Texas Rep. Vikki Goodwin, candidate for Lt. Governor, speaks during the Texas Democratic Convention at the Hilliard Center in Corpus Christi on Friday, June 26, 2026.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaks at the Republican convention Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas.
Julio Cortez/Associated Press
Vikki Goodwin, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, has filed a police report against incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick over AI-generated deepfake videos he posted of Goodwin in September.
Goodwin, the Democratic state representative for District 47, filed a police report with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office Saturday, according to her campaign. In an affidavit accompanying the report, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Goodwin linked to two separate deepfake videos Patrick posted of her on X earlier this month.
Goodwin said in the affidavit that both posts were still public Saturday, but they appeared to have been deleted Sunday. The New York Times described the posts as videos depicting Goodwin talking about her policies with words she never actually said.
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While Texas was the first state to ban political deepfake ads in 2019, the law hasn’t fully barred candidates from using the AI-generated videos to depict their opponents. Senate Bill 751 doesn’t apply to federal elections, and consequently, the race for Senator John Cornyn’s seat has been rife with them.
But the law does apply to state races within 30 days of an election. That led Goodwin to argue in her affidavit that Patrick’s posts, made on Sept. 5 and Sept. 12, violate the law because they fell within 30 days of the start of in-person voting Oct. 19.
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Allen Blakemore, a campaign spokesman for Patrick, defended the videos in a statement to the Chronicle Sunday, calling them an “obvious parody produced to entertain.” Blakemore added that from the viewpoint of Patrick’s campaign, the videos didn’t violate state election code because the posts didn’t fall within 30 days of election day.
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“I have much greater faith in the voters than Ms. Goodwin does,” Blakemore said in his statement. “The video in question is an obvious parody produced to entertain. No reasonable person could view it any other way …Ms. Goodwin’s complaint is simply a page from the failed Democratic playbook: carping and whining when they are financially and morally bankrupt.”
Representatives for Goodwin’s campaign didn’t respond to questions Sunday regarding the 30-day qualification.
“The video appears to be produced with Artificial Intelligence and can be described as a deepfake because it was created with the intent to deceive, and appears to depict a real person performing an action that did not occur in reality,” Goodwin wrote in the affidavit. “I did not personally do or say the things depicted in the video; although the “person” in the video appears to be me, it was not actually me.”
“The Patrick campaign called these deep fake ads obvious parody, but after being forced to read the law, even they agreed and deleted the AI-made ads. Dan Patrick knew he broke the law and wanted to avoid a picture of himself in handcuffs,” Michael Kolenc, a spokesperson for the Goodwin campaign, said in a statement Monday.
SB 751 amended state election code to make it a misdemeanor for a person to create a deepfake video of a candidate within 30 days of an election with the intent to deceive and injure a candidate or influence the result of an election. The bill defined a deepfake video as a video created with AI with the intent to deceive a viewer by depicting a real person doing or saying something they didn’t in reality.
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Deepfakes depicting candidates have become increasingly common in recent years, sparking questions and debate over the potential for them to misinform and deceive voters. But defenders of the deepfake ads say the videos are obviously fake and should be protected under the First Amendment as political satire.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who lost the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, drew social media ire earlier this year over her alleged use of AI in a political ad. Attorney General Ken Paxton has faced criticism as well, most recently from challenger James Talarico, over his use of AI deepfakes in political ads. Paxton in January posted a deepfake video showing Crockett and Cornyn two-stepping with big grins.
A bill proposed in 2025 would have required all political ads that used AI to include a disclosure notice. The bill passed the Texas House but not the Senate.
