AI-made midterm ads passed $187 million, Wesleyan counts

Wesleyan’s 29 October count found 289 ads made or enhanced with AI, about 90 per cent of the money from the Republican side, against about $50,000 in 2024.

By Alexandre S. 12 Nov 2026, 06:30 UTC

Political advertisers spent more than $187 million on ads made or enhanced with AI in the run-up to the US midterms of 3 November 2026, the Wesleyan Media Project found. It had counted $137 million in mid-October. Its 29 October release tracks 289 unique ads, Wesleyan says. Democrats sponsored 13 per cent of the ads and Republicans 82 per cent, but the money was more lopsided still: $169 million, just over 90 per cent, came from Republican candidates, committees or allied groups.

PolitiFact put the total in context on Wednesday 11 November, in a piece republished by Poynter. AdImpact expects about $11.6 billion of political advertising across 2025 and 2026, so the AI share is small, even though it is more than 3,000 times the roughly $50,000 spent in 2024. Laws in 31 states now cover deepfakes in political messages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Persuasion is less clear: “AI content isn’t necessarily persuading audiences,” said Cayce Myers of Virginia Tech. Wesleyan calls its own count an undercount, since many ads carry no AI disclaimer.

Most of the tools we rate already draw a line here. In our rights dataset, 59 of 77 tools allow another person’s likeness only with that person’s consent on every plan, 17 have at least one plan whose terms are unclear, and one, Amazon’s ad video generator, bars it. Platform labelling rules are in our AI ad disclosure guide.

Wesleyan counts only AI it can see, through its coders’ own eyes, a news report or the ad’s own disclaimer, so the $187 million is a floor: an ad that hides its AI from all three never enters the total.

AI-made midterm ads passed $187 million, Wesleyan counts

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