\n<\/p>\n
Alex Bores was phone banking for his upcoming primary the other day when he reached a particularly disgruntled voter. \u201cAre you the Palantir guy? Absolutely not,\u201d she snapped before hanging up.<\/p>\n
Bores took a deep breath and then tried to appeal to her with a follow-up text. She\u2019d seen the ads<\/a>, of course, attacking him for his prior employment at the company that\u2019s been dominating headlines for its involvement in ICE raids and bombing in the Middle East\u2014ads that were partly funded, in a twist of truly breathtaking hypocrisy, by Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale. (Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, and SV Angel Founder Ron Conway have also given hefty sums to Leading the Future, the Super PAC seeding this narrative.) The part those ads left out? That Bores had resigned from the company in 2019 over his own concerns about its work enabling deportations. \u201cI will do more homework,\u201d the voter promised.<\/p>\n Bores, 35, is a New York assemblymember running in one of this election season\u2019s most intriguing primaries, pitting him against John F. Kennedy\u2019s grandson Jack Schlossberg, Kellyanne\u2019s ex-husband George Conway, and former Jerry Nadler aide Micah Lasher. (Parkland shooting survivor Cam Casky was also in the running before he dropped out to dedicate himself to pro-Palestine activism full-time.) \u201cIs New York\u2019s 12th Congressional District about to experience the hottest primary ever?\u201d reads one Reddit thread<\/a>, alongside photos of the unusually youthful bunch.<\/p>\n While a lot can happen between now and June, early polls<\/a> show Schlossberg and Bores pulling ahead of the pack. I asked if the young Kennedy scion\u2019s history of shirtless selfies, Ripstik riding, and general \u201csilly goose\u201d antics has made him a less intimidating opponent<\/a>. \u201cI mean, look at some other people that have been elected recently,\u201d Bores answered wryly.<\/p>\n Bores thinks he can offer some much-needed tech (policy) support amidst our aging gerontocracy. \u201cI\u2019ll be the second Democrat ever with a degree in computer science. I worked at start-ups. I understand how tech works.\u201d Meanwhile, he\u2019s had to devote no small part of his campaigning hours to playing defense against a multimillion-dollar ad spend from some of the most powerful people in tech. \u201cThey would like nothing more than for me to be spending all of my campaign money texting and emailing right now. So there\u2019s some amount of just taking it on the chin,\u201d he told me in an interview last week.<\/p>\n The AI industry has been running a playbook perfected<\/a> by the crypto industry in 2024: Single-issue, pro-tech super PACs willing to spend staggering amounts to make an example out of a handful of candidates who dare to oppose them. With AI\u2019s approval ratings sinking to all-time lows, these groups know they won\u2019t get far on pro-AI messaging. So they play dirty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n