Big Tech and Billionaire Bloombucks Put Manhattan Election on Lock in $26M Proxy War
Out-of-town tech elites and local billionaires dropped record-breaking cash to buy up a New York congressional seat.
Yo, they really went and spent twenty-six million dollars on a damn primary election in Manhattan. No cap, the race for New York’s 12th Congressional District just became the second-most expensive House primary in history, all because some out-of-town tech bosses and billionaire elites wanted to flex their pockets. They’re trying to replace old-head Representative Jerry Nadler, and the amount of money they threw around is straight-up disrespectful when you look at what’s actually going on in the streets of the Upper East, Upper West, and Midtown.
When the dust finally cleared, Micah Lasher took the dub with 39% of the vote, barely squeaking past State Representative Alex Bores, who pulled in 35%. This wasn't no regular local political debate about the community; this was a high-stakes proxy war over who gets to control the artificial intelligence rules in Washington. The media tracking group AdImpact Politics reported a staggering $26.3 million in ad spending. The only primary that ever cost more was Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, which racked up $33.2 million. But let's be real—this New York race was just rich folks playing games with their bags.
Let’s talk about Alex Bores for a second. This man is a certified tech head—we talking a master’s degree in computer science and a former gig as a data scientist for Palantir. You’d think the tech world would be rocking with him, right? Nah, the big-money Silicon Valley elite saw him talking about "safety concerns" and decided he was a major threat to their hustle. They did not want a guy who actually understands how the technology works sitting in Congress writing the rules.
So what did they do? A heavy-hitting super PAC called "Leading the Future," backed by the biggest tech moguls in the game, spent over $8 million just to oppose Bores' nomination. According to reports from the Hill, this group is funded by OpenAI President Greg Brockman and major venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Their whole mission was to keep "tech-skeptical" lawmakers out of D.C. Translation: they wanted to make sure nobody gets in the way of their corporate bag.
But Bores had his own big-money crew trying to run it up. A bunch of AI safety groups went all-in, throwing down over $20 million to back him. AdImpact Politics reported that Bores had $9.3 million in supportive ad spending, but the haters still hit him with $3.6 million in negative attack ads to slow him down. That is a crazy amount of hate and negative energy thrown at a local state representative just because he wanted to talk about safety.
On the other side, Micah Lasher wasn't hurting for cash at all. He had $8.6 million in supportive ad spending and only had to deal with $1.6 million in attack ads. Plus, he had the ultimate cheat code in his corner: billionaire and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. FEC documents prove Bloomberg poured millions of his own personal cash into Lasher's campaign. When you got a multi-billionaire dropping bags for you, of course you’re gonna have the upper hand on the block.
It’s wild because while these tech bros and billionaires are throwing around tens of millions of dollars like it's monopoly money, regular folks in Manhattan are out here dealing with high rents, crazy prices, and real everyday struggles. None of that $26 million is going to help the neighborhood or put food on anyone's table; it's just rich folks buying up clout and influence in Washington. It shows you exactly how the system is set up—if you don't have a billionaire or a super PAC backing you, you don't even stand a chance.
At the end of the day, Lasher got the win and he’s headed to Washington, but the whole situation is shady. This race proved that if you want to get into the political game nowadays, you gotta have some tech moguls or a billionaire in your corner. It’s a rich man’s world, and they’re just letting us live in it. No cap, the NY-12 primary was a masterclass in how the elites use their money to control the narrative.
