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This year’s election has the dubious distinction of being the first since the widespread deployment of generative artificial intelligence. 

“We’re in uncharted territory at this point,” a communication researcher, who also happens to be my husband, recently told The New York Times.

A few months ago, everyone was worried about the prospect of deepfakes and other potential uses that might generate plausible, convincing facsimiles of the candidates for malicious ends. Instead, what we’ve seen in 2026—at least here in North Carolina—has been mostly weird, wild, or ham-handed. 

In celebration of spooky season and nearing the end of an election that has lasted approximately 200 years, here are the five most terrifying uses of AI in N.C. this cycle.

5. The fliers circulating on Facebook certainly look like state Supreme Court candidate Sarah Stevens. The smiling woman has a round face and cropped white curls, much like the Republican. Yet, as reporter Carli Brosseau pointed out, other details are subtly off: the shape of her teeth, the way her face bends to her smile, the misshapen lapel. 

This one is less spooky and more just a head-scratcher: Why not just use the real Sarah Stevens?

4. U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley hasn’t spoken to The Assembly since reporter Bryan Anderson asked questions about graphics posted to his social media featuring AI-generated Carolina Hurricanes players. The Republican then took a beat too long when asked to identify his favorite real player before finally landing on Jaccob Slavin.

This example is mostly silly: Did his campaign really not expect Caniacs to notice?

3. The North Carolina Senate Majority Fund got dinged last month for sending attack mailers against Rachel Cook. The issue? There’s no one named Rachel Cook running in the Senate District 34 race.

The committee is supporting Republican Kevin Crutchfield, who is running against April Cook. The ad also doesn’t feature his actual opponent—just an AI-generated image of someone who looks kind of like her.

2. The campaign of Jennifer Balkcom, the late-comer Republican candidate in the 11th Congressional District, took a real quote from Democrat Jamie Ager and turned it into an absolute fever dream of an attack ad. The television spot shows Ager waltzing with Western N.C.’s most fabulous, fabricated drag queens and accuses him of “dancin’ with they/them.” Several real queens have threatened to sue for appropriation of likeness, and Asheville has responded exactly as you might predict with a Big Gay Barn Crawl planned for November 6.

This ad is simply implausible; no self-respecting drag queen would go by a name as pedestrian as Sister Helen Holy.

1. State Sen. Mike Lee’s campaign ran an ad showing contorted images of Democratic challenger Jessica Bichler, who co-owns a Wilmington yoga studio. “Some liberals lean to the left, some stretch all the way to woke,” says the voiceover, “but yoga instructor Jessica Bichler, she’s totally bonkers.” Bichler filed a cease-and-desist—not over the nightmare-inducing imagery, but because the ad’s inaccurate claims about a Quaker group it said supported her. Lee’s campaign removed the Quaker reference, but left the rest. 

This one was funniest for its specific line of outrage: Who gets bent out of shape over Quakers?

Have you seen bizarre, AI-generated campaign materials? Send them to us at scoops@theassemblync.com.

Kate Sheppard is the executive editor of The Assembly Network. She was previously a senior enterprise editor at HuffPost, a reporter at Mother Jones, and taught journalism and innovation at UNC-Chapel Hill.