The money came from Silicon Valley. It went into television ads. And in New York’s 12th Congressional District, it helped decide a primary race that was, at its core, a fight over the future of artificial intelligence.
Micah Lasher won. He beat state Rep. Alex Bores.
The margin was narrow, but decisive enough to send Lasher to the general election as the Democratic nominee for the seat held for decades by Rep. Jerry Nadler. But the real story of this primary isn’t just who won. It’s how much was spent, and by whom, to make sure Bores lost.
AdImpact Politics tracked the advertising dollars. The total made the contest the second most expensive House primary in American history.
That is a staggering figure for a single district covering Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and Midtown. A single seat in a single city. And the money was not evenly distributed.
Bores, a tech expert who campaigned on AI safety, faced the largest share of negative ads targeting any candidate in the race. He also received significant outside support. But the force arrayed against him was bigger.
A super PAC called Leading the Future spent heavily to oppose Bores’ nomination. The group is backed by major figures in the tech industry, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.
Their goal was explicit: keep tech-skeptical lawmakers out of Washington. Lasher campaigned as a strong advocate for stricter AI regulations. That position, on its face, is the opposite of what the Silicon Valley donors wanted.
But the money spent by Leading the Future was not spent to elect Lasher. It was spent to defeat Bores.
The distinction matters. The super PAC opposed Bores’ nomination. They did not want him in Congress.
The details of who they wanted instead were secondary to the fact that they did not want Bores. This is the proxy war. The primary was a battlefield between competing factions of the AI industry.
On one side, the safety advocates. On the other, the tech executives who see regulation as a threat to their business models.
Bores was the safety candidate. He was also the candidate who got buried under a mountain of attack ads paid for by the people who build the technology he wanted to regulate. The outcome is a significant development in that broader fight.
Lasher secured a significant share of the vote. Bores received a significant share as well.
The race was close. But close is not enough when the other side has a super PAC willing to spend whatever it takes. The technical reality is simple.
A substantial amount of money was spent on advertising. One candidate faced a disproportionate share of negative spending. That candidate lost.
The Silicon Valley-backed super PAC got what it paid for. The cost of the primary was historic.
The result was exactly what the donors wanted. What this means for the broader AI debate in Congress is unclear. Lasher is a strong advocate for stricter AI regulations.
He will go to Washington. But the money that helped clear his path came from people who oppose those very regulations.
That contradiction is not lost on anyone watching the race closely. It is the kind of detail that defines modern politics, especially in races where the stakes are not just about a single seat, but about the direction of an entire industry. The primary is over.
The general election is next. But the fight over AI regulation is just beginning. And the money spent in this one district shows how much the tech industry is willing to invest to shape that fight.
