The ongoing political proxy battle between artificial intelligence giants Anthropic and OpenAI is projected to involve millions in spending. However, the ultimate beneficiary of this high-stakes contest might well be the individual at its center.
As the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th congressional district concludes in June, Anthropic and OpenAI will have invested millions in their struggle to shape the political landscape of AI regulation, debating who should oversee it and who might face repercussions for attempting to do so. Ironically, the true victor of this dispute appears to be the very person they are contending over: a previously little-known New York state assemblyman, who has been inadvertently elevated into a prominent advocate for AI safety regulation through what can be described as a Streisand effect.
Since late 2025, Leading the Future, a Super PAC backed by executives from OpenAI, Palantir, and a16z, has channeled millions into opposing Alex Bores, author of one of the nation's earliest AI regulatory legislative proposals. The PAC's initial aim was to derail his candidacy for the seat soon to be vacated by long-serving Democrat Rep. Jerry Nadler. Contrary to this objective, Bores has emerged as a leading contender in the eight-candidate race, even being dubbed the "face of Manhattan" by New York Magazine in a recent cover story.
Remarkably, Bores achieved this prominence without launching a substantial advertising campaign. His campaign confirmed to The Verge that its inaugural ad purchase in New York occurred on May 11th, almost seven months after his entry into the race and merely weeks before the June 23rd primary. In stark contrast, Leading the Future, supported by figures like Joe Lonsdale, Marc Andreessen, and OpenAI's Greg Brockman, has been running attack advertisements against Bores since December 2025, with recent reports estimating their expenditure at $2.4 million.
Typically, a Super PAC, funded by corporations and billionaires, possesses the capacity to eclipse a targeted candidate's campaign through unlimited spending, provided there is no direct coordination. The entities behind Leading the Future demonstrated this power in the 2024 election, contributing to the defeat of Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) through Fairshake, a crypto industry-backed Super PAC. In Manhattan, their influence would normally be considerable; in December, Think Big PAC, an affiliate of Leading the Future, spent $120,000 on a single anti-Bores attack ad across television and digital platforms. Lis Smith, a New York-based political strategist with experience on campaigns for Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Cuomo, and Eliot Spitzer, emphasized the high cost: "It is so expensive to advertise in a New York primary. The New York media market is the most expensive media market in the country. You’d kill for any bit of air time."
Upon entering the race last October, Bores, a former Palantir employee now in public service, contended with several rivals who boasted greater public recognition and substantial financial support. Fellow New York state assemblyman Micah Lasher is endorsed by Nadler’s influential New York political apparatus and Mike Bloomberg’s Super PAC. Jack Schlossberg, an influencer and grandson of John F. Kennedy, enjoys the backing of the national Democratic establishment, evoking a sense of nostalgia. George Conway, a vocal critic of Donald Trump and ex-husband of former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, has garnered support from the "Never Trumper" segment. Smith candidly stated, "[Bores] wasn’t exactly a well-known quantity prior to becoming a target of these AI companies."
When asked for comment, Josh Vlasto, a spokesperson for Leading the Future, asserted, “From day one, we have said what is now playing out in plain sight: Alex Bores is bought and sold by Anthropic, its investors like Chris Larsen, the Effective Altruist community, and a network of dark money fringe tech groups. He has three super PACs funded by Anthropic, its investors, executives, and their allies who are trying to buy regulatory control of AI for themselves. Any group or endorser who thinks that by backing Alex Bores they are taking on billionaires is either foolish or needs to do a quick Google search.”
However, far from stifling Bores’ candidacy, the AI companies inadvertently amplified his public profile. A recent Emerson College poll indicates he is nearly even with Lasher, trailing by just two points, and Bores has consistently outperformed rivals in other recent surveys. In an unexpected turn, Leading the Future's advertising expenditures effectively functioned as an in-kind contribution to the Bores campaign, providing a complimentary, multi-million-dollar advertising effort that significantly boosted voter awareness of his existence.
Alyssa Cass, a spokeswoman for the Bores campaign, initially believed that engaging voters on AI safety would be challenging. She conveyed to The Verge, "AI [regulation] is his strength, but it’s gonna take us a lot of work to make this a salient issue in the district." Cass elaborated that the opposing campaigns, commencing in December, "started doing that work for us, of raising the saliency of AI and AI regulation, and making people think: Who are these people? What do they want to do to me, and to our society? For people for whom it wasn’t top of mind, they made it top of mind."
Consequently, voters previously unfamiliar with Bores began receiving mailers and advertisements portraying him as anti-AI and pro-regulation. These communications prominently featured his role in authoring the RAISE Act, a New York state law enacted in December that imposes restrictions on the deployment of frontier AI models.
These advertisements unintentionally served as a powerful signal booster. Increased attacks from Leading the Future generated greater media attention, raising voter awareness that a Super PAC funded by Silicon Valley AI billionaires was attempting to sway a Manhattan election by specifically targeting a candidate advocating for AI regulation. This also inadvertently endowed Bores with a distinctive "it" factor, setting him apart from the seven other Democratic candidates in Manhattan primarily focused on holding Donald Trump accountable. He was, quite literally, being targeted by tech billionaires who were simultaneously contributing to Trump in exchange for AI deregulation. Intriguingly, internal campaign polling revealed that voters exposed to negative information about Bores were actually more inclined to support him.
Furthermore, the AI companies' advertisements proved susceptible to mockery by Bores. One early ad attacked Bores for his past employment at Palantir during a time when the contentious tech company held contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), implying hypocrisy in his current stance favoring ICE's abolition. Bores responded by issuing a cease-and-desist letter to Leading the Future for defamation, asserting he departed Palantir due to his opposition to its ICE involvement. He also publicly remarked on social media that it was "ironic" for a Palantir billionaire to criticize him for having worked at Palantir.
This increased visibility occurred even before Anthropic's involvement propelled the race into national headlines. In February, the Jobs and Democracy PAC, aligned with the pro-regulation Super PAC Public First Action, declared its support for Bores. Prominent publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Politico subsequently began reporting on the contest around Bores as an extension of the enduring rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic. Anthropic, which positions itself as the more ethically conscious among frontier AI developers, had recently contributed $20 million to Public First Action, directly countering Leading the Future and its connections to OpenAI.
Such extensive media exposure is exceptionally rare for House races. Smith emphasized, "You’d kill for any earned media, you’d kill for any paid media." She concluded, "So the fact that he’s getting all this paid media, when he was a virtual unknown outside of extremely political insider circles before — it’s a gift."
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