Deepfakes Are Everywhere, and Many Campaigns Aren't Prepared

Audio and video manipulated by AI could mislead voters and hurt candidates. Many lawmakers’ campaigns have no plans in case they’re targeted.

https://www.notus.org/technology/deepfakes-campaigns

https://archive.ph/ICW37



Deepfakes are getting easier to make and harder to identify. And while lawmakers are worried about the election implications of AI impersonations, many campaigns have no plans in place for how to deal with them. “It’s a deep concern, no pun intended,” Rep. Sarah McBride told NOTUS about deepfakes, which range from digital impersonations that can convincingly imitate someone’s voice to videos depicting someone doing or saying something they did not. “And it’s not only a deep concern in our politics but at large — the technology is incredibly deceiving.”

In a fragmented media ecosystem that makes it harder for many voters to access verified information, political candidates are particularly vulnerable to manipulated media — but few campaigns seem to be taking specific steps to mitigate the risks of digital impersonation. In conversations with over a dozen lawmakers from both parties, members told NOTUS that they don’t have emergency plans or protocol to deal with election-related AI deepfakes.

In the last year, Congress has moved to address harmful uses of deepfakes in nonconsensual porn, but lawmakers have yet to regulate the use of synthetic media — content made or altered with AI — in political campaigns. Rep. Jay Obernolte, a California Republican who has been involved in AI discussion in Congress, told NOTUS that a surge in AI deepfakes around the 2026 midterm elections is “a very real possibility.”

“It’s been a concern for a lot of us,” Obernolte said. “Americans are still not nearly educated enough about the power of generative AI and about the need to question anything that they see on the internet before they determine whether or not this is true.” McBride and Obernolte said that they’re not aware of their campaigns developing a protocol to prevent or mitigate deepfake attacks. The same was true of other lawmakers NOTUS spoke with. But nearly all of them said they’re worried about the implications.

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