Bots Drive Online Chatter About Races in Kansas and Texas

The conversation around some of the most-watched midterms races is far from fresh and organic, according to research released on Tuesday.

Much of the online discourse about Senate races in Texas and Kansas is coming from accounts that appear to be automated, or bots, which are commenting on campaigns in multiple states, according to an analysis of nearly a million social media posts by Gudea, an online analytics company.

Only about a quarter of the discussion about the Kansas Senate matchup came from accounts that specifically talk about the state — more likely to be real people with a tie to the region. Instead, the conversation was dominated by accounts (many of them recently created and likely bots) that were also weighing in on the Texas race. Accounts that posted about both states were averaging four times as many Texas posts as Texas-only accounts, another red flag that bots were likely involved. (Researchers did not identify where the accounts were based.)

More than 85 percent of that Texas discourse — about James Talarico, a Democrat, and Ken Paxton, a Republican — was composed of reshared posts. What could look like organic conversation around the Texas and Kansas races is actually largely amplification by a smaller number of accounts, said Keith Presley, chief executive of Gudea.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/business/senate-races-kansas-texas-bots.html