Anthropic bankrolls a defensive push for Alex Bores amid industry ad war

A newly active safety‑aligned committee has stepped into the New York 12th district contest after Assembly member Alex Bores drew a series of outside attack ads. The group, Public First Action, has been able to run targeted outreach for Bores thanks to a multimillion‑dollar infusion from Anthropic, a donor that disclosed a roughly $20 million payment into political vehicles backing federal guardrails on advanced AI.

The coordinated counterpush comes after a concentrated ad blitz by an industry‑aligned coalition described here as Leading the Future, whose benefactors include venture investors, AI founders and private‑equity backers. That coalition has marshaled large resources—industry reporting places pro‑industry fundraising into the low‑hundreds of millions — and has already bought more than $1 million in ads targeting Bores’ candidacy.

Bores is the sponsor of proposed disclosure and incident‑reporting requirements that would compel major developers to reveal safety practices and report serious misuse. That bill, and others like it, have become the focal point for electoral spending: outside committees are not just backing candidates, they are investing in one of two governance templates—tighter, enforceable transparency rules versus industry‑preferred, nationally coordinated frameworks that emphasize certification, interoperability and voluntary standards.

The New York contest is being read as a proxy fight. On one side, safety‑oriented donors such as Anthropic and allied advocates are pushing lawmakers toward statutory disclosure, reporting thresholds and enforcement tools. On the other, investor‑led coalitions and founders are financing a push for national preemption, infrastructure grants and certification regimes that would reduce the compliance burden for large providers.

Context: separate reporting shows a related investor‑led PAC raised roughly $125 million during 2025 and carried about $70 million into the new year, underscoring the scale of private political capital now focused on AI policy. Some high‑profile individuals tied to pro‑industry efforts have also made large personal donations, even where their companies (notably OpenAI) have chosen to limit or avoid corporate donations to super PACs.

Anthropic’s corporate posture extends beyond direct political spending. The company has used national marketing—most prominently a Super Bowl spot highlighting an ad‑free positioning for its Claude assistant—to frame trust and privacy as competitive advantages. That public stance makes its political donations more visible and links commercial messaging to legislative advocacy.

Tactically, Public First Action is concentrating its budget on targeted voter outreach in NY‑12 and on messaging that ties Bores’ record to concrete safety reforms. The industry coalition’s ads emphasize perceived vulnerabilities in Bores’ candidacy while warning against policies that could slow innovation or fragment the market with state‑by‑state rules.

Implications: expect more of these contests to attract dual funding streams—corporate donations to advocacy vehicles and large personal or investor contributions to pro‑industry committees—turning single races into test cases for national rule choices. For candidates, the calculus will become more about which governance model they implicitly endorse; for advocates, PAC spending is now an instrument for shaping regulatory design as much as electoral outcomes.

• How money moves: single large corporate gifts can rapidly underwrite focused ad buys and defensive outreach.
• Policy at stake: disclosure mandates and incident reporting versus industry‑oriented national frameworks.
• Broader theater: high fundraising totals from investor coalitions mean federal races will increasingly serve as laboratories for AI governance messaging.

The immediate effect of Anthropic’s backing is to blunt the reach of targeted attack ads and give Bores a stronger ground game; the longer arc is a deepening politicization of AI policy where outside spending will be deployed to shift the shape of federal rules, not just to elect or defeat individual candidates.