By BEN SZALINSKI
Capitol News Illinois
bszalinski@capitolnewsillinois.com
Article Summary
- Republican Darren Bailey’s campaign for governor is embracing images made with artificial intelligence in social media posts.
- The images, which have a cartoon-like look in most cases, often depict Gov. JB Pritzker as various characters.
- Pritzker’s campaign manager Chris Shallow said the governor’s campaign has a policy against using AI in public-facing content.
- Pritzker, Bailey’s running mate Aaron Del Mar, and state lawmakers said they agree there should be more regulations requiring campaigns to disclose when AI is used in advertising.
This story was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Artificial intelligence-generated images and videos are ushering in a new era for political campaigns and Republican Darren Bailey is leading its introduction in Illinois during his second run for governor.
From showing Gov. JB Pritzker wearing a Green Bay Packers cheesehead and Brett Favre jersey, to cartoonish videos portraying the governor lounging on the beach to the Bailey-Del Mar campaign logo displayed in the Chicago sky like the Bat Signal, Bailey’s campaign has made AI-generated images and videos a regular part of its social media content.
Bailey’s running mate, Aaron Del Mar, told Capitol News Illinois that AI content serves a key purpose for their campaign.
“From an algorithm standpoint, when we post something static, it doesn’t have engagement,” Del Mar said. “When you start posting some of these AI images that you’re describing, the engagement goes off the roof. Your accessibility to the algorithms is off the charts.”
Winning the algorithms to reach more viewers on social media is important for Bailey’s campaign, which mostly relies on small-dollar donations and is not expected to raise massive amounts of money. Pritzker, on the other hand, has spent more than $300 million of his own money on his first two races for governor and already put over $25 million into this year’s race.
Creating AI images also saves the campaign money, Del Mar said, adding that they cost less than traditional images created by human graphic designers.
Pritzker’s campaign says it won’t be showing anyone AI images. Campaign manager Chris Shallow told Capitol News Illinois the campaign has an internal policy against it.
“We use AI in the way that I think most modern organizations do,” he said. “Largely its around helping our team work smarter on research, data analysis, there are applications in cybersecurity that we use AI for. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff.”
What Bailey is posting
Misleading imagery isn’t new to politics, and campaigns have long distorted images to negatively portray opponents.
“The distinction I would draw between photoshop and AI is that photoshop is based on a real image,” Shallow said. “What Darren Bailey is doing is creating fictional, completely-generated-by-AI content that is not even remotely based in reality.”
Both Bailey and Del Mar have posted a variety of AI images and videos on their social media pages since winning the March 17 Republican primary. Their use of it is part of a growing national trend in politics, where AI images, including some that are outright false and misleading but designed to look real, are being used in campaigns.
Bailey’s campaign has created several videos portraying Pritzker as various characters. A series of videos shows the governor as a shady billionaire giving tax dollars to the Hyatt hotel, money to a Chicago peacekeeper he stood with for a photograph who was later charged in a violent crime, freeing inmates from electronic monitoring and lounging in the Bahamas with his “offshore trusts.” Another shows Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as babies fighting over a toy, with Del Mar writing in the post: “Constant fighting. Constant dysfunction. Constant failure. Illinois deserves adults in the room.”
“I think those videos are dramatic portrayals of what some people in Illinois feels is happening to our state,” Del Mar said. “We look at those kind of like political cartoons that have been around for well over 100 years. It’s something that catches people’s attention and portrays it in a different light.”
Some images resemble a digitally drawn political cartoon. A May 18 post by Del Mar shows himself, Bailey and Pritzker tugging at the sides of a map for control of Illinois while a May 26 post portrays Pritzker’s belongings being loaded into a moving truck outside the Capitol as Bailey and Del Mar walk in.
While Bailey and Del Mar have fed their online followers a steady diet of AI content, Del Mar said it likely won’t appear in any TV ads or mailers. He said he feels people are more likely to know the content is AI online.
Del Mar also said he doesn’t feel like the campaign has crossed the line with any of its creations.
“I think those lighthearted ones are definitely appropriate,” he said, pointing to an image they posted of their campaign logo as the Bat Signal over the Chicago skyline, designed to imply the campaign has arrived to help the city like Batman. “I don’t think we’ve done anything with malice towards our opponent. Certainly we cut some edges here and there.”
