Figures released by the Wesleyan Media Project put total spending on AI-assisted campaign advertising at over $137 million in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, with political campaigns and outside groups accounting for that outlay. Compared with the 2024 election cycle, AI tools are playing a notably larger role in the 2026 midterms, according to one observer in the field.

Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, noted in a news release that spending on AI-generated political ads during the 2024 cycle came in at under $50,000, and that the bulk of current AI-assisted ad production carries no disclaimer of any kind — a pattern the organisation has tracked across 220 political advertisements spanning 34 states in the 2026 cycle.

Pinning down an accurate total remains difficult, partly because identifying AI-generated content in political ads is technically challenging, and partly because mandatory transparency rules cover fewer than half of all states — leaving the reported number likely incomplete. Of the advertisements reviewed by the organisation, only 27% carried a notice telling audiences that the content had been produced using artificial intelligence.

Of the AI-generated advertisements that researchers were able to attribute, roughly four in five traced back to Republican candidates or affiliated groups, which also drove nearly nine-tenths of total spending in that category. Roughly one in eight political ads carried a Democratic party sponsor, a pattern that the Wesleyan Media Project's co-director Travis N. Ridout attributed to the reputational tension those candidates and allied organisations face when deploying a technology they have publicly backed regulating.

A handful of Democratic candidates have woven their rejection of AI-generated political advertising directly into their campaign messaging. A campaign spot for Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico, running on the Democratic ticket, closes with the tagline "Made by humans."

According to a study by researchers, roughly half of the political advertisements they identified as AI-generated contained deepfake portrayals of actual public figures. A recurring tactic in local contests involves drawing associations between down-ballot candidates and well-known national Democratic figures such as Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Blakeman, who is seeking the Republican nomination for New York governor, has turned to AI-generated political advertising at a rate that puts him near the top among candidates statewide. Drawing on figures tracked since April, the campaign is understood to have placed no fewer than 22 advertisements generated through artificial intelligence across various social media platforms.

During that same August, the New York State Democratic Party brought a formal complaint before the state's Board of Elections, contending that Blakeman's campaign had not met disclosure obligations tied to political advertisements that used AI-generated imagery with the intent to deceive audiences. Representatives for Blakeman's operation contended that ads framed as satire fall outside disclosure requirements.

Not all of these algorithmically produced political ads rely on fabricated digital likenesses to deceive voters. Across the political advertising landscape, AI-generated footage has found a place in campaign workflows as a tool for bringing down production expenses.