Update on the Alex Bores campaign

Eric Neyman
Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:51:03 GMT

In October, I wrote a post arguing that donating to Alex Bores's campaign for Congress was among the most cost-effective opportunities that I'd ever encountered.

(A bit of context: Bores is a state legislator in New York who championed the RAISE Act, which was signed into law last December.[1] He's now running for Congress in New York's 12th Congressional district, which runs from about 17th Street to 100th Street in Manhattan. If elected to Congress, I think he'd be a strong champion for AI safety legislation, with a focus on catastrophic and existential risk.)

It's been six months since then, and the election is just two months away (June 23rd), so I thought I'd revisit that post and give an update on my view of how things are going.

How is Alex Bores doing?

When I wrote my post, I expected Bores to talk little about AI during the campaign, just because it wasn't a high-salience issue to voters. But that changed in November, when Leading the Future (the AI accelerationist super PAC) declared Bores their #1 target. Since then, they've spend about $2.5 million on attack ads against him.

LTF's theory of change isn't actually to decrease Bores's chances of winning; rather, it's to make an example out of him. Bores is an underdog, and if he loses, LTF will be able to take credit for his loss in the public eye (even if they aren't counterfactual). The goal is to scare other elected officials into avoiding pro-AI safety policy stances, for fear of also being attacked by LTF.[2] My AI policy friends in D.C. say that the strategy is working.

Ever since LTF starting attacking Bores, he has been talking about AI a lot, and has arguably made it his #1 issue. This has resulted in a substantial amount of positive national news coverage for Bores.

The most common type of coverage is "Here's why AI billionaires are spending millions to stop Alex Bores" (see e.g. New York Times, Wired). But there's also object-level coverage of his AI policies, including this Axios piece and this recent Ezra Klein podcast. This kind of coverage is really unusual for someone who's just running for Congress!

In October, I gave Bores a 20% chance of winning his race. My estimate is now up to 30% (and prediction markets agree).[3] It's mostly been various small updates rather than one large one, but I do think that Leading the Future's attacks on Bores have raised, not lowered, his chances of winning, by giving him favorable press coverage.[4] However, Bores remains an underdog: the Democratic establishment (including outgoing congressman Jerry Nadler) is mostly behind Micah Lasher, and Michael Bloomberg said that he'll spend $5 million in support of Lasher.

I have also come to think that the benefits of Bores winning his race are even greater than I suggested in my initial post. This is for three main reasons:

1. I've heard from some of my AI policy friends in D.C. that members of Congress are being advised not to take pro-AI safety positions, for fear of being attacked by Leading the Future. If Bores wins his race, LTF will look much more like a paper tiger, and I think that those legislators will be somewhat more willing to do stake out pro-safety positions.[5]

2. I think that Bores would likely be seen as a leader and expert on the issue by his Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives, to a greater extent than I initially expected. This is specifically because Bores has made AI safety a top issue in his campaign, and because of the media coverage surrounding LTF's attacks on Bores. I think that Bores would have substantial influence on House Democrats' AI policy priorities, even during his first term.

3. Bores's increased prominence increases the likelihood that he'll hold higher office in the future.

How to help

Donations continue to be very helpful. You can donate $3,500[6] at this link (but please be mindful of the potential career capital costs of donating). I estimate that a $3,500 donation nets about five votes[7] for Bores. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the election is looking quite close, and it wouldn't be that surprising if the election is decided by fewer than a thousand votes. Overall, I estimate that a marginal $3,500 donation increases Bores's chances of winning by a little over 0.01%.[8] In my view, donations to Bores's campaign are substantially more cost-effective than any other currently-available donation opportunity to make AI go well.

Alternatively, you can volunteer in a couple different ways.

The Bores campaign has a "get involved" form; I think the campaign is likely to direct you to activities such as phone banking (calling voters who live in the district) or, if you live in New York, canvassing (either door knocking or talking to voters on street corners). My (pretty uninformed) guess is that these kinds of activities will would yield a net vote to Bores per 5-10 hours spent. (And so if you're choosing between donating and this kind of volunteering, I recommend volunteering if you value your time at less than $100/hour.)

The other way to volunteer your time is to talk to voters in the district who you already know, or to encourage your friends to do this. It's much easier to persuade someone who you already know than to persuade a stranger, so this will generally be a more effective way to spend your time (it might yield one vote per hour or so). If you're interested in learning how to do this well, fill out this form, and I (or someone else) will probably reach out to you around soon with instructions/suggestions.

If you're interested in organizing people to do this kind of outreach, you can fill out this form and I (or someone else) might reach out to you soon!

A quick note about other opportunities

I've spent the last few months assessing the cost-effectiveness of a variety of donation opportunities, particularly political ones. I think the next-best currently-existing donation opportunity continues to be the Scott Wiener campaign.[9] If you're interested in more detailed political donation recommendations, you can fill out this form. I might get back to you, but no promises!

1. ^

The final version of the RAISE Act is different than the version that Zvi covered in his post; see here for the final version.

2. ^

This strategy is modeled after the pro-cryptocurrency super PAC Fairshake, which successfully made an example out of Katie Porter in her Senate run in 2024, scaring Congress into opposing crypto regulation.

3. ^

Although my probabilities are more like Lasher 55%, Bores 30%, Schlossberg 15% (whereas the markets say Lasher 45%, Bores 30%, Schlossberg 25%).

4. ^

Does this mean that LTF has made a strategic error? Not necessarily; I'm agnostic on this. LTF's strategy is to take credit for Bores's probably loss in order to cow other legislators, not to decrease his chances of winning.

5. ^

I don't think that they would be correct to update on LTF's strength based on the outcome of this race. But in practice, I think they will take away a very different lesson if he wins by 1% than if he loses by 1%.

6. ^

You can donate up to $7,000. However, the second half of that cannot be used by Bores until the general election (which won't be competitive). Before March 31st, the second $3,500 was valuable for signaling campaign strength (it's easier for campaigns to get endorsements if they demonstrate that they can fundraise well). But now that the quarterly reporting deadline has passed, there will be no more fundraising reports before the primary election, so the second $3,500 doesn't carry much signaling value.

7. ^

This is lower than my original estimate in this post, where I suggested that a marginal $3,500 would net about 12 extra votes for Bores (before taking into account the effects from signaling campaign strength). That's primarily because Bores has raised somewhat more than I expected, and because the amount of money being spent on this race by outside groups is substantially higher than I expected (so we're further into diminishing returns territory).

8. ^

This is slightly larger than the estimate in my original post. That's because my original estimate put some probability on the race ending up not being close, but the race has continued to look close.

9. ^

Because of California's top-two primary system, I recommend a $7,000 donation to Wiener, rather than just $3,500.

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