The administration's retreat from programs that tracked foreign influence operations has thinned the links among federal agencies, technology companies, researchers and state election offices just as artificial intelligence makes such campaigns cheaper to run, current and former officials and researchers told Nextgov/FCW, which reported the findings Wednesday. With the Nov. 3 midterm elections three weeks away, election offices and companies that may be targeted by influence campaigns have fewer federal channels for early warnings.

What Happened

According to Nextgov/FCW, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) shut its work on election disinformation, the FBI disbanded its Foreign Influence Task Force and the State Department closed its office for countering foreign information threats, largely on censorship grounds. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Foreign Malign Influence Center met a similar fate in August 2025 under then-director Tulsi Gabbard. The publication noted that cooperation had already cooled under the Biden administration, when Republican litigation over federal contacts with social media companies made participants more cautious.

Two state election officials said election-specific federal briefings have become rare or less frequent than in 2024, though one still joins CISA calls on software vulnerabilities. Bret Schafer of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group, said on an American Bar Association conference panel that he had gone at least two years without an information-sharing conversation with a relevant tech company. A former official recalled that preparations for 2020 began about a year before Election Day, with some coordination calls drawing 80 to 100 participants, including private companies. An election nonprofit official who sat in CISA's election operations room in November 2024 said they have not been invited to one for the midterms.

RelatedU.S. Begins Selecting Leaders for Program Enlisting Firms Against Foreign Cybercriminals

How Officials Responded

CISA referred questions about foreign influence to the Justice Department, saying influence operations fall outside its mission. "Election security is national security," a CISA spokesperson said, adding that the agency will activate an Incident Coordination Group before and during Election Day. The Justice Department did not immediately respond, and ODNI did not respond. The administration maintains that federal support continues, pointing to ODNI officials assigned to coordinate election threat intelligence and a directive last month from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for Cyber Command and military intelligence agencies to prioritize foreign election threats and coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security.

TikTok pointed the reporter to a webpage on its midterm preparations. Meta, X, Anthropic and OpenAI did not respond.

Why It Matters

Before the cutbacks, federal agencies acted as a hub, passing warnings between platforms, researchers and the 50 states. Without that hub, each election office and platform has to spot and verify threats on its own. CISA itself is operating with fewer people; it has lost about a third of its workforce, The Primary Wire reported this week, citing The Register.

The cost of running influence operations is also falling. Sources told Nextgov/FCW that AI helps operators write messages, find audiences and adjust campaigns, and that open-source models let smaller actors do work that once required major investment. One current official expects Russia to lean on overt inflammatory messaging and China on more covert, long-term efforts, with both using more AI. AI developers have begun disrupting such campaigns themselves: OpenAI reported this month that it took down Russian and Iranian operations built on fake personas. The same current official cautioned that more convincing content does not necessarily change how people vote.

What to Watch

Watch whether CISA's Incident Coordination Group brings states, platforms and researchers into a shared picture around Nov. 3, whether ODNI or the FBI issue public warnings about foreign activity before the vote, and whether platforms restore direct information sharing with outside researchers.