AI-made ads in the US midterms: $137M, mostly undisclosed
Partly confirmed
The takeaway
A New York Times analysis published Oct 16, 2026 counted 220 AI-generated campaign videos in the 2026 US election cycle, backed by more than $137 million in ad spending, mostly by Republican-aligned candidates and PACs; about 70% did not disclose AI use.
Status
- Claim
Partly confirmed
- Our reporting
- Medium confidence
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 16 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra169 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5108 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon199 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7138 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 108 days before it.
Key facts
- NYT (Oct 16, per the Techmeme summary; article not read directly): $137M+ spent on 220 AI-generated ads in 2026, mostly tied to Republicans; ~70% of the 220 videos did not disclose AI use
- Wesleyan Media Project (reported by AP in late September and Al Jazeera on Oct 9): at least 164 AI-generated or AI-enhanced ads, $80M+ in spending, 80% from Republican candidates and backers
- 31 states have laws requiring labels on AI-made political ads; there is no federal law (Al Jazeera)
- Examples (Al Jazeera): Bruce Blakeman’s New York governor ads showing Zohran Mamdani and Kathy Hochul gardening together, with a brief AI disclaimer; ads depicting Sherrod Brown, James Talarico and Mike Rogers in invented scenes; Scott Wiener withdrew a campaign chatbot that answered ~5,000 questions about his opponent, saying it ‘missed the mark’
- Scott Babwah Brennen (NYU) on ‘slopaganda’: used to ‘communicate deeper truths rather than factual truths’
What happened
Generated video has become an ordinary campaign tool in the 2026 US midterms, mostly for satire and attack ads, not for convincing fakes. The NYT article could not be opened (paywall/blocked fetch); its numbers here come from the Techmeme headline and should be checked against the article. The Wesleyan figures come from Al Jazeera’s report.
Why it matters
It is the first US federal election cycle in which AI-generated ads are counted in the hundreds and backed by nine-figure spending. The share without disclosure suggests that state labelling laws are not working.
Sources
2 sources from 2 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
2 sources: 2 press
Press
- NYT: AI-generated ads in the 2026 midterms (Oct 16, 2026)nytimes.com, press
- Al Jazeera: AI deepfake ads grow more popular in US midterm campaigns, blurring truth (Oct 9)aljazeera.com, press
Changes
- Filed (written from secondary sources because the NYT page could not be fetched)