New York voters head to the polls Tuesday in a set of Democratic House primaries that have drawn more than $20 million in dueling spending from artificial-intelligence companies into a single Manhattan district and turned three other races into a referendum on Mayor Zohran Mamdani's ability to transfer his coalition to Congress. Parallel primaries are running in Maryland, Utah and a Republican runoff for governor in South Carolina.
The outcome will determine whether the AI industry's first organized push into federal elections produces a regulator or an ally in a safe Democratic seat, and whether the 34-year-old mayor's left-wing movement can unseat incumbents aligned with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. President Trump has weighed in with a double endorsement upstate, where the Republican primary to replace former Rep. Elise Stefanik will test the reach of his backing against the local GOP establishment.
The Nadler seat
The most expensive contest is in New York's 12th District, the Manhattan seat vacated by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. State Assemblyman Alex Bores, an engineer who led a state bill requiring safety regulation of powerful AI models, faces Assemblyman Micah Lasher, Nadler's endorsed successor, and Jack Schlossberg, a grandson of President John F. Kennedy. AdImpact has tracked $26 million in ad spending in the race.
Leading the Future, a super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and Perplexity, has spent $8 million opposing Bores. Public First Action, an arm of the AI safety group Americans for Responsible Innovation, has received $20 million from Anthropic and put $11 million behind Bores. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has separately put $10 million behind Lasher, his former aide.
"Regulation is not going to be the reason we win or lose this race versus China," Bores told CNBC on Monday. Brad Carson, president of Americans for Responsible Innovation, said his group's donors include employees at major AI companies he called "mid-level people who are very scared about where the technology is going."
Mamdani's reach
Mamdani has endorsed challengers in three House races: former Comptroller Brad Lander against Rep. Dan Goldman in NY-10, organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier against Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat in NY-13, and Assemblywoman Claire Valdez in the open NY-7 seat being vacated by Rep. Nydia Velázquez. Gov. Kathy Hochul, Jeffries and state Attorney General Letitia James are backing the incumbents.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee's super PAC, United Democracy Project, has routed $650,000 to BOLD America, which has spent at least $2.8 million supporting Espaillat. At a Vermont rally last week, Mamdani said AIPAC moves "millions in dark money" and on Monday at City Hall called the group's posture "a status quo for immorality."
The counterpoint
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat, accused Mamdani of "laundering antisemitism" in a post on X, and Espaillat's allies have hammered Avila Chevalier over past social-media posts, including one in which she wrote "f*** Kamala Harris," which she has apologized for. Espaillat's coalition — the state AFL-CIO, the Congressional Black Caucus and Latino Victory Fund among them — argues the mayor's intervention against a former undocumented immigrant who chairs the Hispanic Caucus is a misread of the district.
Results from the 12th District and the two incumbent challenges are expected late Tuesday night. The winners of the heavily Democratic seats are favored to take office in January.