Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway and Kennedy grandson Jack Schlossberg both lost decisively in Tuesday's Democratic primary for New York's 12th Congressional District, falling to state Assemblyman Micah Lasher in a crowded field that became the second-most expensive House primary in American history.
Conway, the anti-Trump lawyer who moved from Bethesda, Maryland to Manhattan and registered as a Democrat just to run, finished fifth with 6.1% of the vote, according to Just The News. Lasher won with 39%, narrowly edging state Rep. Alex Bores, who took 35%.
The result is a fitting end for two candidates who brought celebrity profiles but thin records to a race that Democratic voters treated as a serious policy contest, one dominated, in the end, by a fight over artificial intelligence regulation and tens of millions of dollars in tech-industry spending.
Conway built his entire candidacy around opposition to President Donald Trump. His campaign website centered on removing Trump from office and "defeating Trumpism." But Democratic primary voters in Manhattan had no shortage of anti-Trump options, and they chose candidates who could point to actual legislative records.
Conway's campaign trail was more performance art than politics. In April 2025, he shed tears discussing Trump on a podcast. In August 2025, he posted a video of himself singing a song, on a guitar bearing a "Republican Voters Against Trump" sticker, celebrating the acquittal of a former Justice Department employee who threw a footlong Subway sandwich at a law enforcement agent in Washington, D.C.
The Daily Caller reported the lyrics Conway sang:
"I threw the sandwich, but I did not throw the condiments; I threw the sandwich, but I didn't throw the condiments. All around Washington D.C., they're trying to track me down. They say they want to bring me in guilty for the spilling of some mayonnaise, for wasting all the dijon, but I say, I threw the sandwich, but I swear it had bad provolone I threw the sandwich, and they say it is a capicola offense."
In October 2025, Conway appeared at a "No Kings" rally in Washington wearing a shirt that read "I am Antifa." He then changed his residence from Maryland to Manhattan and registered as a Democrat in January 2026, a sequence that tells you everything about the seriousness of the enterprise.
Emerson College polling taken before the primary found Conway's supporters were largely 60 years and older, while support for Lasher and Bores spanned all age groups. Even within the narrow Democratic electorate of Manhattan's West Side, Conway's brand of cable-news resistance had a limited market.
President Trump celebrated the outcome. AP News reported that Trump called Conway "a Trump Deranged Loser" in a social media post after the results came in.
Jack Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy and grandson of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, entered the race in November 2025 carrying one of the most famous last names in Democratic politics. He secured endorsements from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his mother.
None of it mattered. The broader pattern of Democratic incumbents and establishment favorites falling across New York's primaries extended to legacy names as well.
Schlossberg ran on a platform that included enshrining abortion protections into law, allowing Planned Parenthood to accept Medicaid, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and providing transgender procedures to anyone who sought them. It was a standard progressive wish list, but it wasn't enough to differentiate him in a field where every candidate was running to the left.
The debate stage exposed his vulnerability. Lasher drew a sharp contrast between his own record and Schlossberg's family connections:
"As someone who grew up enormously admiring the legacy of service in your family, Jack, I say this somewhat sheepishly and mournfully, but when we talk about the reasons that each of us are on this stage, I'm on this stage because of nearly two decades in public service."
Schlossberg fired back: "I have made my way here myself. Do not ever invoke my family name to try to denigrate who I am." But the voters sided with Lasher.
Schlossberg's social media habits didn't help. On January 20, 2025, he posted on X: "True or false: Usha Vance is way hotter than Jackie O", a reference to the second lady and his own late grandmother. The post captured a candidate who seemed more interested in provocation than governance.
Behind the celebrity candidates, the substantive contest was between Lasher and Bores, and it was fought largely over artificial intelligence regulation. The total ad spending in the race reached $26.3 million, Fox News reported, making it the second-most expensive House primary on record.
Bores, a former Palantir data scientist, had authored the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, described as one of the nation's strictest AI safety laws. That record made him a target. A Silicon Valley-backed super PAC called "Leading the Future," funded by OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz, spent over $8 million opposing Bores, Fox News reported.
Lasher, meanwhile, drew endorsements from retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler, Governor Kathy Hochul, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Governor David Paterson. Newsmax reported that a Bloomberg-affiliated super PAC put $10 million behind Lasher's candidacy.
Bores framed the loss as a fight between regulation and industry power. In a statement carried by WRAL News, he said:
"This race started with AI megadonors pledging $10 million to stop me because they were afraid after I passed the strongest AI safety law in the country. Since then, everyone who supports AI regulation and safety, from teachers to tech workers, from AI safety advocates to progressive activists, has united to take the other side. This isn't one company versus another, this is one ideology versus another: regulate the powerful and protect people, or don't."
Bores had endorsements from the New York Nurses Association, the United Federation of Teachers, and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, organized labor backing that still wasn't enough to overcome the spending gap.
Lasher accused Bores of being beholden to Big Tech supporters, while Schlossberg argued that Bores' proposed AI regulation was "a dream come true" for tech companies. The attacks came from multiple directions, and Bores absorbed them all in a four-point loss.
The seat Lasher won belonged to Jerry Nadler, who as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee led both impeachment proceedings against Trump and launched broad probes into Trump's campaign, businesses, and administration. Nadler also demanded the full Mueller report be released.
That Nadler endorsed Lasher, a candidate who ran on "fighting back against Trumpism," supporting transgender surgeries for children, and combating climate change, tells you the ideological lane hasn't shifted much. But the broader primary results across New York suggest the Democratic Party's internal fault lines are deepening, not healing.
Lasher now advances to the general election. The 12th District is deep-blue territory, but the Republican nominee will have plenty of material to work with. GOP candidate Caroline Shinkle told Newsmax: "The national press is wrong... My opponent represents the failed status quo and has never held a job outside the public sector."
Whether Shinkle can make that argument stick in a district that has sent Democrats to Congress for decades remains to be seen. But the primary itself revealed something worth watching: even in one of the most liberal districts in America, Democratic voters are sorting themselves by policy substance, not celebrity wattage.
Conway's collapse is the clearest data point. A man who co-founded the Lincoln Project, changed his party registration, moved across state lines, and built an entire public identity around opposing one person, and Democratic voters gave him 6.1%. The anti-Trump brand, it turns out, is not a governing credential. It's not even a competitive one.
Schlossberg's loss carries a different lesson. Name recognition without a record is a depreciating asset. Pelosi's endorsement couldn't substitute for the kind of constituent work and legislative history that Lasher brought to the table.
The broader trend of establishment Democratic figures losing ground in primaries is now unmistakable. Across New York, voters rejected familiar faces in favor of candidates who promised either harder-left policy or more tangible records. The Democratic coalition is fracturing along lines that celebrity and inherited fame cannot paper over.
Meanwhile, $26.3 million flowed into a single House primary, much of it from tech billionaires fighting over the future of AI regulation. The voters of Manhattan's West Side became a proxy battlefield for Silicon Valley's internal disputes. Whether that's democracy or something else is a question worth asking.
Conway moved to Manhattan, registered as a Democrat, wore an Antifa shirt, cried on a podcast, sang about sandwich-throwing, and asked voters to send him to Congress to fight Trump. They sent him home with six percent. Sometimes the electorate gets it right.
