NEW HANOVER COUNTY — New Hanover County’s state senator has been sent a cease and desist letter regarding a recent AI-generated ad and pamphlets mailed to county residents.
Republican Sen. Michael Lee will face off against his Democratic challenger, Jessica Bichler, in this year’s midterm election; the winner will represent District 7, encompassing New Hanover County, in the North Carolina Senate.
Lee’s recent 30-second ad features an AI-generated depiction of Bichler, co-owner of Wilmington Yoga Center, meditating and doing yoga. One illustration shows Bichler in a physically-impossible knot overlaid with text: “You guessed it! AI was definitely used to generate these silly video clips.”
The ad’s overall message is that Bichler’s politics are extreme leftism to the point of being “bonkers.”
It also states Bichler’s campaign is supported by “groups that want to defund the police, let criminals walk free and provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants.” Text accompanying the voiceover denotes the group as the American Friends Service Committee.
Bichler denies receiving financial support or an endorsement from the committee.
Port City Daily asked the committee to confirm its support for Bichler; no response was received by press.
The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker-founded organization established in 1917 to assist World War I civilian victims. In line with the Quaker’s opposition to violence in all forms, the organization’s recent work, per its website, has been geared toward research on abolishing prisons and incarceration and providing humanitarian support to immigrants and Palestinians in Gaza.
Additionally, Lee’s campaign sent out mailers stating Bichler was supported by the committee.
“While it’s disappointing that an elected official would stoop to manufacturing deepfakes and peddling falsehoods, it’s not surprising,” Bichler wrote in a statement to Port City Daily. “This is exactly the kind of deception and lies that people are sick of from career politicians like Michael Lee. It’s time for a change. I’m ready to bring honesty and common sense to Raleigh.”
Lee told Port City Daily his team is reviewing the cease and desist letter now.
“They claim that the American Friends Service Committee online link promoting my opponent’s campaign kick off was an error or typo, so we’re looking into that,” Lee wrote in a text to Port City Daily. “In the meantime, Ms. Bichler is free to deny she supports these issues. However, if she does — the voters deserve to know.”
The connection to the committee appears to have been pulled from the Republican Senate Caucus’s research material on Bichler posted to its website. The document says Bichler “may be associated” with the committee and includes a screenshot of a Google search result appearing to show information on Bichler’s campaign launch party on the committee’s website.
Port City Daily also asked Lee about the use of AI in his ad, though the senator didn’t address it in his response.
Lee’s is not the first North Carolina campaign to use AI in political messaging. In 2024, the political action committee Americans for Prosparody ran an ad against gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson fully generated by AI. The video featured an AI illustration of Robinson making statements he was documented saying online or at camp
North Carolina does not regulate or ban the use of AI in campaign materials, despite recent legislator attempts to do so. In 2025, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced House Bill 934, which would have made it a crime to distribute audio or video of someone “acting in a manner that the person did not actually speak or act.” The bill didn’t make it to the House floor for vote.
House Bill 375, sponsored by Ted Davis Jr. (R-New Hanover), would have introduced harsher penalties for people using AI to generate pornography. It also would have required political candidates and groups to disclose AI use in their ads if published within 90 days of an election. It also never made it out of committee.
As of this year, a majority of the 50 states have passed laws regulating the use of AI in elections. Most of these laws require the disclosure of AI use in campaign materials, though a handful of states, including Minnesota and Maryland, ban deceptive “deepfake” practices.
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