Anthropic and OpenAI waged a $27 million proxy war in a Manhattan congressional race. The winner told them both to get lost

Micah Lasher won the most expensive AI election yet—then used his victory speech to reject both companies and promise to regulate them anyway.

Micah Lasher had a message for the two AI companies that had just spent $27 million trying to decide who would represent Manhattan in Congress.

“I have some news for the two big AI companies who’ve taken such an unusual interest in who won this congressional seat,” he said from the podium Tuesday night. “I won’t be taking my cues from either of you when it comes to protecting our kids, our jobs, our environment.”

Lasher—who no AI company spent big money to elect—had just beaten Alex Bores, a state assemblyman who became the unlikely center of an extraordinary bidding war between rival AI factions. Pro-safety AI super PACs, including Public First Action backed by Anthropic, poured $19 million into supporting Bores. Leading the Future, tied to OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz, spent $8 million trying to destroy him. Lasher won with 39% of the vote (while Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg came in a distant third place). And then Lasher pledged to pursue the same AI regulation agenda as the man he beat.

Not only did Leading the Future fail to prevent the election of the pro-AI regulation, but Public First Action fell short of its goal of bragging rights, according to Adam Kovacevich, a former Google public policy executive and founder of Chamber of Progress, a left-of-center technology trade group.

“They wanted a world in which they could say they elected a vocal AI regulation champion,” Kovacevich told Fortune.

New York’s primary was exceptional, he said. It’s the only election in the country thus far where both sides of the AI world—those in favor of widespread regulation like Anthropic versus those favoring more leeway for innovation like OpenAI—battled over the same race. The result sheds light on a national pattern: Across 35 elections and millions in spending, AI companies are getting very little in return.

“It’s still pretty early to call any of these strategies a complete success or complete failure,” Kovacevich said.

The new AI battlefront

AI-related super PACs have spent more than $50 million on 2026 elections, including $22 million from “pro-innovation” groups like Leading the Future and nearly $28 million from “pro-safety” PACs like Public First Action, according to Transformer, a platformer that aggregates Federal Election Commission filings. 

The trend of AI companies throwing their hats into U.S. elections began in earnest in 2024, when Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) authored Senate Bill 1047, the first state-level regulatory guidelines for advanced AI. Athropic put its tentative support behind an amended version of the billion in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who ultimately vetoes the bill over concerns of it stifling innovation and being too broad in scope. The tech company, however, went on to endorse additional California legislation regulating AI, adopting the strategy of supporting a patchwork of statewide efforts to place guardrails on the technology. 

The following year in August 2025, Andreessen Horowitz, Brockman, and Perplexity, among other investors, launched Leading the Future with more than $100 million in initial funding. Kovacevich argued the PAC’s creation was in direct response to Anthropic’s increased involvement in AI-related legislation—and a continuation of Anthropic and OpenAI’s opposing ethoses surrounding AI regulation. (Anthropic cofounders Dario and Daniela Amodei split off from OpenAI in early 2021 over AI safety disagreements to form Anthropic.)

“Absent anthropic trying to advance those laws,” Kovacevich said, “I don’t think any of this would have happened necessarily.”

PACs are looking for politicians, not voters

But AI companies throwing support behind candidates may have less to do with pushing legislation than making an example for other politicians, Kovacevich noted: From Leading the Future’s perspective, if you lead a push for AI regulation without the industry’s input, you will be targeted. Conversely, from Public First Action’s point of view, if you lead the push for AI regulation, you can count on its political support.

“A lot of these PAC strategies are partly about helping your friends and hurting your opponents, but they are partly about sending a signal to other politicians,” he said.

He suggested that at this juncture, tech companies may have little influence on actual legislation. Democrats are poised to take over the Congress, when they will likely work to pass bipartisan legislation regulating AI anyways.

It’s hard to say if PAC spending is the make-or-break force behind any election, and AI-related PACs are no exception. Lasher was expected to beat Bores and also received support in the form of a $10 million contribution from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But the New York race was exceptional because in most cases, Kovacevich explained, AI-related PACs support the incumbent, who overwhelmingly win elections over new entrants.

American voters aren’t ready to care about AI

Another reason these PACs’ influence may be limited at this point is because thus far, AI has failed to make meaningful impressions during elections.

“At the end of the day, I just am not convinced that AI is a top priority for voters,” Kovacevich said.

While AI remains unpopular—an NBC News poll from March found 57% of voters believe its risks outweigh its benefits—it’s not top-of-mind during election season. David Shor’s Blue Rose Research found among more than 6,000 respondents that while AI was the issue that saw the biggest leap in importance for U.S. voters, it still ranked No. 29 among 39 issues the research firm measured.

The strategic picture remains unsettled for both sides. A slow-moving Congress favors Leading the Future; a state-by-state regulatory patchwork favors Anthropic and Public First Action. Neither scenario was resolved on Tuesday.

What NY-12 made clear is how unlikely a repeat becomes. “It’s hard to see another battle like this particular one on the horizon,” Kovacevich said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com