Leading the Future, a pro-AI PAC backed by Palantir-cofounder Joe Lonsdale, hit pro-regulation Democrat Alex Bores with attack ads over Bores' work for Palantir
NEW YORK CITY — Alex Bores had known for a while that a political operation called Leading the Future, funded …
Context & Ripple Effects
Leading the Future had already built a sizable campaign fund to influence the midterms and federal AI policy, with more than $125 million raised in 2025. This attack places that national funding effort in a concrete race involving a candidate who supports AI safeguards and previously worked at Palantir.
The move also lands amid an emerging counterweight: sources had described a planned network of super PACs backing AI-regulation candidates. The contest is therefore not simply over one candidate, but over which political coalition gets to define AI policy's acceptable boundaries.
First-order effects
- Alex Bores must defend both his regulatory position and his Palantir employment record against a well-funded outside campaign.
- Leading the Future turns its pro-AI-policy agenda into direct electoral pressure on a Democrat identified with AI safeguards.
Second-order effects
- Other candidates may face greater scrutiny of prior ties to AI companies as outside groups use those ties to challenge their credibility on regulation.
- A rival pro-regulation PAC network has a clearer incentive to deploy its resources defensively, making AI policy a more explicit organizing issue in targeted races.
Third-order effects
- If repeated across races, AI policy advocacy could become a durable super-PAC battlefield, with candidates pressured to signal alignment either with rapid deployment or stronger safeguards.
- The political influence of AI-linked capital may increasingly shape who writes the rules governing firms with major government and commercial AI ambitions, though electoral spending alone does not determine policy outcomes.
The trend: AI regulation is becoming an electoral power struggle in which well-funded technology-aligned groups seek to influence both policymakers and the terms of the policy debate.