Alex Bores's near-miss signals Democratic opening against A.I. industry

Alex Bores finished second in New York’s 12th Congressional District primary on June 23 after a furious outside-spending fight turned the Manhattan race into a national referendum on A.I. regulation, tech money and political backlash. Micah Lasher won the crowded Democratic contest.

Bores said, “We came within a whisker of winning it.” He argued the result reflected voters who want real solutions because A.I. is moving faster than government. The contest drew more than $27 million in outside spending, with Think Big PAC, part of the Leading the Future network, spending about $8 million against Bores and pro-Bores groups spending more than $19 million to help him. Artificial intelligence investors also poured more than $1 million into the race to defeat him.

OpenAI-affiliated interests and backers tied to Andreessen Horowitz helped finance the effort against Bores, while Anthropic-linked supporters, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, A.I. safety workers and rank-and-file tech employees lined up behind him.

Bores had helped spearhead New York’s RAISE Act with State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, and Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the law on December 19, 2025. The measure requires large frontier A.I. developers to publish safety frameworks and report serious incidents within 72 hours, and it creates an oversight office within the Department of Financial Services. His campaign said attack ads falsely suggested he helped build tech for ICE while he was at Palantir; Bores, a former Palantir employee and engineer, said he left the company over concerns about its work with ICE.

Lasher, who also supports A.I. regulation and was a cosponsor of the RAISE Act, used his victory speech to say he would not take cues from either side of the tech battle when protecting children, jobs and families.