A portion of the annual Texas Lyceum poll measuring Texans’ attitudes on candidates and issues was released on Wednesday. One of the findings: Texas Republicans believe the news media is the greatest internal threat to American democracy. For Democrats in the Lone Star State, the biggest threat is money in politics.
The poll also found “Democrats were significantly more likely to view attempts by Russia or other foreign countries to influence the U.S. presidential election as a major problem than were Republicans, 69% to 28%.”
As The Signal reported in May, Russian misinformation campaigns targeted Texas in the past two years. Ryan Boyd, a University of Texas postdoctoral fellow who studied Russian ads and their troll accounts, said he’s certain 2020 will see more Russian influence attempts.
“The likelihood that these Russian firms are just like ‘oh, we got caught we’re not gonna stop doing all of this’ is virtually non-existent,” he said.
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
