News

Political campaigns spent $187 million promoting AI-generated ads in the 2026 midterms. Did they work?

Poynter · Loreben Tuquero · last updated

Deepfakes and AI-enhanced imagery became commonplace, but campaigns remained wary of voter backlash and the risks of misleading political content

For two election cycles, misinformation and election experts have wondered: Will content generated with artificial intelligence dominate races and mislead voters?

Campaigns and their supporters still use conventional ads to try to influence voters. But there were more AI-generated ads in the 2026 midterms compared with the 2024 election.

View full article

here today, more tomorrow

We’ve launched briefing.center with a focus on the press and media.

And we’ve added Citizen Cartwright, a daily quick-read news summary by veteran Washington journalist Linda Cartwright. We’ve also created a new voting rights knowledge center for Citizen Cartwright subscribers. (You can sign up for a dedicated morning email at citizencartwright.com.)

You can sign up here for full access to press and media and Citizen Cartwright on briefing.center.

You can use briefing.center as the center of your information management, or just one of your tools. We’re happy to discuss your information needs.

Sign up