Russia’s home-stretch attacks on key Democrats
False Claims of the Week: Three Democratic Senate Candidate Accused of Serious Misconduct
NewsGuard’s “False Claims of the Week” highlights claims from NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints, a proprietary database of provably false claims and their debunks. Claims are chosen due to their spread, engagement, and the high-profile nature of the sources promoting the claims. Those three factors, as well as the significant subject matter and potential for harm, make it our False Claims of the Week. This week, NewsGuard is combining three claims, due to the overlap in their content, tactics, and distribution, and their shared origins as Russian election interference.
Midterms Watch: Russia Fabricates Accusations Against Democrats Running for the Senate in Battleground states of Texas, Maine, and Ohio
What’s happening: In the final days of the midterm elections, a Russian influence operation released fabricated videos purporting to show serious allegations leveled against three Democratic Senate candidates in battleground states.
The influence operation, known as Storm-1516, produced a video depicting a purported TV news report featuring allegations of sexual assault against Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown by four former aides. Russia also pushed a fake video depicting a former student of Texas Democrat James Talarico accusing him of sexual assault in middle school, and a video of a phony TV news segment about claims that Maine Democrat Troy Jackson was accused of threatening to kill insubordinate campaign aides with an ax.
The reports were manipulated by adding fake audio to actual TV footage or fabricated with AI. None of the candidates has ever faced such allegations. Collectively, the claims garnered 2.8 million views across 3,790 social media posts, according to an analytics tool used by NewsGuard.
The Sherrod Brown Smear: The video targeting Sherrod Brown with sexual assault allegations mimics a report from Cleveland 19, the CBS affiliate in Cleveland. In the video, a Cleveland 19 anchor appears to say: “At least four former staffers have accused Brown of sexual assault. All of them alleged they were assaulted between 2019 and 2024, in locations including his Senate office, a hotel room, and even a Senate hearing room.” The video includes the names and photos of four former Brown staffers.
Actually: As noted above, NewsGuard determined the video uses actual Cleveland 19 footage, but dubs in the anchor’s voice.
- Asked about the video report about the supposed sexual assault allegation against Brown, Cleveland 19 News Director Brian Sinclair told NewsGuard, “We have reported no such thing.”
- Reached via a Facebook message, one of the four staffers named in the video, who asked to be identified as a former intern in Brown’s Senate office in 2019, said: “This is completely false and fake news as it pertains to me. I have nothing but respect and admiration for Senator Brown and what he has done and will do again for Ohio.”
The Troy Jackson Smear: In a similar vein, the video targeting Troy Jackson with claims that he threatened staffers with an ax purportedly shows a segment on WABI, the CBS affiliate in Bangor, Maine. In the video, an anchor is shown supposedly saying: “Campaign staffers have complained about U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson having angry outbursts. … At least two staffers allege that Jackson, a fifth-generation logger, threatened to, quote ‘cut any insubordinate staffer in half with his logging ax.’”
Actually: Again, NewsGuard determined that the video consists of dubbed audio added to real WABI footage. WABI Vice President Kim Petry told NewsGuard in an emailed statement: “WABI can confirm that the video is fabricated and appears to use synthetic voice. It was not produced, aired, or authorized by WABI.”
The James Talarico Smear: Storm-1516 published a video purportedly showing a former student of James Talarico accusing him of sexual assault when he was a minor. In the video, a man who identifies himself as Talarico’s former middle school student, Zyon Lewis, claims that Talarico “kissed me on my lips” and “took my right hand and placed it on his crotch” when he was 12 years old in 2012.
Actually: The man in the video is an AI deepfake based on the likeness of the real Zyon Lewis, who did attend Rhodes Middle School, where Talarico taught. Lewis told fact checking outlet Lead Stories: “The video is very much AI, very bad AI,” adding that Talarico “was a great teacher” and “never was weird [in] any kind of way towards me or any other student that I’ve seen.”
- Kate Poltrack, a Talarico spokesperson, told NewsGuard in an emailed statement that the claim is “totally baseless and false.”
Zooming out: NewsGuard has debunked 39 false claims related to the 2026 midterms. Other false narratives targeting both sides include that a Dominion Voting Systems whistleblower accused U.S. politicians of taking millions of dollars in bribes to rig the 2026 midterms, that Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Ssayed of Michigan called for Sharia law, and that Republican Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign in Texas paid for billboard that said “Pedos Ain’t That Bad.”
- See NewsGuard’s continuously updated 2026 Elections False Claims Tracker.
NewsGuard Academy:
How a NewsGuard Sting Operation Revealed Influencers’ Willingness to Promote Political Campaigns for an Undisclosed Fee
In the latest installment of the NewsGuard Academy, Reality Check editor Sofia Rubinson takes you behind the scenes of a recent NewsGuard sting operation that revealed that many influencers are willing to accept payment to run political messages without disclosing the payment. Many are also confused about the rules and industry practices relating to undisclosed “pay for say.”
Read the full report here.
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In Case You Missed It … What to Know Ahead of the Misinformation Midterms
From Russian influence campaigns pushing bogus claims about candidates, to new secretly partisan-funded “pink slime” sites masquerading as legitimate news outlets, NewsGuard analysts have been separating truth from fiction ahead of the midterm elections on Nov. 3, 2026. Here is some of our coverage that you may have missed.
Read NewsGuard’s comprehensive Guide to Staying Ahead of Midterms Misinformation here.
This newsletter was edited by Ines Chomnalez and Eric Effron.
Reality Check is produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
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