More than half of Americans think Russia will likely attempt to influence this year's midterm elections, according to the results of a new NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll released Wednesday — and most don't think the government is doing enough to stop it.
With the congressional probes aimed at investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 race still incomplete, a majority of Americans — 55 percent — are not confident that the federal government is doing enough to prevent foreign interference in our elections. Additionally, 57 percent of Americans think it's likely that Russia will try to influence this year's midterms.
However, there's a significant party divide. Republicans surveyed were more likely to express confidence that government is doing enough to prevent future interference, and less likely to believe that Moscow would try to meddle. A majority of Independents (58 percent) and an overwhelming majority of Democrats (80 percent) say Russian interference is likely in 2018.
Meanwhile, 64 percent of Americans surveyed said that they think it's likely that a foreign government — not necessarily Russia — will try to interfere in the 2018 elections.
A vast majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaners (79 percent), as well as Independents (68 percent), said foreign interference is probable this year. Republicans and Republican-leaners surveyed are split on the issue.
Eight in ten Americans, or 79 percent, are also concerned that the country's voting systems might be vulnerable to computer hackers, including nearly half (47 percent) who are very concerned. Perhaps with good reason — Russian hackers successfully penetrated U.S. voter registration rolls in "an exceptionally small number" of states, according to a new NBC News report.
Americans are split in their confidence when it comes to the election officials in their own states. Nearly half (49 percent) are not confident that the election officials in their states are doing enough to prevent foreign countries from influencing future U.S. elections. The other 48 percent are confident that their state is doing enough.
Americans have the least amount of confidence in tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google, whoseexecutives have been called to testify before various panels in the House and Senate regarding Americans' exposure to Russian propaganda through their platforms during the 2016 campaign.
Over two-thirds (68 percent) said they are not confident that technology companies are doing enough to prevent foreign countries from influencing future elections. This sentiment is uniformly shared across Republicans (65 percent), Independents (66 percent), and Democrats (73 percent).
The NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll was conducted from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, 2018, among a national sample of 4,424 adults. Respondents for this nonprobability survey were selected from the nearly three million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. Results have an error estimate of plus or minus 2.0 percentage points. For full results and methodology, click here.