Experts Warn of Rising Misinformation, Decreased Federal Security Ahead of Midterms

Tech experts warn that the United States faces a growing threat of misinformation and disinformation campaigns ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as both technological tools advance and government safeguards retreat.

A year after the 2024 presidential election, analysts are confronting what many see as an unavoidable reality: technology-aided misinformation has become entrenched in American democratic processes.

“We have had much more volume of misinformation, disinformation grabbing the attention of the electorate,” said Daniel Trielli, an assistant professor of media and democracy at the University of Maryland. “And quickly following through that, we see a professionalization of disinformation.”

While technology has always influenced information flow during elections, the widespread adoption of social media platforms and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence have dramatically elevated both the scale and sophistication of false information campaigns.

The 2024 election saw various techniques deployed to confuse and discourage voters, including bot-generated content, AI-created text messages, and deepfake videos of candidates. Foreign actors, particularly Russia and China, were found to have created AI-generated content promoting conspiracy theories and election fraud narratives.

Russia reportedly hired right-wing influencers to spread Kremlin talking points on TikTok and created hoax bomb threats, while Chinese government operatives targeted down-ballot races with misinformation campaigns.

“The goal of those sorts of attacks is to seek to influence, not only individual electoral processes, but to scale it in a way that makes it much more difficult to detect,” explained Tim Harper, project lead for Elections and Democracy at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Experts distinguish between misinformation – false information shared unintentionally – and disinformation, which involves coordinated efforts to spread lies with specific political objectives.

“All of us are subject to seeing or even sharing misinformation because we might share something that we’re not careful with,” Trielli noted. “Disinformation, however, usually describes a more concerted effort related to propaganda.”

Adam Darrah, vice president of intelligence at cybersecurity platform ZeroFox and former CIA intelligence analyst, emphasized that foreign adversaries exploit existing societal divisions. “They’re very good at finding niche societal fissures in any civilized government,” Darrah said. “They’re like, ‘Okay, let’s have another meeting today about things we can do to just keep Americans at each other’s throats.'”

The challenge extends beyond U.S. borders. Ken Jon Miyachi, founder of deepfake detection tool BitMind, pointed to AI-generated content playing significant roles in elections worldwide, including India, Taiwan, and Indonesia, where one political party used AI to reanimate a deceased dictator for endorsements.

Social media platforms have complicated matters by relaxing their content moderation policies. In 2023, Meta began allowing political advertisements promoting 2020 election denial theories, while X and YouTube reduced their misinformation flagging efforts. Meta further eliminated fact-checking and hate speech policies following Donald Trump’s victory.

The Trump administration has framed efforts to combat misinformation as attempts to suppress conservative speech. During a recent Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Senator Ted Cruz claimed that “the Biden administration used the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency to strong arm social media companies into taking action against speech protected by the First Amendment.”

Since taking office, the Trump administration has significantly reduced resources dedicated to protecting against foreign interference. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is cutting personnel at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, while the White House is downsizing the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The administration has also eliminated funding for the Elections Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and the Election Assistance Commission is proposing modifications to voting guidelines that could create additional barriers to voting.

These changes have eroded trust between state election officials and federal agencies. After Iranian hackers successfully attacked Arizona’s Secretary of State website in June, Secretary Adrian Fontes did not report the incident to CISA, prompting Arizona senators to express concern about the deteriorating relationship.

Harper believes the 2026 midterms may resemble the 2016 election more than 2024, as the current withdrawal of federal resources could embolden bad actors to interfere. “All that is to say we’re seeing that AI-based and boosted mis- and disinformation campaigns may take off in a much more serious way in coming years,” Harper warned.

Miyachi agrees that future attacks will likely be more sophisticated. “Bad actors have understood what works and what doesn’t work,” he said. “It will be much more sophisticated going into the 2026 midterms and then the 2028 election.”

As institutional safeguards diminish, experts say individuals will need to take on greater responsibility for identifying and limiting the spread of false information in our increasingly complex information landscape.