The Virginia lieutenant governor’s race took a bizarre turn on Tuesday after the Republican candidate held a 40-minute debate — with his Democratic opponent played by an AI stand-in.
After State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi refused all his requests for a debate, Republican John Reid held his own event against a fake version of Hashmi, who answered prompts in a robotic voice mimicking the state lawmaker.
“It’s unfortunate that a sitting State Senator is either too afraid of her own record or too calculating to face the voters directly,” Reid said in a statement explaining the “debate.”
“But I will always stand on my own two feet, and in an unscripted format, answer questions from the media and the public. That’s what leadership looks like,” he added.
The event was dubbed, “The Debate That Should Have Happened,” which featured Reid on a podium answering questions while the screen jumped to a still of Hashmi when it was the bot’s turn to answer.
The debate lasted about 40 minutes and focused on issues like minimum wage, electric vehicles and the candidate’s education policy.
Rather than allow the bot to come up with the answers, it was Reid’s team who put together its responses based on Hashmi’s previous public statements on the debate questions, Noah Jennings, Reid’s campaign manager, told The Post.
“We wanted it to be as fair to her as possible and not have this come off as a comedic stunt,” Jennings said, explaining that AI was only used to mimic Hashmi’s voice.
Jennings added that the team came up with the idea after Hashmi refused a proposal to hold 10 debates across Virginia to appeal their position to voters.
Hashmi campaign spokesperson Ava Pitruzzello slammed the one-way debate as a desperate gimmick for Reid, whose campaign has been rocky after his own party and Gov. Glenn Youngkin called on him to quit following accusations that he posted gay porn on social media. Reid has denied the allegations.
“John Reid’s failed use of deepfakes is a desperate move straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook,” Pitruzzello told the Washington Post, referencing the president’s tendency to use AI images on Truth Social.
“While we appreciate that AI Ghazala did share her vision like her commitment to public education and reproductive rights — it’s pretty clear, Reid only cares about shoddy gimmicks and not governing,” she added.
“Maybe he should focus on voters instead of videos. And hasn’t he gotten in enough trouble online already?” Pitzruzzello concluded, taking a jab at the controversy around Reid.
The lieutenant governor is a mostly ceremonial role in Virginia, with one of the position’s few roles being to break ties in the state Senate.
There have been no forums or formal debates for the position, something the held true for the 2021 campaign season.
Recent polls show Reid and Hashmi are neck-and-neck, with the latest Washington Post-Schar School survey putting the Democrat at only 4-percentage points ahead of Reid, well within the margin of error.
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