Beaten by AI industry money

Alex Bores co-wrote New York's RAISE Act and ran for Congress on it. A super PAC backed by OpenAI's Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz spent over $7.6 million against him, and he lost.

“the most expensive House primary of the cycle”

Enter Who Decides

After the loss, Bores and his former chief of staff Anna Myers launched a nonprofit. It has raised $10 million and aims for $30 million total before 2028, to back AI groups Democrats already trust.

“a shared floor of an agenda on things that we all want to see good done”

Even the questions are open

Voters already know where they stand on issues like Medicare. On AI they don't yet, so Bores sees a short window to shape how people think about it.

“even the questions that are being asked are up for grabs”

A wide coalition, a narrow opposition

Passing the RAISE Act took a coalition of 55 organizations, from AI policy groups to people worried about chatbots in schools. The opposition, Bores says, was always the same few players.

“It was a small subset of Silicon Valley that thinks there should be no regulation on AI whatsoever.”

Organizing, not outspending

Who Decides won't try to match the super PACs dollar for dollar. It is working through existing groups in 11 battleground states. Outreach took off after Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic.

Popular but stalled, like guns

Background checks for guns have close to 90% support and Congress still rarely acts. AI looks similar: 65% of Americans say government has done too little, including 53% of Republicans.

Leaders flip, donors don't

Sam Altman asked the Senate to regulate AI in 2023, then called requiring government approval "disastrous" in 2025. Bores says most of the big donors fighting regulation are Republicans like Andreessen and Musk.

A weaker law that still leads

The RAISE Act lost its third-party audits and whistleblower protections before it passed. Bores still calls it the strongest AI safety law in the country, though he expects Illinois and Massachusetts to pass it soon.

“The RAISE Act was, arguably still is, the strongest AI safety bill in the country”

The federal bill that could erase states

The Senate voted 99 to 1 to strip Ted Cruz's 10-year ban on state AI laws. His new bill with Klobuchar and Thune may do the same thing under a federal label, and Bores agrees.

“It's people trying to use this momentum and this crisis to shut down the real power people have to regulate.”

Stop the circular firing squad

Bores says Democrats lose ground by arguing over whose AI issue matters most. The same people oppose nearly every AI reform, so the groups fighting them should work together.

“we should be sitting at the same table”