The modern landscape of American politics is increasingly defined by the collision of emerging technologies and high-stakes campaign financing. This friction was brought into sharp relief during the most expensive House primary of the recent electoral cycle in Manhattan, where a staggering forty million dollars in outside spending transformed a local congressional race into a national referendum on artificial intelligence regulation. At the center of this battle was Alex Bores, a former Palantir software engineer turned New York State Assemblymember, whose legislative efforts to secure guardrails for frontier artificial intelligence models made him a prime target for deep-pocketed industry political action committees.
Following his defeat in that primary, Bores is pivoting from legislative defense to coordinated nationwide offense. On Tuesday, Bores and his former chief of staff, Anna Myers, officially launched Who Decides, a new political advocacy nonprofit. The organization enters the political arena with ten million dollars already secured and an ambitious fundraising target of an additional twenty million dollars throughout 2027, aiming for a thirty–million-dollar war chest ahead of the 2028 elections. The core mission of Who Decides is to unify fragmented artificial intelligence advocacy groups that already enjoy the trust of the Democratic Party, helping them develop autonomous legislative agendas rather than imposing a top-down strategy, and establishing a unified baseline for progressive technology governance.
Chronology of a Legislative Battleground
The genesis of Who Decides can be traced directly to the grueling legislative battles fought in Albany over the New York Responsible Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Excellence (RAISE) Act. Co-authored by Bores, the frontier AI safety law required an immense coalition of fifty-five disparate organizations representing interests ranging from enterprise policy to educational chatbots to shepherd the bill through a tenuous legislative environment. Governor Kathy Hochul ultimately signed a version of the bill into law late last year, making it one of the most comprehensive state-level artificial intelligence frameworks in the nation.
However, the path to enactment was fraught with industry opposition. While proponents of regulation represented a broad coalition of civic, educational, and safety-focused stakeholders, the opposition was characterized by a distinct and well-funded faction. A small subset of Silicon Valley executives and venture capitalists consistently pushed for an unregulated technological frontier.
This tension spilled over into the electoral arena when Bores ran for the open congressional seat vacated by Representative Jerry Nadler. Running firmly on a platform of tech accountability and his record with the RAISE Act, Bores faced an onslaught of outside spending. Leading the Future, a super PAC funded in part by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, deployed more than 7.6 million dollars specifically to defeat him. Conversely, Public First Action countered with twenty million dollars funded by Anthropic to support his candidacy. Despite the massive influx of capital, the cumulative outside spending exceeding forty million dollars culminated in Bores’ primary defeat, laying bare the immense financial asymmetry candidates face when challenging libertarian tech ideologies.
The Divergent Stances of Industry Titans
The national debate surrounding artificial intelligence governance is further complicated by the shifting postures of industry leaders. In May 2023, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman famously appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to welcome government oversight, suggesting that regulatory intervention was necessary to mitigate potential risks. By May 2025, however, Altman had dramatically reversed his position, testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee that mandatory government approval processes for artificial intelligence development would prove disastrous for American competitiveness.
In contrast, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has maintained a relatively consistent pro-regulation stance, even as funding linked to his company intersected with chaotic political spending. This dichotomy between public appeals for safety and aggressive lobbying against specific state and federal mandates has left lawmakers and voters navigating a complex gray area. According to Bores, while technology executives frequently arrive at similar conclusions regarding the transformative nature of AI, a narrow cohort of mega-donors—specifically naming Republican financiers like Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk—consistently deploy vast resources to neutralize regulatory frameworks.
The erosion of the original RAISE Act in New York exemplifies this dynamic. Although the legislation successfully crossed the finish line, intense lobbying pressure stripped away critical provisions, including mandatory third-party audits and comprehensive whistleblower protections, before the final vote. Despite these concessions, Bores maintains that the law remains a vital regulatory baseline, though he anticipates that states like Illinois and Massachusetts will soon surpass New York’s legislative benchmarks.
Data, Public Sentiment, and the Washington Paradigm
The disconnect between public sentiment and legislative action regarding artificial intelligence mirrors longstanding policy gridlock on other major domestic issues, such as firearm regulation. Historical polling data from Gallup and the Pew Research Center consistently demonstrates that broad majorities of Americans—frequently ranging between fifty-six and ninety percent depending on the specific measure—support common-sense restrictions and background checks. Yet, legislative action at the federal level remains rare, a phenomenon routinely attributed to the lobbying influence of well-funded minorities overpowering a diffuse public majority.
A similar trajectory characterizes the public discourse surrounding artificial intelligence. Bores points to data indicating that roughly eighty percent of Americans across the political spectrum desire increased oversight of artificial intelligence technologies. Independent polling reinforces this observation; an Annenberg Public Policy Center survey conducted between February and March of 2026 revealed that sixty–five percent of Americans believe the federal government has done too little to regulate AI. This sentiment transcends traditional partisan divides, capturing majorities among Democrats at seventy-seven percent, independents at seventy-two percent, and Republicans at fifty-three percent.
Despite these clear public indicators, federal policymaking has experienced prolonged inertia, punctuated by sudden shifts in urgency. Outreach and mobilization for advocacy groups intensified following the high-profile resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic, an event that sharply refocused congressional attention on safety protocols. Over the past several years, the political landscape has seen a procession of presidential contenders and federal legislators pivot toward technology safety, creating a receptive environment for new organizing efforts.
The Federal Landscape and Legislative Preemption
As federal lawmakers attempt to draft comprehensive oversight legislation, state-level regulators face renewed threats of preemption. In 2025, Senator Ted Cruz introduced language into a major federal legislative package that would have explicitly barred every state from enforcing any artificial intelligence laws for a decade. Although the provision was ultimately stripped after seventeen Republican governors registered their opposition and the Senate voted 99-to-1 to remove it, the underlying philosophy has not vanished.
Senator Cruz has since co-sponsored a new federal artificial intelligence safety bill alongside Senator Amy Klobuchar and Majority Leader John Thune, focusing on safety testing and incident reporting mechanisms. While political analysts view this bipartisan measure as the most viable candidate for passage in Washington D.C., critics argue that the legislative framework functions as the senator’s previous preemption strategy wrapped in federal packaging. Bores concurs with this assessment, characterizing the federal push as an attempt by certain lawmakers to exploit current policy momentum to dismantle the regulatory authority held by individual states.
Overcoming Fragmentation Within Progressive Advocacy
Beyond confronting external opposition from the technology sector, Bores emphasizes that progressive and pro-regulation coalitions must overcome internal strategic divisions. Historically, political advocates who share common long-term objectives frequently find themselves engaged in tactical disagreements, allowing specialized sub-issues to overshadow broader legislative goals.
Bores cautions against what he describes as a "circular firing squad" among Democrats and reform advocates, where well-intentioned activists inadvertently fracture their influence by debating the relative importance of specific policy nuances rather than confronting unified opposition. Through the establishment of Who Decides, the initiative aims to target eleven critical battleground states by partnering with pre-existing grassroots organizations, fostering a cohesive operational agenda that prevents advocacy fragmentation.
By building a robust financial and operational infrastructure across these battleground states, Bores and his team hope to provide everyday Americans with a definitive voice in shaping the trajectory of the artificial intelligence revolution. As the debate over frontier technology intensifies from state legislatures to Capitol Hill, the success or failure of initiatives like Who Decides may well determine whether public interest or corporate lobbying ultimately dictates the future of artificial intelligence governance in the United States.
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