Gothamist76%
How Big AI money is shaping the marquee Manhattan congressional primary 30%
By Walter Wuthmann0% Brigid Bergin0%
6/16/2026, 10:30:58 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 32 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Availability Heuristic, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 15.8% saturation with 211 hits. Analysis detected 2,306 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,338 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 39.9% and a BS Rank of 30% (14,919 of 21,176 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 70.50% of the article peer group.
In the primary race for the Congressional seat representing the deep blue heart of Manhattan, Alex Bores is everywhere: on TV, in the mail, plastered across the front page of the community newspaper.
The full-page ad on the front of the latest edition of the Upper East Side’s "Our Town" opposes the state lawmaker.
An ad on the back supports him.
Both were paid for by super PACs linked to AI companies.
As of Monday, six different super PACs have spent a total of nearly $30 million in the race.
A large chunk of that is being directed toward Bores in what some are framing as an existential fight over the future of the AI industry.
And by throwing the first punch, those opposed to Bores may have lifted a once obscure candidate and made him look like a champion of AI regulation.
“That’s a serious risk of that kind of spending,” said Molly White, an AI researcher who runs the website Tech Influence Watch.
“ A candidate who is not so well-known or didn't have that distinguished of a platform suddenly has millions of dollars dumped into the race against them, and now he's making headlines.”
Bores was elected to represent the Upper East Side in the state Assembly in 2022.
He says he was the first Democrat elected to any level of New York State government with a computer science degree.
He previously worked as a data scientist for Palantir, the secretive tech giant that has multibillion dollar contracts with the US.
Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
Last year, Bores was a key player in getting the RAISE Act, which requires large AI companies to publish and maintain public safety plans, through the state Legislature.
He has described the law as the “strongest AI safety law in the country.”
In October, Bores announced he was entering the race to replace Rep.
Jerry Nadler in Congress.
It is a crowded race and its winner will represent one of the most high-profile districts in the country.
The super PACs opposing Bores’ approach to AI regulation wasted little time in mounting their campaign against him.
Leading the Future, a super PAC funded by some of the founders of Palantir and Open AI, announced in November that Bores would be its first opposition target of the election cycle.
Leading the Future seeded an affiliated super PAC called Think Big with $10 million.
Its first ad, in December, blasted Bores and the RAISE Act for creating “a chaotic patchwork of state rules that would crush innovation.”
But the outside group’s decision to spend so much money against Bores early in the race may have backfired.
Instead of throwing cold water on the embers of a young campaign — the negative ads appear to have acted more like lighter fluid.
“Every day we're getting them in the mail, these very high-gloss postcards and flyers,” said Denise Madison of West 79th Street, who was leaving Zabar’s last week with a loaf of sourdough and a tub of coleslaw.
Madison said she’d never even heard of Bores and “it made me wonder why they were against him.”
She said she then read about the super PAC spending and Bores’ AI safety legislation.
Madison said she now plans to vote for Bores.
She said she is also trying to convince her son to do the same.
“ It seems like he has his nose to the grind and wants to create bills that help us,” she said.
One early poll found Bores polling at about 11%, well behind Kennedy scion and social media star Jack Schlossberg and prominent Trump critic George Conway.
An Emerson College Polling/PIX 11 survey from May now shows Bores essentially tied for the lead with Upper West Side Assemblymember Micah Lasher.
A spokesperson for the two super PACs said they expected AI giant Anthropic and its allies to spend big for Bores and wanted to get a head start.
“We knew from day one that Anthropic, its investors and the dark money groups they fund would spend millions to send Alex Bores to Congress and that is exactly what they have done,” said Josh Vlasto, the treasurer of the Think Big PAC and co-founder of the Leading the Future PAC.
Money has since poured in for Bores from outside groups connected to Anthropic and the cryptocurrency industry.
The “Jobs and Democracy” PAC has spent nearly $6 million in support of Bores, according to federal campaign finance data.
Filings show the group is funded by the Public First network, a dark money group linked to Anthropic.
A super PAC called “You Can Push Back” has spent nearly $1.9 million to support Bores.
The group is entirely funded by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen.
In total, about $9.7 million has now been spent in support of Bores — compared to nearly $7.7 million opposed.
Bores is not the only target of super PAC spending.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also pledged $10 million to another super PAC, Stand for New York, to support Lasher, who served as an aide in his administration.
Another group, Nuestro PAC, which aims to turn out Latino voters and has ties to Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders, has spent more than $2 million against Lasher.
A representative for Bores said the outside spending in support of Bores was a direct response to the early attacks by the Leading the Future and Think Big PACs.
“Their no-guardrails ideology has served to unite nearly every corner of the Democratic party around Alex Bores,” campaign spokesperson Alyssa Cass said.
Experts who study the AI industry say the electioneering in the Manhattan primary is just the latest front in an ongoing civil war.
Anthropic was founded by former senior members of OpenAI, the creator of the popular ChatGPT chatbot, over safety concerns.
The company has grown exponentially while making safety a key part of its business model – its co-founder even appeared alongside the Pope for a speech about AI regulation.
OpenAI, on the other hand, has opposed strict government regulation.
White, the AI researcher, said the super PACs linked to OpenAI are hoping to make an example out of Bores.
“Alex Bores, whether or not he is actually elected, is not likely to make a huge impact on the future of AI regulation as one single junior congressman,” she said.
“But if they are successful in defeating him, they will be able to then use that in other races where candidates might be thinking about coming out in support of stronger regulation against AI.”
This proxy war has supercharged this open-seat primary, disrupting the historical political wisdom of the district where the Upper West Side has out organized the Upper East, giving Lasher a presumed leg up.
Carla Asher, who lives in Morningside Heights, said she’s been inundated with ads both for and against Bores as the June 23 primary approaches.
“He seems very anti-AI.
You know, he's the one who stopped certain things, blah, blah, blah,” she said.
“I mean, that seems to be his big and only issue.”
But Asher said there are issues 12th Congressional District voters care about more than AI regulation, like opposing President Donald Trump.
Bores has so identified himself with the fight over AI, she said, that “I'm not sure that anybody knows anything else about him.”
For some voters, the onslaught of ads has left them more confused than convinced.
David Brush, 48, lives on the west side of the district and works in technology.
He said the fact that AI has become such a hot button issue in this race is creating tension for him.
“I want to be supportive of all technology, but at the same time, I have to think of my family and my kids and the future of the city and how AI is going to impact all those things,” Brush said.
He added, “That’s the tough part of my decision: Am I the firefighter and the arsonist?”
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