Three-quarters of Americans surveyed expressed concerns about foreign governments interfering with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, according to poll results released Thursday.
A survey conducted this month by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a majority of both Republicans and Democrats are at least somewhat concerned about the current White House race coming under attack from abroad.
Seventy-seven percent of people surveyed said they are somewhat, very or extremely concerned about foreign governments interfering in the contest by tampering with either voting systems or election results, according to the results of the AP/NORC poll.
Seventy-six percent of respondents said they are concerned to some degree about foreign governments influencing what Americans think about political candidates, 75% said they are concerned about foreign governments influencing the candidates themselves and 78% said they are concerned about governments stealing information from political candidates or parties.
Broken down by political affiliation, the poll found that roughly nine out of 10 Democrats surveyed said they very or extremely concerned about each type of potential election interference taking place; with respect to Republicans, about six out of 10 said they are at least somewhat concerned.
The results of the poll stem from a nationwide survey of 1,074 adults conducted between Feb. 13-16, less than nine months before voters cast ballots in the 2020 presidential race.
American intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election won by President Trump, whose administration has warned other countries are likely to copy.
“This is not a Russia-only problem,” Shelby Pierson, the election security threats executive for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said last month. “Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, non-state hacktivists all have opportunity, means and potentially motive to come after the United States in the 2020 election to accomplish their goals.”
Russia meddled in the 2016 election by waging a multi-pronged campaign that resulted in the theft and subsequent disclose of internal documents damaging to Mr. Trump’s opponent in the race, former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in addition to electronically targeting election infrastructure in all 50 states, the U.S. government assessed previously.
The results of a separate survey released Thursday by IBM Security found that 63% of government employees polled said they are concerned a cyberattack could disrupt the 2020 race, meanwhile.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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