Spending on political ads generated or enhanced by AI has passed $187 million in the 2026 US election cycle, across 289 unique ads, the Wesleyan Media Project said in its 29 October release. CNBC carried the figure on air on 2 November under the headline “Campaigns, political groups spend $187 million on nearly 300 AI generated ads this cycle”.
The project’s 15 October release counted more than $137 million on 220 ads, so its tally rose by about $50 million and 69 ads between the two releases, by our arithmetic. Public Citizen’s state tracker lists no enacted election deepfake law in Iowa, one of 16 states with none, by our count.
US states by status in Public Citizen’s ‘Tracker: State Legislation on Deepfakes in Elections’, read 2 November 2026. Grouping and counts are our count of the tracker’s table; the District of Columbia is not counted. Chart: FourWeekMBA.
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The key insight: By our arithmetic from the Wesleyan Media Project’s last two releases, its tally of spending on AI-made political ads rose by about $50 million and 69 ads in two weeks, to more than $187 million on 289 ads, while Public Citizen’s tracker lists no enacted election deepfake law in 16 states, by our count.
The project says it counts an ad when it “either explicitly states in a disclaimer that it uses AI, has been reported by news media and/or by AdImpact to include AI-generated or AI-enhanced content, or has been flagged by our coding staff as likely to be incorporating AI and been confirmed by our team”. It adds: “We rely on AdImpact estimated spending for each ad identified”.
The project calls its figure “almost surely lower than the actual level of spending”, because many ads carry no disclaimer and some AI use is hard to spot by eye. Its spending figures are AdImpact estimates; the release gives no figure for what the ads cost to make.
The tally has grown at each release: at least $19.7 million on 33 ads on 28 May, a 4 September release titled “At Least $80 Million Spent on AI Ads This Cycle”, more than $137 million on 220 ads on 15 October and more than $187 million on 289 ads on 29 October. For the whole 2024 cycle, the project said it identified less than $50,000.
Cumulative spending on political ads generated or enhanced by AI in the 2026 US cycle at each Wesleyan Media Project release (AdImpact estimates; a minimum by the project’s own account): $19.7 million on 33 ads (28 May), a release titled ‘At Least $80 Million’ (4 September), $137 million on 220 ads (15 October) and $187 million on 289 ads (29 October). Changes are our arithmetic.
The Numbers in Context
Divided across 289 ads, $187 million is about $650,000 per tracked ad, by our arithmetic, up from about $620,000 per ad at the 15 October count. Both are averages of AdImpact estimates and say nothing about any single ad.
The same 29 October release puts ad spending in House, Senate and governor races at more than $7.1 billion for the cycle to date, with $1.4 billion in the two weeks from 12 to 25 October. The tracked AI-ad figure equals about 2.6% of the $7.1 billion, by our arithmetic; the release does not say whether the two figures cover exactly the same races.
Who Sponsored the Ads
The release breaks the tally down by sponsor. “Just over 90 percent of that spending ($169 million) has come from Republican candidates, a Republican party committee or a Republican-leaning group”, it says. “Eighty-two percent of the individual ads were sponsored by a Republican entity, with 13 percent coming from Democrats”; the remainder came from independent candidates or groups.
At the 15 October count, the project put the shares at 81 percent of ads from Republican candidates or groups, 12 percent from Democrats and 88 percent of spending from Republican-affiliated sponsors. It said 27 percent of the ads it had tracked by then contained a disclaimer, and that they had appeared in 34 states.
What the States Require
Public Citizen’s tracker lists state bills to regulate deepfakes in elections and their status. By our count of its table when we read it on 2 November, 31 states have at least one bill marked enacted and not marked struck down or sunset. Illinois’s deepfake provision is listed as integrated into an elections omnibus in May 2026, Hawaii’s 2024 law is marked struck down and Massachusetts’s is marked as sunset in February 2025.
The other 16 states have no bill marked enacted: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming. In Iowa, the tracker lists HF 2609 as passed by the House in March 2026 and failed in April, and four other bills as failed in April 2026.
Iowa’s US Senate race drew $65 million in ad spending from 12 to 25 October, up from $42 million in the two weeks before, according to the Wesleyan release. The release does not break the AI-ad tally down by state or race. In its 28 May release, the project’s co-director Michael Franz said its analysis “most certainly understates the amount of spending on ads generated or enhanced through the use of AI because the federal government and many states do not require the labeling of AI use”.
As we read it, the business lever is production: the tracked spending is AdImpact’s estimate of ad spending on ads made with AI tools, so the tally measures how far AI-made creative has reached paid political media, not what AI tools earned.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the $187 million is a floor rather than an estimate of the total: the project counts only ads it can identify as AI-made, through disclaimers, media and AdImpact reports or its own coders, and says many ads carry no disclaimer.
As we read the two sources together, they measure different things: the Wesleyan tally counts ads and AdImpact spending estimates, while Public Citizen’s tracker lists state bills and their status; neither links a given ad to a given state’s law.
Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director, Wesleyan Media Project, 15 October 2026
“AI is making its way into the 2026 midterms in a big way this year”
Three Implications
FOR THE TALLY More than $187 million on 289 ads at 29 October, up from at least $19.7 million on 33 ads on 28 May, per the project’s releases; about $650,000 per tracked ad, by our arithmetic.
FOR SPONSORS The 29 October release says just over 90 percent of the spending, $169 million, came from Republican candidates, committees or Republican-leaning groups, and 13 percent of the ads from Democrats.
FOR THE STATES By our count of Public Citizen’s tracker, 31 states list an enacted election deepfake law not marked struck down or sunset, and 16 list none, Iowa among them.
The framework reads: “The supercycle has a ceiling now, and the ceiling is political.”
As we read it, AI-made campaign ads and state deepfake bills are two places where that political layer shows up in this election: one in ad spending, one in statute books. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss these ads or the 2026 elections.
The documents we read do not list the 289 ads, give their production costs or break the AI tally down by state or race, so we cannot say whether any AI-made ad aired in Iowa. The Wesleyan figures are minimums by the project’s own account. The state counts are our count of Public Citizen’s table, which covers election deepfake bills; the laws it lists differ in what they require, and the tracker shows no update date.
We could not confirm from a state source whether Illinois’s omnibus is law. The changes, averages and the 2.6% share are our arithmetic. We read the CNBC segment’s title and description only. We did not contact the project, Public Citizen or any campaign.
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Spending on political ads generated or enhanced by AI has passed $187 million across 289 ads in the 2026 cycle, the Wesleyan Media Project said on 29 October, up from more than $137 million on 220 ads two weeks earlier. Public Citizen’s tracker lists no enacted election deepfake law in 16 states, Iowa among them.
A note on sourcing. AI-ad figures are from the Wesleyan Media Project’s releases of 28 May, 15 October and 29 October 2026, which rely on AdImpact spending estimates and which the project says undercount AI use; the 4 September figure is that release’s title. State counts are our count of Public Citizen’s election deepfake tracker as read on 2 November 2026. Changes, averages and shares are our arithmetic. We did not contact the project, Public Citizen or any campaign.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
