Micah Lasher is projected to win the Democratic nomination for New York’s 12th Congressional District, putting him on a flight path to a seat in Congress.
Lasher, a member of the State Assembly campaigned on his long history in Democratic politics and issues like housing and affordability. Among the candidates he beat on Tuesday were John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, and fellow member of the State Assembly Alex Bores.
“When I began this race I said there were two things, above all, that I wanted to do in Congress: Revamp and recharge the Democratic party,” Lasher said in his victory speech. “And help transform it into the opposition party it must be.”
Lasher was endorsed by Democratic establishment figures like Gov. Kathy Hochul and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He also had the endorsement of retiring New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, whom he worked for almost a decade ago.
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The biggest takeaway from the Tuesday primary may not have much to do with Lasher at all.
Bores tried to leverage anti-artificial intelligence sentiment to win the vote of one of the country’s wealthiest congressional districts. Bores was widely seen as another front-runner in the race, but the platform he ran on drew millions in spending from AI interest groups, both for and against firm regulation of the industry.
Bores made regulating AI a key element of his campaign. He ran on his background as the sponsor of one of the first state AI safety laws in the country and promised to create guardrails around the largely unregulated industry.
Bores’ defeat is a disappointment for the pro-AI regulation super PAC network, Public First, which spent roughly $13 million in trying to elect Bores to Congress. While several polls have shown voters’ views on AI have soured throughout this year, it is unclear if that will translate into a broader electoral movement — and the outcome of Bores’ run was seen as a likely indicator of where Democratic voter sentiment is on the issue.
“I didn’t get in this race to make a point about AI. But some of the most powerful people on the planet … decided they wanted to make me an example in this race,” Bores told a crowd in his concession speech on Tuesday evening.
The AI industry has exerted an outsized influence over the federal government’s regulation of the technology. Part of that sway comes from the tens of millions of dollars that AI industry leaders like OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have donated to the super PAC network Leading the Future.
Leading the Future, which supports a light-touch approach to regulating AI, spent roughly $8 million dollars against Bores. This is one of its first electoral victories in a competitive election. The super PAC network has spent roughly $24 million so far in this electoral cycle and is reported to have $50 million cash on hand as of the last Federal Election Commission reporting deadline.
While most of that AI spending ignored the other candidates, a Bloomberg-backed super PAC spent $10 million boosting Lasher in this race.
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