• Local Manhattan politics still mattered: Lasher carried Nadler's endorsement, Hochul's backing, and roughly $10 million from a Bloomberg-aligned super PAC.

What it means for Washington: Congress still has no comprehensive federal AI law. OpenAI's network proved it can spend eight figures to bury a named skeptic. Anthropic's network proved it can spend nearly $20 million and still lose the seat. Neither outcome gives either lab a mandate — and both are weeks from pricing governance risk on public markets.

Convina's view: This was not democracy debating AI safety. It was two IPO-bound labs outsourcing their product strategy to dark-money PACs with names like Jobs and Democracy and Leading the Future — in a race where the winner co-sponsored the bill they were fighting over. OpenAI bought the deterrent it wanted. Anthropic bought a loss. Voters in Manhattan barely heard AI mentioned. Anyone modeling AI political risk should treat this as precedent, not closure: the industry now knows what a primary costs, and the midterms are five months away.