How Russian and Chinese interference could influence the 2024 elections
The US government is preparing for its opponents to step up their efforts to influence American voters next year. Russia has major interests in the presidential elections. China appears ready to back a more aggressive campaign. Other countries, such as Iran, could again try to sow division in the United States.
As Washington looks ahead to the 2024 elections, US intelligence agencies last week released a report on the 2022 midterm elections – a document that gives us some tips about what might come next.
Spy services concluded that Russia favored Trump in 2016. What about in 2024?
Russia appears to be keeping a close eye on the elections as the war in Ukraine will soon enter a third year.
Former President Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican candidate, has expressed skepticism about Ukraine’s financing. President Biden has argued that helping Ukraine is in America’s interest.
While there is still bipartisan support for Ukraine, Russia is focused on weakening Democrats to prevent the United States from providing more aid in the coming years.
The intelligence report shows that Russia tried to denigrate Democrats in 2022, including by amplifying allegations of corruption by Mr. Biden’s family, largely over his administration’s support for Ukraine.
“Moscow blames the US president for forging a unified Western alliance and for Kiev’s continued pro-Western trajectory,” the report said.
Russia was distracted by its 2022 war, officials said, but the report explains how the fighting was intertwined with its efforts to influence U.S. politics. Russia was considering delaying its withdrawal from the southern Kherson region to avoid “a perceived pre-election victory” for Ukrainian supporters in the United States, according to the report.
Russia eventually announced its withdrawal a day after the election.
With Republican opposition to Ukraine’s financing growing, officials believe Moscow is likely to try to interfere even more in 2024.
Has China learned from Russia?
While Russia has long sought to influence U.S. political debates on divisive issues, China has traditionally taken a more narrow focus, opposing local politicians who take positions on Tibet, Taiwan or other similar issues. US officials say this is about to change.
It is not entirely clear what China will do, or which side it will choose in 2024. But the report suggests that Chinese leaders saw the 2022 election as an opportunity to portray the American model as chaotic.
As President Xi Jinping has tightened his grip on politics and the economy, the ideological differences between the United States and China have widened. This makes Chinese leaders more interested in influence campaigns that widen social divisions in the United States, where Russian operations have long been focused.
It is not yet entirely clear how far the Chinese will go. But US spy agencies appear to know more than they reveal. The report contains one of those frustrating redactions. It announces that China’s leaders have “placed a new focus on” and then blackens the subject of the sentence.
How can artificial intelligence play a role?
China has already started experimenting with artificial intelligence in its influence campaigns. Industry experts say new technologies will make it easier for foreign countries to emulate native English speakers and generate messages that more quickly reinforce existing divisions.
But government officials are more concerned that artificial intelligence technologies could be used to create hyper-realistic — but fake — videos, the kind of disinformation that can quickly cause damage.
Are countries still trying to hack into local government computer systems?
They are not. This is a bit of good news from the latest intelligence analysis.
The extreme decentralization of the American election system is its greatest defense. Russian hackers also targeted voting systems in 2016. But foreign countries now believe that it is far too difficult to meaningfully influence the vote count by hacking into local government computer networks.
As a result, several foreign powers have redoubled their efforts to otherwise influence the election.
Beyond China and Russia
In addition to China and Russia, the report looks at other countries interested in influencing the US elections.
Cuba, hoping the United States will drop sanctions on its government, tried to influence some congressional and gubernatorial races in 2022, the report found. While details are redacted, the report says officials in Havana focused on Florida politicians because Miami’s Cuban-American community has outsized influence on policy toward Cuba. Iran supported several inauthentic campaigns on Twitter and other social media platforms that sought to boost progressive candidates. Some of those fake accounts also amplified pro-Palestinian sentiment.