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I think that silent group of people is going to have an effect on this election, said Klinefelt, who is running in one of Michigans most hotly contested state legislative races.

Democrats are counting on those silent women voters to join them in Michigan and other battleground states across the country, where abortion has scrambled the calculus on how they may vote this fall. The campaigns in Michigan show Democrats are not just leaning on abortion policy to juice turnout amongst the partys base, especially the large portion of it composed of college-educated women. Abortion is also a key part of the effort to persuade blue-collar women to switch sides, particularly in states where their Republican counterparts advocate a no exceptions approach to abortion access.

What were seeing is that women are outraged that rights that we thought were locked in are now very much at risk of being gone, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in an interview with POLITICO after rallying voters in Trenton, Mich. The fact that so many people appear to be getting engaged on this issue, I think, is a good sign.

Back at the doors, Klinefelt met a 44-year-old Eastpointe woman who declined to share her name but exemplified Klinefelts search for swing voters motivated by abortion. Ive always been pro-life, the woman said. But in realizing how many [abortions] are medically necessary, but then theres no exceptions? Thats big for me.

The woman said she plans to vote for Whitmer this fall because shes much better than the alternative, and abortion, truthfully, weighed heavily on that decision.

Even some Republicans in the state privately acknowledge that they need to do some soul-searching to get in line with the people on abortion policy, said one Michigan Republican consultant, who was granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly.

People are not on the side of late-term or abortions without parental consent, and theyre [also] not on the side of no exceptions, the person continued. Dobbs has thrown a monkey wrench into what should be a great year for us here and the no exceptions thing is the killer.

Abortion-rights protesters cheer at a rally in Lansing, Mich. on June 24, 2022, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.|Paul Sancya/AP Photo

Nationally, the picture is more complicated for Democrats looking to draw in white, non-college-educated women, especially in places where the debate around abortion is more nuanced, several GOP pollsters said. They also point to public and private polling that consistently finds economic concerns outweighing abortion for these voters.

Even so, [Dobbs] has given Democrats a second look with them, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who works on elections across the country.

Its given them another shot, a foothold, which they wouldnt have otherwise, Newhouse continued. Is it enough? No. Are [Democrats] still going to lose the House? Yes. But is it enough to make it closer than it wouldve been? No question about it.

Both national and in-state Republicans argue a big part of the problem in Michigan is that Democrats barrage of attacks on abortion has gone unanswered. Dixons campaign has failed to air a single TV ad since she won the August primary, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking media firm. In contrast, Whitmers campaign and Democratic allies have dumped millions into TV ads, primarily hammering Dixon on her comments about abortion and the states 1931 law that would criminalize abortion and put nurses in jail just for doing their job, one TV ads narrator says.

Some help is on the way for Dixon. The Republican Governors Association has reserved $4 million of TV ads over the final four weeks of the campaign, while a pro-Dixon group, Michigan Families United, has spent about $1.3 million on attacking Whitmer for pushing sex and gender theory in schools, the ads narrator says.

As ads take hold, things are going to change tremendously, said James Blair, Dixons chief strategist. Democrats went too hard, too heavy, too early. The election will still be a referendum on Whitmers failures and the state of the economy whether she likes it or not.

Republicans insist that blue-collar women will still vote primarily on pocketbook problems. Gas prices ticked up again this week, and cost of living continues to rank as the top one or two issues for women voters, according to public and private polling.

But there is evidence that a post-Dobbs bump is manifesting for Democrats, as Whitmer maintains a hefty public polling lead and voter registration swung towards women and younger voters, according to an analysis by Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm.

Richard Czuba, an independent pollster in the state who regularly conducts statewide polls for local news outlets, said that based on his data, once abortion is the focus in a race, statewide or in the legislature, those non-college women move away from the Republican coalition, which is a huge loss to them.

Every time Tudor is frustrated that all Whitmer talks about is abortion well, yeah, youre getting your head handed to you on this issue and they have no response, Czuba continued. This decision came out in June, but they still have no coherent response or strategy to deal with it.

Dixon vented that frustration at a recent rally with former President Donald Trump in Warren, Mich., another town in Macomb County. The candidate told rally-goers that Whitmer is out there saying that Im going to be able to do something about that issue in this state, but as you all know, its on the ballot, its been decided by a judge, dont let her shiny thing distract from the fact that she has done nothing but hurt this state.

Tudor Dixon addresses the crowd during a Save America rally on Oct. 1, 2022 in Warren, Mich.|Emily Elconin/Getty Images

Dixon is citing a statewide ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the Michigan state constitution one of a few measures that will appear on November ballots this fall following success for abortion-rights supporters in a Kansas ballot measure in August.

