NY-12: The A.I. Proxy Fight Roiling the Race for a New York House Seat
Super PACs tied to the nation’s leading artificial intelligence giants have transformed the closing weeks of a race for a coveted New York City House seat by unleashing staggering amounts of money to shape its outcome and a national debate over regulating the industry.
Together, groups linked to the Silicon Valley rivals OpenAI and Anthropic have already spent more than $12 million stuffing mailboxes and blanketing TV screens with costly broadcast ads — including during the Knicks N.B.A. finals games. Other groups with ties to industry players have chipped in another $4 million, with more on the way.
With less than two weeks before the June 23 Democratic primary, the A.I.-related expenditures — alongside an unrelated $10 million infusion by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — could end up making the contest in Manhattan one of the most expensive in congressional history.
And all of it is most likely a preview of an even bigger battle to come in the midterms this fall, when groups tied to leading technology companies have pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars around elections that could determine whether Congress pursues new guardrails for the industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/nyregion/ai-money-bores-lasher-primary.html