Did Russian Disinformation Change the U.S. Election Outcome?

Russian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election accelerated in the final days of the campaign, culminating in bomb threats in Democratic-leaning areas of key swing states that the FBI said “appear to originate from Russian email domains.”

Given the unprecedented levels of disinformation in the 2024 campaign – primarily from Russia, Iran and China – it’s important to look at what effect, if any, those propaganda efforts had on the outcome.

The answer is a complicated one. Unlike the 2016 campaign, where Russian hacking and disinformation dovetailed with an FBI investigation into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State, disinformation in the 2024 race may have had a subtler effect, more likely to result in reduced enthusiasm for the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris – and new revelations suggest that an Elon Musk-funded super PAC shared that same goal.

Other factors also influenced the outcome, including mainstream media coverage that downplayed President-elect Donald Trump’s significant issues, Harris’ own campaign focus, the peculiar tendency of Americans to blame their presidents for everything, and – given Trump’s significant gains among Latino and Black men – some have said that gender may have played a role in the outcome.

Whatever the reasons, the most notable data point may be that overall U.S. election turnout will likely come in below 2020’s 66% turnout, which was the highest in 60 years. And the reason for that unexpected lack of enthusiasm may well be “all of the above.”

We’ll look at the data to see if the bomb threats and disinformation campaigns had a noticeable effect, along with other issues that may have affected the outcome of election 2024.

Election Bomb Threats: A Look at Two Georgia Counties

Dekalb and Fulton counties in Georgia were two of the bigger targets of bomb hoaxes. Polls were closed for some time while the threats were investigated, but they also stayed open later to compensate. Did the threats have a noticeable effect? Perhaps, but likely not enough to give the state to Harris if events had been otherwise.

Here’s a look at election results in the counties in 2020 and 2024.

President Joe Biden beat Trump in Dekalb in 2020 by a margin of 308,227 to 58,373.

In 2024, Harris won Dekalb by a margin of 299,039 to 62,482.

In Fulton County in 2020, Biden won by 381,144 votes to 137,240.

In 2024, Harris won Fulton 380,013 to 142,912.

With Trump presently leading Georgia by 158,000 votes with 95% of the vote counted, it’s not likely that the bomb threats made a difference in that state.

Perhaps of greater concern is the sharp decline in registered voters in the two counties. Population has been relatively stable between the two counties, adding a combined total of about 8,000 residents between 2020 and 2023, but between 2020 and 2024, voter rolls in the two counties have declined by a combined 96,000 registered voters.

The decline in registered voters is likely due to aggressive Republican efforts to purge voter rolls and limit voting in the state. We asked election officials and voting advocates in the state for comment but haven’t heard back.

Swing States, Falsehoods and Israel

Biden’s economic record has been sound despite dealing with a divided Congress, yet election exit polls showed that nearly 75% of voters were angry or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. Biden himself is deeply unpopular, dissatisfaction that carried over to Harris.

Inflation has been a persistent problem for the Biden Administration, even as much of that has been blamed on corporate greed. Biden managed to get his Inflation Reduction Act passed, which included green climate investments and lower prescription drug prices, but his efforts to curb gas price-gouging was blocked by Republicans.

As we noted at the start of this article, presidents take the blame even for issues that are outside their control, and Trump and the GOP have been particularly good at painting the Administration into a corner with misinformation and falsehoods – including blaming Biden for immigration issues after Trump himself blocked a landmark compromise bill. Helping that spin effort has been Trump surrogate Elon Musk, whose lax moderation at X – formerly known as Twitter – has made it one of the leading vehicles for disinformation efforts.

Russia has no doubt found success spreading disinformation on X and other platforms, as have other groups, including dark money super PACs.

And one place where anti-Harris actors leaned heavily was the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Cyble researchers and others noted heavy efforts in recent days to paint Harris as a strong supporter of Israel who’s unlikely to support a ceasefire. That criticism may have caught on, even though Trump will likely be more pro-Israel – in addition to being less pro-Ukraine in its war with Russia.

That disinformation campaign helps explain this bizarre data point from a Michigan exit poll: “Former President Donald Trump won nearly 4-in-10 Michigan voters who believe the U.S. support for Israel has been ‘too strong.’”

Disinformation campaigns targeting those favoring an end to Israel’s war in Gaza likely gave Trump more votes in targeted swing states than he may have otherwise received. Was it enough to swing the election? The slice of the Michigan electorate delivered to Trump because of that issue would have amounted to about 10% of the overall vote, but some of those voters may have had other reasons to vote for him. But in a battleground state that Trump is currently leading by 1.4% with 97% of the vote counted, it’s a very interesting data point.

We’d also note that third-party votes – which may have cost Clinton the 2016 election – weren’t much of a factor in the 2024 presidential vote, with candidates like Green Party nominee Jill Stein generally getting around 0.5%. Only in razor-thin Wisconsin, where the candidates are currently separated by about 30,000 votes with 99% of the vote counted (and where Harris may also have run into trouble over support for Israel), could third-party protest votes have swung the election. Margins are bigger than the third-party vote in other swing states.

However, third-party votes likely affected some close down-ballot races, most notably Democratic Senator Bob Casey (image below).

The Machinery of Disinformation and Russian Influence

Disinformation, then, by itself may not have swung the election, but the issue of the effect of disinformation surrounding support for Israel deserves further study, as well as information that targeted voters in other swing states. As part of the larger machinery of disinformation – campaign distortions, super PACs, social media, politically-aligned media outlets, timid corporate media – disinformation campaigns from foreign actors like Russia may serve as a well-targeted amplifier.

But according to Antibot4Navalny, an activist research group tracking Russian disinformation campaigns, a definitive study would be a difficult undertaking.

“Impact from disinfo is extremely hard to measure, and it definitely takes time and a dedicated, talented team to come to a compelling conclusion,” the group told The Cyber Express. On the scale of a U.S. national election, “there should be multiple such teams.”

If the United States and other democracies want governments that function on accurate information, they’re going to need to put considerable effort into confronting the problem of disinformation. Studying how Ukraine and others confront the problem would be a good place to start.

Article initially published on November 6-7 2024 and updated on November 15 to reflect new reporting by the Washington Post on the Musk super PAC.