ChatGPT faked 16 of 20 midterm candidates — one posed with Epstein

NewsGuard asked ChatGPT Images 2.5 to create compromising images of 10 Democratic and 10 Republican midterm candidates, and the tool complied with 16 of the 20 prompts — 80 percent — including an image of Iowa Senate candidate Ashley Hinson at a party with Jeffrey Epstein, a man she has never met, according to the audit.

OpenAI had said when it launched the image generator on September 8 that protections were in place to prevent exactly this kind of misuse. An OpenAI spokesperson told NewsGuard the company prohibits using its tools to interfere with elections and is monitoring and taking action against users who try.

The audit lands days before the November 3 midterms, and NewsGuard notes that 23 percent of the 30 false claims it has spotted about the 2026 elections since February relied on fabricated images.