$20 million in AI money floods New York House primary
Why it matters: The Manhattan race has become a test case for how hard Washington may regulate powerful AI models.
More than $20 million tied to AI interests has poured into New York’s 12th Congressional District Democratic primary, turning a local House race into a high-stakes fight over federal AI policy. The contest pits state Assemblyman Alex Bores, an AI safety advocate, against fellow Assemblyman Micah Lasher and Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy. Leading the Future, backed by supporters including Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and Perplexity, spent $8 million opposing Bores. Public First Action, which CNBC reported received $20 million from Anthropic, has spent $11 million backing him. The dueling PAC campaigns reflect a wider split between lighter-touch AI rules and stricter safeguards on how advanced models are built.