Some images are infographics with a variety of data on taxes, data centers, gas prices and immigration spending, though only one cites a source. They also include different portrayals of Pritzker, depicting him as overweight and smoking or as a king of sorts wearing toilet regalia — an apparent nod to the time Pritzker removed toilets from a home before he became governor to get a tax break.
Aside from the photo of Pritzker in Packers gear, none of the images or videos Bailey or Del Mar have posted appear realistic.
Bailey’s campaign also recently used AI to make a “say no to data centers” campaign button. The post was flagged by Facebook as “AI info,” which irked independent Collin Corbett’s campaign.
“Only a politician like Darren Bailey who will say anything to get elected would post an image generated by AI to claim he’s against data centers,” Corbett said in a social media post.
Corbett’s campaign has only shared one AI image, which was the thumbnail to a Bears podcast he appeared on. A spokesperson for Corbett said in an email that “we don’t oppose AI, but we believe it’s important in campaigns to elevate the work done by real people.”
Pritzker stays traditional
Shallow declined to say how Pritzker’s campaign would respond if Bailey posted more realistic looking false portrayals of the governor or used Pritzker’s voice to say something he never actually said.
Pritzker’s campaign plans to stick with more traditional methods, such as “by using real Illinoisians telling real stories about how the governor has improved their lives,” Shallow said.
“We think it’s more compelling than any AI slop that Darren Bailey’s going to come up with,” he said. “We don’t need to manufacture anything. Darren Bailey, anytime he steps in front of a camera, he does our work for us. We just have to record it.”
Shallow said he’s not worried that Bailey’s AI will have any effect on voters since it’s only being posted on social media and is generally only seen by Bailey and Del Mar’s followers.
Support for regulations
Pritzker told reporters in Decatur in June that he’s not a fan of AI political content and supports regulations on it.
“It’s deteriorating the political environment, if you ask me,” Pritzker said. “So I think that, at a minimum, we should be watermarking any ad, whether it’s online or on television, and it should say this is produced by AI, or something like that, so people know this isn’t real.”
Del Mar said he supports similar requirements.
“I think that a disclaimer would be the easiest and probably most efficient way of doing it because you don’t want to be able to slow down technology,” he said.
Illinois lawmakers are contemplating something similar. A provision in a large election reform package that was filed at the end of the spring session but never advanced called for requiring disclosures on ads that use AI.
Sen. Mary Edly-Allen, D-Libertyville, who filed a standalone version of the bill, said she wants lawmakers to answer a key question: “Do we own our own likeness?” She added: “truth and reality is getting blurred between lies and people can’t discern.”
Under the bill, ads released four months before an election that use AI must have a disclosure on them. That includes written statements on graphic images, 3-second spoken statements before or after AI audio is used, and both written and spoken statements when AI is used in a video. Campaigns would have to provide notice to the State Board of Elections about the ad and could be subject to fines each time an ad is distributed. Media outlets that distribute the ads would not be regulated.
Edly-Allen said she also supports broader legislation that limits campaigns from altering images and not just with AI, such as changing what someone is wearing or the text of a sign they’re holding. As an example, she said that as a former state representative, she rejected a proposed mailer that would’ve attacked her opponent, Republican Chris Bos, and portrayed him wearing a Make America Great Again hat because she did not want to alter his physical appearance. The hat was instead placed alone on the mailer.
“When you take someone’s likeness and alter it to the degree that people are tricked or deceived, that’s the red line for me,” Edly-Allen said.
The requirements of the bill would’ve applied to the 2026 election had it passed and been signed by Pritzker by mid-June. Edly-Allen said she thinks momentum is growing among lawmakers to pass regulations.
“Unfortunately, it’s always after the harms are done that people are like ‘hey, we need to do something,’” she said. “How do we balance our First Amendment right to free speech and this idea that we can be protected as candidates?”
Regardless of how AI is regulated, its explosion in everyday society means it’s likely to remain part of politics.
“It’s a powerful tool that can help campaigns, and I think Democratic campaigns should be thinking about how to incorporate AI tools into their workflow,” Shallow said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