To reporters, Dixon reiterated that abortion shouldnt be an issue for the gubernatorial race, but [Whitmer] hasnt come out with a plan, so shes trying to run against me on that, she said.

She also argued that the ballot initiative was the most radical abortion law in the entire country, so I expect to have quite a few people coming out that maybe, historically, would not have come out.

Whitmer, for her part, called Dixons argument ridiculous.

Even if the ballot initiative passes, the next governor and legislature can start enacting all sorts of laws that make it more difficult, more confusing and are going to stand in the way of women being able to exercise this fundamental right, Whitmer said. Voters are smart. They know when someone tells you who they are, you better believe them, or you might all of a sudden be losing your rights.

Democrats acknowledged the framing matters as they run on abortion, including trying to put the issue in economic terms.

Its the most important economic decision a woman makes in her lifetime, Whitmer said, noting that sometimes Democrats dont engage in [that messaging frame] as much as we probably should.

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat who represents a slice of neighboring Oakland County, reinforced Whitmers point.

Heres what pollsters are missing and its not a surprise that a lot of them are men: For women, this is the most expensive decision theyll make in their lifetime. If youre a woman, youre buying groceries, thats another mouth to feed, its more gas to pay for another trip to a school, McMorrow said. If youre talking to women, yes, inflation is the top concern, but theyre also thinking about that in the context of access to an abortion.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report incorrectly described the Kansas ballot measure vote on abortion rights earlier this year.

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Republican support from this key voting group is in jeopardy. Abortion is to blame. - POLITICO

After his high-profile refusal to overturn the 2020 election, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger could be the top Republican on Georgia's November ballot.

Catch up quick: Most Georgia Republicans wrote off Raffensperger's political future after he attracted some of the worst attacks from former president Donald Trump.

Threat level: Raffensperger's Democratic opponent, state Rep. Bee Nguyen, isn't deterred. She's aggressively raising money and leveraging outside support including from the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State to hammer Raffensperger as an anti-abortion rights candidate.

Context: Nguyen argues that because the secretary of state oversees more than 40 professional licensing boards, including for nurses, Raffensperger's abortion stance might into play should nurses face any prosecution or jeopardy to their licenses following the state's 6-week abortion ban.

The other side: Raffensperger told Axios Nguyen is "just grasping at straws." He points out that the governor appoints the members of the board, which makes the actual licensing decisions.

Yes, and: Raffensperger has launched his own attack ad against Nguyen, accusing her of "pushing stolen election claims" in the wake of Stacey Abrams' 2018 loss.

What they're saying: "As I've been along the campaign trail, I've actually had Democrats pull me aside and said, 'Oh, my gosh, I thought I was voting for this guy until I met you and I heard from you or until I heard about his record,'" Nguyen told Axios.

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Brad Raffensperger could be the top Georgia Republican in November - Axios

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER

On the surface, Nevada seems to validate the otherwise somewhat unsuccessful hypothesis of the 2002 book The Emerging Democratic Majority. Authors John Judis and Ruy Teixeira predicted that Nevada would become a light-blue state as Democrats held onto their unionized, working-class base and demographic change brought new Democratic voters into the fold.

Although Democratic nominee John Kerry narrowly lost to George W. Bush in Nevada in the following presidential election, Barack Obama carried the state by a whopping 12.5 percentage points in 2008, and Democrats have won the state in every presidential election since. Nevadas senators, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, are both Democrats, as is its governor, Steve Sisolak, and three of its four U.S. representatives.

So, Nevada is usually a pretty reliable state for Democrats, right? Well, not so fast. Cortez Masto, up for reelection this year, is narrowly trailing in the polling average against her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt, the states former attorney general. Our forecast has this race at about as close to 50/50 odds as it gets.

And just to be clear about the stakes here, Nevada couldnt be much more important in determining which party controls the Senate. It is Republicans most likely pickup opportunity, according to FiveThirtyEights forecast and the GOPs second-best target, Georgia, took a big hit this week after new allegations surfaced that Republican nominee Herschel Walker paid for his then-girlfriend to get an abortion in 2009.

The math is fairly simple. If Democrats pick up a seat in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is favored to win, Republicans will need two pickups to gain control of the Senate, and Nevada and Georgia are the easiest targets. If Fetterman loses, theyll need one of the two. According to our interactive, Republicans chances of flipping the Senate shoot up to 56 percent if they win Nevada but are just 11 percent if they dont. So lets take a deeper look.

Consider Nevadas presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections since 2000, as the following table shows.

Democratic margin of victory or defeat for presidential, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and gubernatorial elections in Nevada, 2000 to 2020

*Results for U.S. House elections reflect combined results from all congressional districts in Nevada.

