Progressive challenger Nida Allam narrowly lost a Democratic primary in North Carolina to incumbent Representative Valerie Foushee. The race was notably influenced by heavy outside spending, with pro-artificial intelligence groups investing roughly $1.3 million to support Foushee.
The campaign highlighted divisions on technology and foreign policy, as Allam criticized Foushee's ties to corporate and pro-Israel interests. Despite endorsements from prominent progressives like Bernie Sanders, Allam conceded after the close result, urging supporters to hold the incumbent accountable.
Foushee, now favored to win the general election, pledged in her victory statement to fight for a suite of progressive priorities, including regulating AI and blocking arms sales to Israel.
Main Topics: North Carolina Democratic primary election, outside spending and influence (particularly from AI industry), progressive politics, foreign policy and Israel, campaign dynamics.
Progressive insurgents lost a close North Carolina primary this week, when Rep. Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., narrowly defeated a challenge from Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam in a race inundated with outside spending from the artificial intelligence industry.
The race had come down to just over 1,000 votes and 1 percentage point as of Thursday morning, with Allam nearly catching up to Foushee in the eleventh hour. After initially saying she would request a recount, Allam conceded to Foushee on Wednesday night, writing on social media that the AI lobby had “bought” the race. Pro-AI groups spent roughly $1.3 million backing Foushee, who is now heavily favored to win the November general election in North Carolina’s Democrat-dominated 4th Congressional District.
In a statement sent to The Intercept, Allam urged her own progressive supporters to hold the incumbent’s feet to the fire.
“It should not take being challenged in a primary to take bold stances that voters overwhelmingly support,” said Allam, “but I am proud that our movement pushed our incumbent to better reflect our deeply held values and convictions. It’s up to us as an entire district to demand that our Representative deliver on her promises.”
In a victory statement released Wednesday night, Foushee vowed to fight for a slew of marquee progressive causes. She pledged to fight to “stop Trump’s attacks on our democracy, regulate AI, overturn Citizens United, establish a Green New Deal, ensure Medicare for All, pass legislation to block arms sales to Israel, and lower the cost of groceries, housing, and education.”
Commentators on social media directed frustration over Allam’s loss at key progressive figures Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, both of whom declined to endorse the challenger over the incumbent. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee David Hogg endorsed Allam, as did notable progressive organizations like Justice Democrats, and it’s unclear if input from the New York politicians would have made the difference in the North Carolina race. But with such a tight margin, some argued more forceful rallying from progressive surrogates could have helped Allam.
As the race drew to a close, technology and foreign policy dominated the North Carolina primary. Allam repeatedly criticized Foushee as too cozy with corporate and pro-Israel interests, forcing the incumbent to play defense. These divisions intensified after the United States and Israel attacked Iran over the weekend.
Allam released a political advertisement on Monday criticizing her opponent for benefiting from millions in spending from AI-connected super PACs with ties to the United States and Israel’s attacks on Iran. Jobs and Democracy PAC — a super PAC supported by Anthropic, whose AI model Claude was reportedly deployed in the Trump administration’s strike on Iran — spent over $1.3 million in support of Foushee in the North Carolina primary.
“As election day approaches, you will see nearly $2 million of ads for my opponent, funded by AI-backed super PACs,” Allam said in the ad, “the same AI corporation who powered Trump’s attacks on Iran, while my opponent takes donations from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics.”
But the harsh words weren’t enough to oust Foushee, who also beat Allam by a far larger margin in a 2022 race after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent almost $2.5 million in her favor. While the congresswoman said that she would not accept money from AIPAC this cycle, signaling the megadonors’ unpopularity with Democratic voters, Allam and her supporters continued to hammer home that Foushee was the pick of the pro-Israel foreign policy establishment.
American Priorities, the anti-AIPAC super PAC looking to counter pro-Israel spending in elections, sunk nearly $1 million into supporting Allam, hoping to use her win as an early example of Democratic primary voters shifting allegiances away from supporting Israel. The PAC, which has endorsed several other progressive challengers, including Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, will get another chance to test its theory in the upcoming months with primary candidates in Tennessee, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
Allam further connected Foushee and her AI lobby backers to the war in Iran during an interview with former CNN host Don Lemon on Monday. “What I’m seeing is the same thing that my constituents and folks all across the country are seeing, is that they don’t want their taxpayer dollars being used for another endless war,” said Allam. “And unfortunately, this is what the corporate war machines have been lobbying for and spending millions of dollars in elections and millions of dollars lobbying legislators for this outcome.”
Foushee pushed back against Allam’s characterization of her as a warmonger in the pocket of the AI industry, arguing that she would vote to rein in the administration and regulate the technology.
“I respect our primary system, but I am grateful that my constituents have rejected the baseless attacks from out-of-state groups that my family and I have had to endure,” Foushee wrote Wednesday.
The focus on AI also manifested in more concrete issues at home. The district is the potential site of several new data centers, including one proposed center in the town of Apex in Wake County, despite objections from local residents. A poll from Justice Democrats, the national progressive group that backed Allam, found that 63 percent of district residents believed data centers “hurt their community by raising utility costs and harming the environment.”
Chatham County residents in the 4th District recently rejected a proposal to build a data center in their community, voting for a one-year moratorium on any data centers being built in their community. The district also contains the cities of Durham and Chapel Hill, known as relatively progressive areas defined largely by the presence of major universities.
The county commissioner surged ahead in in-person votes in Wake County, the proposed location of another controversial artificial intelligence data center. But Foushee far outperformed Allam in early votes and mail-in ballots — and ultimately the gap was too far to bridge.
Allam has been critical of developing new data centers. The Durham county commissioner signed onto a pledge led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new data centers. Conversely, Foushee serves as co-chair of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy, which has been widely criticized for its industry ties.
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