Bots, AI-created Ads, and Fake Polls

Native Vote 2026

There are people cough-Donald Trump andElon Musk-cough spending a lot of money on attack ads and misinformation designed for social media.

To read more articles by Mark Trahant, go to: Marktrahant.substack.com

Reuters reports:

“Trump, whose approval rating is stuck at the lowest level of his political career, told reporters last week that he planned to allocate $400 million to $500 million to boost Republicans in the midterms.

“The Trump-affiliated Republican political action committee No Going Back ​reserved more than $74 million in ad time this week across 15 different House races as well as Senate races in six battleground states: Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire and ​Ohio, according to political ad research firm AdImpact. More reservations were coming in Friday afternoon, it added.

“The PAC has spent the most money, $15.7 million, locking in ⁠air time in Michigan where Abdul El-Sayed, who is backed by several prominent democratic socialists, pulled ahead of Republican Mike Rogers in the polls last month, AdImpact said. One of the ads it’s airing in ​that market replays excerpts of interviews with El-Sayed in which he questioned whether police needed to carry guns and called for defunding the police. A spokesperson for El-Sayed didn’t immediately return a request for comment.”

And from Axios about Musk’s role:

“In a series of just-launched ads, America PAC goes after Democratic Senate candidates in four competitive races over transgender athletes, gender-transition care and other trans issues.

“The PAC’s emphasis on trans issues is striking because that’s been a much less prominent theme in GOP Senate ads so far this election cycle, per AdImpact, which tracks political advertising.

“The ads, which are running online and on streaming platforms, attack Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Iowa’s Josh Turek, Texas’ James Talarico and Alaska’s Mary Peltola.”

There are also more bots on social media. My piece yesterday about the Supreme Court on mail-in voting, for example, had a response posted seconds after it went online.

“Mail in voting has been exploited to commit voter fraud. That is a fact,” said the bot (eight friends); another with just three followers wrote: “How is ensuring each vote cast is a registered voter chaos?!!!” In general my post had high traffic on social (that algorithm!) and only a slice of those came from regular readers.

Beyond bots, AI is also creating posts that have a “news anchor” reporting some odd fact (true or not). One is a daily “poll” that trumpets a Republican surge going on (trying to flip the narrative on a blue wave). But it’s all made up. None of the polls cited are real. (One of these invented polls predicts that Republicans will expand their majority in the Senate. Good luck with that.)

Generic polls asking about a question about a Republican or Democrat still show about a 9-point lead for the Democrats.

However the candidates who are targets are taking a hit. Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, in New Mexico is all over the map. Polls range from the high teens to 6 points. Peggy Flanagan, White Earth Nation, shows a similar drop. Republicans are touting one poll that shows the race “statistically even.” The Juneau Independent says the same thing about Mary Peltola, Yup’ik.

“One of this fall’s most-watched U.S. Senate races is still a toss up despite Democratic challenger Mary Peltola finishing more than 8% ahead of two-term Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, according to results of a survey released Wednesday.

“The Alaska Survey Research poll of 1,495 likely voters shows Peltola prevailing in a ranked choice tally 50.6% to 49.4 for Sullivan. The margin of error is 3%, meaning the race is statistically tied, according to the poll results.”

Here is the counter to all of that. Polls don’t vote. This is not just an election about how people perceive the candidates, it’s a referendum on the government in place. And Trump remains historically unpopular.

From The New York Times:

“President Trump’s lingering unpopularity and intense frustration over his management of cost-of-living issues, in particular, have deepened Republican vulnerabilities as Democrats push to win control of both the House and Senate.

“Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by close to 9 percentage points in their congressional district — a metric that is closely watched by both parties as a leading indicator of political momentum.

“Mr. Trump’s approval rating continued to languish at 38 percent among likely voters, essentially unchanged from the lows it sank to after he went to war with Iran. A majority of voters disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of every major issue included in the poll: the economy, immigration, tariffs, the war and, especially, the cost of living.”

In a couple of weeks there will be ballots in people’s hands across the country. One of the metrics that will be fascinating to watch will be First Day Voters (voting on the first possible day you can) and all Early Voters (casting ballots before Election Day.) In the last midterm, just under half of all those who voted (47 percent), voted early. I bet that number climbs this time around.

We know that turnout will be a huge factor in these midterms. And the data from the primary races across the country, show that interest is high. There is also a solid organization in place.

One number from the August primary in Minnesota blew me away: The urban vote. Statewide Minnesotans turned out in record numbers, more than a million ballots cast, setting a new all-time state record of a roughly 25 percent turnout of eligible voters. In Minneapolis that number was 41.6 percent.

That was why Flanagan won the primary by such a large margin.

Across the country, Haaland and Peltola also beat expectations. Haaland crushed her opponent with 72 percent of the vote. Peltola won by 8 points in her primary (and open primary, at that) passing the magic mark of 50 percent.

So for what it’s worth: I expect that upside to happen again in November.