Here are a couple of hypotheses -
1) Russian hackers, as an influencing factor in US elections, never existed; 2) Russian hackers grew disillusioned with Trump when he failed to go full Quisling and surrender the USA to Putin.
1) Russian hackers, as an influencing factor in US elections, never existed; 2) Russian hackers grew disillusioned with Trump when he failed to go full Quisling and surrender the USA to Putin.
Allow me to add "significantly" as a modifier to "influencing factor".
In 2016 we were primed to look for signs of Russian interference once Hillary accused Trump of collusion.
In 2018 we were warned of non-specific Russian (and Chinese) threats, but had no direction on where to look, so we didn't see much of anything.
The contrast was enough to make us believe the Russians were a no-show.