US Weakens Foreign Influence Tracking Ahead of Midterms

"Election security is national security, and protecting our critical infrastructure remains a top priority for the Trump Administration, DHS, and CISA," a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency spokesperson told reporters — a public assurance that several current and former officials say sits alongside a diminishing set of federal relationships that once helped detect and frustrate foreign influence campaigns.

CISA, DHS and the shifting federal posture

The CISA spokesperson reiterated that the agency "works closely with intelligence and law enforcement partners to monitor threats to U.S. critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure," and that it will "activate an Incident Coordination Group" before and during Election Day to share information and coordinate response. The spokesperson also said CISA is "committed to supporting state and local election officials to protect election infrastructure and safeguard our democracy."

Yet multiple current and former officials told Nextgov/FCW that, in practice, state election officials are receiving fewer election-specific federal briefings than in past cycles. One current U.S. official described less public emphasis on election security across CISA and DHS than in prior cycles, with greater attention directed toward other critical infrastructure areas such as water systems.

Programs closed or disbanded: FBI, State, CISA work and ODNI center

Officials and analysts interviewed for this report point to a string of program closures and reorganizations that have thinned institutional connections. The Trump administration shuttered CISA work focused on election disinformation, disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, and closed the State Department’s office for countering foreign information threats — moves the source characterizes as taken largely "on censorship grounds." The ODNI Foreign Malign Influence Center "also faced a similar fate last August under then-director Tulsi Gabbard."

Those changes followed a period during the Biden administration when GOP litigation over federal interactions with social media companies made participants more cautious, according to interviewees — meaning the erosion of routine information-sharing predates the current administration but has continued since.

State election offices and frontline exchanges

State officials described concrete effects. One election nonprofit official said that during November 2024 they received an early-morning text from a colleague in Georgia about bomb threats at voting sites — a warning U.S. officials later concluded may have been tied to Russia — and that being physically in CISA’s election operations room allowed immediate, simple coordination: "Any time you have federal support to help connect the dots, it’s a game-changer," the official said. That same official said they have not been invited to a CISA elections operations room for the coming midterms.

Two state election officials told Nextgov/FCW they are getting fewer election-specific federal briefings than in prior cycles. One said they still attend CISA calls about software vulnerabilities but that such discussions offer "little information that is specific to elections." Both officials described internal preparations they have made — backups and contingency plans — while noting that threats such as misleading voting information and threats to election workers are the focus of their communications teams and law enforcement referrals.

Artificial intelligence: a multiplier for foreign influence actors

Interviewees described AI as materially lowering the cost and expertise required to run influence operations. Snehal Antani, CEO and co‑founder of Horizon3.ai, said, "AI has dramatically reduced the skills required and dramatically accelerated the speed at which this cycle can be executed." He and others noted agents can generate posts, test responses, and autonomously adjust campaigns at scale.

A former U.S. official observed that increasingly capable, downloadable open-source models let smaller actors perform work that once required substantial investment. Check Point research released this week was cited for the finding that "Video is one of the easier ways to make a claim feel real," and that as AI-generated political content becomes common, it will be harder for voters to know whether a video is real and easier for real footage to be dismissed as fake.

Officials expect Russia to pursue more overt inflammatory messaging in this cycle and China to pursue more covert, longer-term influence operations, with both increasingly using AI; pro‑Iran outfits have recently leveraged AI especially overtly amid the war that began in late February. A current official cautioned, however, that reach or view counts do not necessarily translate into changed votes.

What this means for state election officials, technology companies, and defense analysts

• State election officials: Expect to rely more on internal procedures and state-level fusion center coordination for immediate, operational responses. Several officials said they are attending fewer federal election briefings and are focusing response resources on voter-facing misinformation and threats to personnel.
• Technology companies: Routine exchanges with government and researchers have declined, according to Bret Schafer of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who said "civil society is out on both sides" and that he had gone at least two years without an information-sharing conversation with a relevant tech company. Platforms face pressure to detect AI-generated content even as communications with federal partners have cooled.
• Defense analysts and intelligence teams: Some expertise persists inside defense and intelligence organizations — the Defense Department recently directed Cyber Command and military intelligence to prioritize foreign election threats and coordinate with DHS — but analysts note that closed offices and personnel departures have fragmented the human networks that once made cross-sector collaboration routine.

Voices across the reporting stressed a pragmatic role for government: explain provenance, expose AI‑generated fabrications and "fight bad speech with good speech," as former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff put it at a national‑security law conference. The central question left by these developments is procedural: with fewer formal programs and thinner relationships, how will federal, state and private actors sustain the rapid, cross‑cutting "connect the dots" exchanges that officials say are decisive when a flurry of disinformation or threats appears on the eve of an election?

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2026/10/trump-foreign-influence-retreat/416587/