The artificial intelligence industry is investing heavily in the 2026 midterm elections, seeking to shape the first wave of legislation on the technology, with New York City’s primary emerging as a pivotal battleground.
AI-focused super PACs have raised more than $100 million this election cycle, with $49 million already spent across dozens of congressional contests. Half of all spending is concentrated on a single Manhattan race: Tuesday’s Democratic primary in New York’s 12th district.
Much of this spending has focused on a single candidate: Democratic assembly member Alex Bores, who is contesting the 12th House district of New York. A former technology professional turned politician, Bores has become an unexpected focal point of a proxy conflict over the industry’s struggle for regulatory influence.
The controversy erupted a year ago when Bores sponsored the Raise Act, the second state law in the United States mandating that major AI developers publish public safety plans. By August, his campaign was under intense attack—TV ads, text messages, and mail. The effort has been financed by Think Big, an affiliate of Leading the Future, a newly formed bipartisan network of super PACs that promotes “pro‑AI” candidates and has contributed $8.2 million to the primary.
Its $75 million war chest is funded by just four donors: venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI co‑founder Greg Brockman together with his wife Anna, according to Federal Election Commission data. Aligning with most Silicon Valley firms, the group pushes for a federal AI regulatory framework rather than a patchwork of state laws—a compliance nightmare that, tech firms warn, could cede the AI race to China.
In response, a rival coalition of super PACs championing stricter AI safeguards launched a counter‑attack. These groups include You Can Push Back, financed by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, and Jobs and Democracy, the Democrat‑oriented arm of Public First—a network founded by Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma.
Leading the Future’s message, as Carson framed it, was clear: regulate AI and we will locate you, wherever you are. A former Andreessen Horowitz partner echoed this argument in a recent New York Times op‑ed, accusing the industry of attempting to intimidate anyone who engages “too aggressively” in AI governance. Leading the Future declined to comment on the request.
Public First’s financing is opaque. Although the dark‑money group supporting it is not required to disclose donors, AI firm Anthropic has publicly disclosed a $20 million contribution. Since its inception, Anthropic has positioned itself as the AI industry’s conscience—rapidly developing powerful models while publicly warning of their risks and even suggesting a “temporary pause” on AI development.
Carson says Public First has also raised an additional $45 million from a range of sources, including current lab workers at companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and X.
Together, these technology‑funded super PACs have spent nearly $16 million on the NY‑12 race to counter Leading the Future’s messaging. Their advertisements portray “right‑wing billionaires” as attempting to buy the seat, while casting Bores as “standing up to Big Tech,” a narrative Carson describes as “the AI civil war.”
Bores has reframed the primary as a referendum: “This is the first congressional race in the nation where the dividing line is whether we can regulate AI at all,” he says in a campaign video. Once viewed as the underdog, recent polls indicate Bores is now locked in a close contest with Micah Lasher, a New York assembly member who also champions AI safeguards and Big Tech regulation. “They’ve turned Alex Bores into a national star,” Carson noted.
Geography may be as influential as backlash—NY‑12 is overwhelmingly Democratic, while Leading the Future is backed by tech executives aligned with former President Trump. Brookings has identified New York City as the nation’s most “AI‑exposed” county, where roughly a fifth of the workforce holds jobs that AI could plausibly automate, chiefly white‑collar roles such as software developers, marketers, and financial analysts. It warns that such counties could become “hotbeds for some of the AI era’s most agitated voters.”
Although Public First presents itself as fundamentally opposed to Big Tech’s attempts to shape AI policy, its reliance on industry funding may create potential conflicts of interest.
“Tech companies will say ‘this needs to slow down,’ but they either lack the capacity to do so unilaterally or lack the political will,” says Henry Ajder, a generative AI expert. Even the most cautious executives are under constant pressure to release new models quickly as the AI race intensifies, he added.
Beyond Bores, Public First has concentrated on backing candidates who advocate for AI advancement.
The PAC also contributed nearly $1 million to Utah Republican Congresswoman Celeste Maloy, who has championed bipartisan legislation to curb deepfakes while lobbying for additional datacenters in the state. In Texas, it allocated $1.5 million to support House candidate Carlos De La Cruz, the Republican nominee who pledges to ensure the United States leads the AI race against China and to roll back green energy regulations, per his campaign site. Additionally, it provided $800,000 to Oklahoma Congressman Kevin Hern, who has also received funding from Leading the Future, the network Public First was created to oppose.
Meanwhile, Public First has also made substantial expenditures on candidates who oversee AI legislation.
The group has contributed $1.6 million to Representative Valerie Foushee, co‑chair of the House Democratic Commission on AI. Representative Josh Gottheimer, another co‑chair, launched a $300,000 Public First‑funded ad campaign warning of AI harms. Consequently, two‑thirds of the Democratic AI policy leadership now receives support from a super PAC primarily financed by Anthropic.
Among the House races receiving the greatest cash inflows from both Leading the Future and Public First are those at the heart of rural datacenter roll‑outs. The PACs have poured millions into electing AI‑friendly candidates in primaries across Utah, Texas, Ohio, Georgia and Kentucky, despite local opposition to datacenters.
This strategy mirrors crypto’s 2024 playbook, when over $200 million in PAC money helped crypto‑aligned candidates win most targeted races—including a $40 million campaign that contributed to Sherrod Brown’s Senate defeat in Ohio. While AI now commands substantial funding, it lacks crypto’s broad investor base; in the previous election, millions of investors stood to benefit substantially if they elected a president who promised to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.”
Research indicates AI is politically unpopular. A recent YouGov poll revealed that two‑thirds of U.S. voters think AI is advancing too rapidly, while only one‑fifth believe its economic impact will be largely positive—an opinion evenly distributed across party lines.
“The dynamics of Wall Street and the opaque sense of elites making decisions that affect us—AI companies are increasingly viewed in a similar light, whether on the right or the left,” Ajder said.
On Thursday, a new AI‑focused super PAC called Guardrails Alliance was launched, explicitly to counter Leading the Future. Its supporters include several labor unions and Chris Hyams, the former Indeed CEO who resigned last year over AI concerns. A spokesperson said it will not accept corporate money.
