The 2026 elections are witnessing the widespread, unregulated deployment of AI-generated clips and images in campaign advertisements, a practice that blurs the line between truth and fiction to manipulate public consciousness. This technological advancement, largely unchecked by state regulation, allows political factions to place opponents in fictitious and compromising situations, serving to obscure material realities and maintain the existing distribution of power.
Campaigns across the political spectrum have embraced this tactic. Axios reported attack ads featuring AI deepfakes have become common, with one President Trump-aligned group, Citizens for Sanity, targeting Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico. This ad depicted Talarico in a dress singing an abridged version of "Favorite Things" about transgender children, a clear fabrication designed to discredit.
Talarico has been a frequent target. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) used AI 3 months ago to create a video of Talarico reciting past social media posts; while the posts were real, his depiction reading them was not. The Texas Senate race itself has been a hotbed of AI use, with Republicans John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, alongside Democrat Jasmine Crockett, employing the technology to varying extents in their primaries.
The exploitation of AI extends beyond Texas. In Kentucky's 4th district GOP primary, both sides utilized AI extensively. One ad featured deepfakes of Rep. Thomas Massie dining, checking into a hotel, and holding hands with Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, creating a fabricated "throuple" scenario. Pro-Massie spots countered with AI depictions of an elephant with Trump-like hair and a MAGA cap, and Massie's challenger, Ed Gallrein, abandoning Trump in a foxhole.
Georgia's gubernatorial race also saw significant AI manipulation. Candidate Brad Raffensperger used AI in multiple ads to portray his GOP primary opponents wildly shooting guns in the air and fighting with pugil sticks. Another Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Burt Jones, released an entirely AI-generated ad depicting his GOP primary runoff opponent Rick Jackson shoveling money into a furnace and inflating a hot air balloon with his breath, all designed to cast opponents in a negative, fabricated light.
The use of AI is not confined to one political faction. In Texas, Democrat Jasmine Crockett used AI to inflate crowd sizes in one of her ads and posted an AI video of herself, Trump, and others as babies. In New York City, Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo deployed AI in his mayoral election campaign, portraying himself performing various jobs, including subway conductor, stockbroker, stagehand, and window washer, to project a manufactured image of versatility.
Even specific corporate interests are being woven into AI-generated narratives. In Maryland's 5th congressional district, a new ad from Democrat Harry Dunn included a brief shot of AI-generated men in suits reading "Crypto" and "AIPAC" tossing golden basketballs into a carnival free-throw game, implicitly linking opponents or issues to specific financial and lobbying groups through manufactured imagery.
The State's Inaction and Capital's Advantage
The current economic order benefits from this unregulated environment. The state, through its inaction, permits the proliferation of these tools, which are primarily accessible and deployable by well-funded campaigns and political action committees. This lack of oversight ensures that those with accumulated wealth can further influence the political landscape without accountability for the veracity of their claims.
Liberal Reform Offers No Structural Change
The mainstream political response to this crisis of manufactured reality remains confined to reformist proposals. Democrats have stated their intent to mandate disclosure of AI use if they retake control of Congress in November. This proposed reform, however, addresses only a symptom—the lack of disclosure—rather than the structural conditions that enable the widespread deployment of sophisticated, deceptive technology to manipulate the electorate. It does not challenge the underlying power dynamics that allow capital to shape political discourse through technological means, nor does it prevent the creation and dissemination of deepfakes themselves. Such measures serve as symbolic concessions, extending the life of a system that permits the systematic underpayment of labor and the privatization of collective resources, while offering no lasting solution to the erosion of truth in the public sphere.