Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman told Democrats to get over it after party leaders filed a complaint against him for a series of AI campaign ads.
Blakeman said he’d continue to use artificial intelligence ads despite a complaint to the Board of Elections from state Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs that accused the GOP candidate of violating state law by not disclosing the use of the tech in some of the ads.
“Everybody knows it’s AI, and it’s funny — so what’s your problem? Get a life,” Blakeman, who is currently serving as Nassau County executive, said during a campaign stop in Flushing, Queens on Monday.
“I don’t know what [the Democrats’] problem is — they’re trying to cheat — I guess because it’s so effective,” Blakeman said of his ads, which often depict his political foes Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani in outrageous, exaggerated scenarios.
Some of his recent AI ads include videos depicting an AI Hochul appearing to rob a bank, playing poker and gambling taxpayer funds with Mamdani. In another the AI Democrat is offered crack from a dealer she calls a “nice young man,” while she gets a ringing endorsements from illegal migrants, lobbyists, and a drug dealer named “White Boy Rej.”
Jacobs, however, finds nothing about the ads funny, and said Blakeman is “distort[ing] reality” and “misleading” voters into believing Hochul said and did things that she has not, according to the complaint sent to the BOE on Monday.
“The Blakeman campaign has been proud to convert taxpayer dollars into campaign funds and then use those public matching funds to support campaign activities that violate the Election Law,” Jacobs wrote.
“The State Board of Elections cannot permit a campaign to repeatedly flout the Election Law, and it certainly cannot permit that campaign to pull down public matching funds in furtherance of this subversion,” Jacobs wrote.
The chairman also called Blakeman’s stance “very Trumpian.”
“Contrary to his assertion: Democrats CAN take a joke, which is why we are so glad that HE is the Governor’s opponent in this upcoming election,” he said in a statement. “Bruce cannot run on his record and is desperate to distract from his abysmal policy positions which will raise costs and reduce services in our state.”
State law does require that a disclosure is required when political commercials use the tech to “materially deceptive media,” such as events or conversations that never took place.
Many of Blakeman’s AI campaign videos do disclose its usage at the end of the commercial, however, not all of his AI ads have included the disclosure, according to a review of his ads by The Post.
The ads are mainly produced by AI content creator Walter Shub, who said he prompts the tech to concoct political satire meant for for politically conservative and pro-Israel audiences.
He was hired by Blakeman earlier this year after the pol saw an AI post depicting Mamdani with his pants on fire and Hochul with a growing nose, Shub told The Post.
It’s unclear how much the Blakeman campaign has spent on the ads.
