With less than three weeks remaining before the U.S. midterm elections, evidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign actors are intensifying their efforts to influence American voters through social media campaigns. An independent digital threat monitoring firm has identified a Russian-backed operation, known as Doppelgänger, which is amplifying divisions in the United States by focusing heavily on issues related to Israel’s political support.
Doppelgänger, managed by Russia’s Social Design Agency—a public relations firm subject to sanctions from both the U.S. government and the European Union—has generated a large volume of social media posts suggesting bipartisan support for Israel is weakening. The campaign employs more than 50 fake personas, many posing as Israeli women, to post content in coordinated waves, starting on October 7, the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. These posts are subsequently disseminated into high-traffic conversations by a network exceeding 1,000 accounts, producing an estimated 150,000 messages in total.
Despite the low engagement metrics on individual posts, the overall volume and the strategic placement of replies under widely viewed content indicate the campaign is reaching a sizable audience. Analysts emphasize that these operations aim to sow distrust and amplify polarization rather than direct electoral interference. “It is really hard to hack someone; it is really easy to lie online,” said Lisa Kaplan, founder of Alethea, the company tracking Doppelgänger. She added that adversarial governments would not persist with these campaigns if they did not believe them effective in eroding public trust.
The social media platform X recently announced the removal of 13,000 accounts tied to influence operations attributed to Russia, Iran, and China. These accounts were found to amplify divisive political content targeting U.S. candidates and public figures across the political spectrum.
U.S. intelligence officials attempted to provide classified briefings to state election officials on potential threats ahead of the midterms, but technical challenges delayed the sessions. Officials expressed hope these briefings would be rescheduled, noting they typically focus on contextual information rather than actionable intelligence.
Russian influence campaigns targeting U.S. voters are not new. Intelligence assessments in recent months have confirmed Kremlin approval of digital disinformation efforts designed to exacerbate domestic divisions, although no evidence has emerged suggesting interference with voting infrastructure. The current Doppelgänger operation appears aligned with longstanding Kremlin objectives, including undermining Democratic candidates, who are generally more sympathetic to Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Additional Russian-backed campaigns have circulated baseless corruption allegations against specific Democratic Senate candidates, including Senators Cory Booker and John Hickenlooper. One linked effort, dubbed Operation Overload or Matryoshka, uses artificial intelligence to generate fabricated content and often impersonates legitimate news organizations. In October, these campaigns also promoted conspiracies accusing Democrats of involvement in an attempted hijacking of a FlyDubai flight to Tel Aviv, while another operation highlighted a deal between former President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin concerning Russian diesel fuel.
Experts note these efforts appear to disproportionately target Democratic candidates, reflecting Russian preferences observed in previous election cycles. Analysts continue to monitor the evolving tactics, which increasingly leverage AI and diversified social media platforms amid a general retreat by companies from robust trust and safety enforcement, partly due to political pressures.