On the domestic side, the concerns being raised fall into a few different categories, and who's raising them (and how) varies a lot by political perspective:
Federal-overreach concerns (raised mainly by voting-rights groups, election law academics, and some Democratic officials): A recent policy analysis identified four intertwined worries heading into the 2026 midterms — the dismantling of federal election security infrastructure, a DOJ effort to obtain state voter files, erosion of redistricting norms through mid-decade partisan gerrymandering, and the appointment of election deniers to federal positions. Reporting has also noted that the DOJ has canceled election-integrity training for prosecutors and FBI agents, deleted its guide to prosecuting election offenses, and not replaced the director of its Election Crimes Branch, and that it hasn't set up its usual "command center" to monitor Election Day emergencies like voter intimidation. There's also been public debate over whether armed federal agents could be stationed at polling sites — DHS's own secretary said in testimony that officers would only be sent to a polling place if there's "a specific threat," not for intimidation, though critics remain unconvinced. Toda Peace Institute + 3
The administration's own framing runs the other direction: DHS describes its recent moves — like tying grant funding to state security requirements — as necessary hardening against foreign interference, insider threats, and cyberattacks. The White House has separately released intelligence assessments warning that U.S. adversaries — at minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea — have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure, framing this as justification for tighter federal security requirements. Homeland SecurityWhite House
Domestic political violence: Federal law enforcement bulletins in recent cycles have flagged domestic extremists motivated by election-fraud conspiracy theories as a leading violence risk, targeting candidates, election workers, journalists, and judges — a threat that cuts across the interference/influence divide entirely since it's about intimidation and violence rather than vote manipulation. NBC News
The throughline: unlike the foreign-interference question, where there's a rough bipartisan consensus on categories of threat even if not on scale, the domestic conversation is itself part of the partisan fight — one side sees federal overreach as the primary domestic threat to 2026's elections, the other frames the current federal posture as a security response to fraud and foreign risk. I'd treat any single source on this (including the ones above) as one side of a live argument rather than a neutral tally.
These are countries that are most consistently named by U.S. intelligence and researchers as enemies undermining our elections?
- Russia — GRU cyber operations targeted Democratic Party officials' emails in 2016, and Russia has run recurring disinformation and influence campaigns since. DHS assessed Russian agencies did not access voting tabulation systems, though the GRU exfiltrated large volumes of DNC data. Brennan Center for Justice
- China and Iran — both have been cited in past cycles for influence-operation activity, though there's no evidence they altered the actual 2020 vote count. Brennan Center for Justice
- Brennan Center researchers currently flag all three — China, Iran, and Russia — as poised to attempt to influence the 2026 midterms, aided by access to more sophisticated AI tools. Brennan Center for Justice
An important distinction most reporting draws: "influence" (spreading disinformation, propaganda, social-media manipulation) is different from "interference" (actually tampering with voting/tabulation systems). Bipartisan intelligence assessments have consistently found federal elections have been safe and secure, with no votes altered, deleted, or manipulated. The influence side is the more persistent, harder-to-stop threat; the interference side has proven much harder for adversaries to pull off. Protect Democracy
A current controversy worth flagging: For the first time in nearly a decade, the 2026 intelligence community's annual threat assessment omitted foreign threats to U.S. elections entirely. Former DNI Gabbard told Congress "so far there has been none" regarding foreign threats to the elections this cycle. Critics including the Brennan Center argue this reflects a political choice rather than a change in the threat itself, and note that federal agencies have simultaneously pulled back on funding cybersecurity support and threat-sharing for state election officials. Others in the administration would presumably argue the assessment reflects genuinely reduced risk. That dispute is the omission honest reassessment or politically motivated is itself contested, and I can't adjudicate it for you. Defense One + 2
So: no single "enemy" list commands consensus beyond Russia/China/Iran as the usual suspects for influence operations — and even the current U.S. government's own public position on the scale of the threat is a live political fight right now, not a settled fact.
