Why A Pro-ai Super Pac’s Election Night Win May Prove Short-lived

The tech billionaires who spent more than $8 million to sink a Democratic House candidate in New York wanted to fire a warning at other would-be lawmakers who support tougher rules on artificial intelligence.

But Tuesday’s loss by tech critic Alex Bores left the AI advocates with little to say the next day — and little appetite for other titanic matchups this year, a person familiar with the leading anti-Bores group told POLITICO.

Meanwhile, supporters of stricter AI regulations saw the outcome as just the latest sign of public opinion shifting in their direction.

Not only did Bores score a close second in the five-person race to replace outgoing Manhattan Rep. Jerry Nadler, but the contest drew tons of attention — and Silicon Valley money on both sides — to the debate about AI’s impact on jobs, electricity costs and public safety. And Tuesday’s winner, Assemblymember Micah Lasher, is a fellow tech industry critic who favors AI regulations and a data center moratorium.

Most of all, regulation supporters say the backlash against the gusher of pro-AI spending should embolden other candidates to take on the industry. They called that a strategic loss for Leading the Future, the pro-AI super PAC that had spearheaded the push for Bores’ defeat.

“[Leading the Future] went into this race as a genuinely frightening force that seemed potentially positioned to fundamentally reshape the incentives of politicians in Congress and their willingness to touch AI,” said Nathan Calvin, general counsel and vice president of state affairs at the pro-regulation group Encode AI. “And they left the race not a particularly imposing force that politicians don’t seem particularly afraid of.”

Leading the Future’s response to the election results has been tepid, including a statement Tuesday night that did not mention Bores’ name but highlighted the group’s support for “strong and smart guardrails” on AI. It did not comment Wednesday on whether it sees the outcome in New York as a reflection of public opinion on the technology, or on whether it plans to intervene in other competitive races.

But the person familiar with Leading the Future’s strategy, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the group is unlikely to target another candidate this year with the kind of negative ad deluge it dumped on Bores. That’s despite the fact that other candidates across the country are attracting new spending from pro-regulation PACs — including Manny Rutinel, a Democratic representative from Colorado running for Congress on a pro-AI regulation platform.

Bores, a former data scientist at Palantir, had his own base of support in Silicon Valley, including pro-regulation super PACs backed by tech dollars that spent $18 million on his behalf. Tuesday’s primary was seen nationally as part of a bitter power struggle within the tech industry on how aggressively the government should police AI safety, a fight typified by the feud between industry giants OpenAI and Anthropic.

Both sides may end up disappointed, Lasher said in his victory speech: “I won’t be taking my cues from either of you when it comes to protecting our kids, our jobs and our families.”

‘Wouldn't have happened without the Bores race’

When Leading the Future leaders Josh Vlasto and Zac Moffatt announced their campaign to take down Bores in November, they promised to “aggressively oppose policymakers and candidates in states across the country who play political games with the future of American leadership.” Bores, a member of the New York Assembly, had drawn the group’s ire for his authorship of the RAISE Act, the state’s landmark AI safety law.

Leading the Future did not endorse any of the candidates running to succeed Nadler. But it was adamant that Bores should lose.

The pro-AI group was following on the heels of the cryptocurrency industry’s success in targeting critics and bolstering allies during the 2024 election — a fight that has left crypto with unaccustomed clout in Washington during Donald Trump’s second presidency. Leading the Future’s Vlasto is also a top adviser at Fairshake, a pro-cryptocurrency group that spent more than $40 million to help defeat then-Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) two years ago.

But this year’s House election in New York has turned out differently.

For one thing, the Democratic primary quickly became part of a bitter conflict within the AI industry — particularly between OpenAI and Anthropic. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other executives split off from OpenAI in 2021 due to concerns that it was developing advanced AI in a reckless manner, and the two sides have sparred ever since about the need for new safety regulations.

Each side was flush with cash: Leading the Future had at least $75 million from OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz and others. It ultimately spent $8 million against Bores.

It faced off against an Anthropic-linked super PAC network spearheaded by Public First Action, an organization led by former Democratic Rep. Brad Carson of Oklahoma and former Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah. A super PAC affiliated with Public First called Jobs and Democracy funneled $12 million to Bores, roughly two-thirds of the total spending made on his behalf.

By the time the race was called Tuesday, Bores came in just 4 percentage points behind Lasher, who had been endorsed by Nadler and boosted by $10 million from billionaire ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Regulation advocates note that Lasher also backs the RAISE Act, raising questions about what exactly the AI lobby stood to gain by attacking his opponent. And they say Leading the Future inadvertently boosted Bores’ profile by attacking him at the same time that voter anxiety about AI spiked.

Carson, the co-lead of Public First, called Bores’ loss “a tactical defeat” for his super PAC network — but a “strategic victory” for the broader AI safety lobby.

“What happened in the last six months was we showed the strength of the AI safety fundraising movement,” Carson said. He asserted that pressure from Public First-affiliated super PACs ultimately led to OpenAI distancing itself from Leading the Future.

“That wouldn't have happened without the Bores race,” said Carson. “It seemingly chilled [Leading the Future] from engaging in other races.”

OpenAI and Anthropic both declined to comment on Tuesday’s election. But OpenAI has begun supporting more aggressive AI safety measures in the states, as well as mandatory federal reviews of cutting-edge AI models.

Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the tech industry group Chamber of Progress, said Leading the Future’s aggressive efforts to defeat Bores were unusual for the super PAC network, which has predominantly moved to boost pro-AI candidates. Those candidates include a number of Republicans, whose voters in recent polls have been less skeptical of the technology compared with Democrats.

“If you look at what [Leading the Future] is doing generally speaking, they're primarily supporting incumbents for reelection,” Kovacevich said. “This intervention in a Democratic primary against an AI regulation champion was an outlier as far as their overall strategy.”

‘They’re not even trying to engage’

Kovacevich contended that Leading the Future went after Bores because he “just wouldn’t engage” with AI companies seeking to shape the RAISE Act. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul ultimately made major changes to that law, in part due to concerns raised by OpenAI and other tech advocates.

Bores campaign spokesperson Alyssa Cass rejected that version of events. “Alex spent hours and hours talking with OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and their various trade associations,” she said. Cass added that the companies all “saw multiple drafts of the bill and provided multiple versions of redlines.”

Carson accused the AI lobby of making up an “after-the-fact justification” to explain why Bores was uniquely dangerous to its business model — even as other candidates such as Rutinel and Scott Wiener, the California state senator and Democratic House candidate behind his state’s own landmark AI safety law, skate by without a challenge from Leading the Future.

“They're not even like trying to engage in competitive races,” Carson said. “[Leading the Future is] making up reasons about this or that campaign, of why they're involved or not involved. They have a lot of money, but they can't spend it in a way that's effective.”

Asked to comment on potential plans to put money in new competitive races — and if Leading the Future is now on the back foot with the public compared with when it first targeted Bores last November — Vlasto sent a statement to POLITICO that backed “clear guardrails” on AI and pledged “thoughtful, substantive engagement with policymakers in Washington and in states nationwide.”

Kovacevich said Carson and other advocates of AI regulations are trying to spin their way out of an embarrassing primary loss for Bores.

“You only need to spin when you don’t succeed,” Kovacevich said.

But unlike Leading the Future, Carson said his group is ready and eager to drop another few million dollars on a new high-profile AI fight.

“We would welcome another fight like Bores, because we think it raised AI safety as a salient issue,” he said.

Katherine Long contributed to this report.