Four Black residents of Fort Bend County, Texas, appear on screen and say Republican County Judge Daniel Wong got them jobs, food and help with their utility bills. None of it was real. The video was generated by artificial intelligence, and Wong’s campaign posted it on Facebook ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
The Fort Bend County Republican Party shared it too. Viewers in the comments flagged it as fake, and the campaign took it down. One woman reportedly found her own likeness in the video and said she never agreed to the statements attributed to her.
The Houston Chronicle, which reported the video, pointed to the usual signs of generated footage: warped backgrounds and clothing, and the same voice and tone coming from every person on screen. One of the four was presented as a poll worker for Wong.
A Democrat made it, the campaign says
Wong’s campaign did not apologize. It said the video was made by a Democrat and handed to the campaign. “The video that has purportedly stirred ‘outrage’ among Democrats was actually created by a Democrat,” the campaign said in a statement. Communications director Bobby Eberle said: “I talked to the creator of the video today, and he told me that he received consent.” The campaign has not named the creator.
Wong has been interim county judge since April, after his predecessor was removed from office. He is running for a full four-year term against Dexter McCoy, a Democrat who sits on the Fort Bend commissioners court.
McCoy called the video exploitative. “Stealing the faces of ordinary people to fake support from Black voters is racist, vile, and wrong,” he said. He answered with real footage of himself with residents, captioned: “Can you spot the AI? Nah you can’t. This is a real leader making real changes for real people.”
What the script said about Black residents
Some voters objected to more than the fakery. The script has Black residents thanking one politician for jobs, food and utility payments, which voters said treated their communities as dependent on officials for basic help rather than as constituents with policy concerns.
The video is not the first AI-made political content in Texas this cycle: fake attack ads circulated before the March primary. This one used invented Black faces as proof of support, aimed at the voters it claimed to speak for.
Early voting ends Friday. Election Day is Nov. 3.
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