Bores Falls to 23% to Win NY-12 Nom as Polls Show Him at 11%

Alex Bores Just Landed a Major Union Endorsement, So Why Is He Losing Ground in NY-12?

Alex Bores did everything a competitive House primary candidate is supposed to do. The New York State Assemblymember locked down an endorsement from DC 37, the city's largest public-employee union. He secured the backing of former Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who held the seat for three decades. His campaign reported raising $2.2 million through the end of 2025, with $191,020.99 spent in the same period according to FEC filings.

None of it has stopped the bleeding. Bores' implied probability of winning the NY-12 Democratic nomination has fallen from 32% to 23% in just three days across Kalshi and Polymarket. In a normal primary, a union endorsement and seven-figure fundraising haul would push a candidate's price upward. Here, the market is doing the opposite, and the reason is straightforward: Bores polls at just 11% among likely Democratic voters. That 23-percentage-point gap between his March 28 market price of 34% and his actual voter support has now begun to close, with traders repricing him toward what the electorate is actually saying.

Where the NY-12 Democratic Primary Stands Right Now

The race to replace the open NY-12 seat has attracted an unusually deep field of well-known, well-funded candidates. Bores at 23% is no longer positioned as a frontrunner; he's fighting to stay in contention.

Micah Lasher, a state assemblymember from Manhattan's 69th district, has emerged as a formidable rival backed by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's political and financial network. Bloomberg's $5 million commitment, reported by NY1, gives Lasher a structural fundraising advantage that extends far beyond the dollar figure itself. Bloomberg's donor network touches every corner of Manhattan's professional class.

Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy's grandson, brings something money cannot easily buy: instant, district-wide name recognition among older Democratic primary voters who form the backbone of turnout in NY-12. George Conway, the lawyer-turned-activist, adds another competitor drawing media attention and donor dollars.

The probability distribution tells a clear story: Bores is being squeezed from multiple directions simultaneously. Each competitor neutralizes a different one of his strengths. Lasher matches him on institutional support and surpasses him on raw financial firepower. Schlossberg overwhelms him on earned media. Conway competes for the anti-Trump, resistance-driven lane that might otherwise default to a progressive assemblymember.

The Bloomberg Machine and the Kennedy Factor: Why NY-12 Is Suddenly a Tough Race for Alex Bores

To understand why Bores is falling despite doing "the right things," you need to understand what $5 million from Bloomberg actually means in a district like NY-12. This is Manhattan's Upper East Side and surrounding neighborhoods. Bloomberg isn't just a donor here; he's a former three-term mayor whose approval among moderate Democrats in this geography remains high. His backing of Lasher functions as a de facto endorsement from the district's political establishment, converting bundlers, hosting committees, and media consultants into a turnkey operation that rivals what a sitting member of Congress might assemble.

Schlossberg's threat is different in kind. A Yale and Harvard Law graduate, JFK's grandson doesn't need to build name recognition. In a crowded Democratic primary where low-information voters often default to the most familiar name on the ballot, Schlossberg starts with an advantage that no amount of union canvassing can easily overcome. NY-12's Democratic electorate skews older, educated, and nostalgic for Kennedy-era liberalism. That's Schlossberg's core demographic.

Meanwhile, Bores is contending with a hostile outside spending environment. Pro-AI super PACs aligned with Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman have directed over $1 million in attack ads against him, largely in retaliation for his co-sponsorship of New York's RAISE Act, an AI safety bill signed into law in December 2025. That spending is designed to define Bores negatively before he can consolidate his own base, and at 11% in polls, the evidence suggests it may be working.

The Case for Bores: What Would Need to Change

The strongest argument for Bores at 23% is that the primary doesn't resolve until May 1, and crowded fields are inherently volatile. If Schlossberg underperforms in upcoming debates or Conway drops out and his voters redistribute toward Bores, the assemblymember's organized labor ground game could matter more than it does today. DC 37 represents over 150,000 municipal workers, and in a low-turnout primary, union mobilization can outperform poll numbers by several percentage points.

Bores also has a policy profile that distinguishes him. His detailed AI governance plan and the RAISE Act give him a clear ideological lane: the candidate willing to regulate Silicon Valley. In a district where tech skepticism runs deep among progressive voters, that positioning has real value.

But the math is unforgiving. At 11% among likely voters, Bores would need to nearly triple his support in under a month. Union endorsements help on the margins. They do not typically produce 12-to-15-percentage-point swings in a race this crowded. The market's repricing from 34% to 23% reflects a growing consensus that Bores' institutional support is real but insufficient against the combined forces of Bloomberg's money and Kennedy's name. Traders who bought Bores at his March peak are now underwater, and the sell pressure shows no signs of stabilizing.

The resolution date of May 1, 2026, leaves little runway for a reversal. Unless polling shifts dramatically or a frontrunner stumbles, 23% may still overstate Bores' actual chances of winning the Democratic nomination in NY-12.