Two officials now share the job of coordinating U.S. spy agencies against threats to the 2026 midterm elections. A congressional source and a second person familiar with the matter, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence picked them. The Record reported the appointments first, and Defense One followed.
Dave Mastro sits on the National Intelligence Council, the body that turns intelligence-community findings into assessments for Congress and senior policymakers. James Cangialosi is deputy director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center.
For months, nobody outside the agency could say whether ODNI had named anyone to the role at all.
ODNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman said in a statement that the two are part of “an expansive team of professionals at ODNI focused on carrying out President [Donald] Trump’s and [Director of National Intelligence Tulsi] Gabbard’s election integrity efforts.” She added that the office is giving briefings on a par with those traditionally given in election years.
What changed at ODNI
The Foreign Malign Influence Center was set up in 2022 to coordinate the agencies’ work on foreign influence and disinformation aimed at elections. ODNI argued that the center raised constitutional concerns because it coordinated with social media companies. A reorganization last summer moved many of its duties to the counterintelligence center and the National Intelligence Council.
The election-threats executive post dates to 2019, Trump’s first term. The person in it normally oversees an “Experts Group” that analyzes intelligence on foreign interference. Election threats can mean cyberattacks on voting systems, foreign influence operations or disinformation campaigns meant to undermine public trust.
Criticism
Gabbard has drawn criticism over her part in the White House’s wider review of election-security outcomes. Democrats have questioned her presence during an FBI raid on a Georgia election office and ODNI-led examinations of voting machines in Puerto Rico. Trump has continued to claim falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
This year’s annual assessment of worldwide threats to the United States left out foreign threats to elections, the first time that has happened in nearly a decade. Democrats and state election officials have also objected to cuts to election programs at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has lost around a third of its workforce in the past year.