Sources: Dave Leips Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, Nevada Secretary of State

Several things stand out. First, although Democrats have a four-election winning streak in presidential races, their record in congressional and gubernatorial elections is checkered. Sisolak was the first Democrat elected governor there since 1994. And even though Cortez Mastos Class III Senate seat was in Democratic hands for some time thanks to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Rosens Class I seat was held by Republicans between 2001 and 2019. House races in Nevada have been swingy, meanwhile. As recently as 2014, Republicans won the states combined popular vote for the U.S. House by 17.4 points.

And with the exceptions of Obama and Reid and well come back to what they had in common in a moment Democratic wins in Nevada have been narrow. Hillary Clintons 2.4-point win in 2016 was similar to her national margin of victory in the popular vote and Joe Bidens 2.4-point win in 2020 was less than his 4.5-point national popular-vote win. Sisolak and Rosen, meanwhile, won their gubernatorial and Senate races by 4 and 5 points, respectively, in 2018, but both of them underperformed the national political environment that year, which favored Democrats by almost 9 points. Whether you call Nevada blue, red or purple is something of a semantic question. But it certainly hasnt been a reliable state for Democrats.

Paired together as tipping-point states this year, Nevada and Georgia are moving in opposite directions.

Georgia has a sizable share of Black voters and a multiethnic coalition of increasingly college-educated voters in Atlanta and its suburbs. The Black vote there has held up relatively well for Democrats, and theyve been gaining ground with college-educated professionals in almost every election. If you tried to create a state in a lab where Democratic fortunes improved even as they had problems elsewhere, Georgia would be about as good a formula as you could get.

Nevada, on the other hand, ranks 44th in the share of adults with a college degree, right between Oklahoma and Alabama. Its Black population is below the national average but increasing. It does have a considerable share of Hispanic and Asian American voters, but they are often working-class subgroups that Democrats have increasingly struggled with in recent years.

Of course, Nevada is sui generis, with several economic and demographic attributes that arent that common in other states. On the one hand, it has a massive workforce in the gaming (gambling), leisure and hospitality industries. To give you some sense of the scale, just one hospitality and entertainment company, MGM Resorts International, employs 77,000 people in Nevada, roughly as large a share of its workforce as Ford Motor Company employs in Michigan. These are mostly working-class and middle-class jobs, often unionized, often held by employees of color. But Nevada doesnt have as many jobs in culturally progressive industries like media and technology.

On the other hand, Nevada is a major destination for out-migrants from other states who are attracted to its warm weather, lack of state income tax and laissez-faire lifestyle. Only 26 percent of Nevada residents were born in Nevada, easily the lowest of any U.S. state. Nevada has traditionally had a big third-party vote it was one of Ross Perots better states, for instance.

This latter group of voters can also be relatively apolitical. If people migrate to Colorado for its crunchy, progressive politics, and to Florida for its YOLO conservatism, the prevailing attitude in Nevada is live-and-let-live, which sometimes borders on political apathy. Political participation is relatively low. Its turnout rate in 2020 was 65.4 percent, lower than the 66.8 percent in the U.S. overall which is unusual because swing states usually have high turnout. By comparison, for instance, turnout was 71.7 percent in Florida in 2020 and 76.4 percent in Colorado.

Lets return to that question I teased earlier. What did Obama and Reid, the two big Democratic overperformers in Nevada, have in common? For that matter, what about Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who never got to compete in a general election in Nevada but performed extremely well in the states Democratic caucuses in 2020?

Well, Reid, Obama and Sanders relied heavily on organization, turnout and the states union-backed Democratic machine. Its hard to know whether Cortez Masto and Sisolak, who is also in a very tight reelection race will be able to pull off the same. But if you have two large voting blocs in Nevada, and the more conservative of the two is somewhat politically apathetic, turnout at least potentially works to Democrats advantage.

Indeed, this may be a race where Democrats need the turnout edge because the other dynamics of the campaign dont work in their favor. Though hes an election denier who served as one of then-President Donald Trumps Nevada campaign chairs in 2020, Laxalt has a relatively traditional resume as the states former attorney general an exception among Republicans in competitive Senate races this year and in recent polling, he has decent personal favorability ratings.

Although abortion is a strong issue for Cortez Masto in a relatively irreligious state like Nevada, voters in the Silver State rank the economy as their top issue. Its understandable in a state that was hit hard by the housing bubble and that relies on highly cyclical industries like the casino business, which suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the turnout front, a CNN/SSRS poll yesterday had both good and bad news for Cortez Masto, depending on how you squint at it. In the survey, she led by 3 points among registered voters but trailed by 2 points among likely voters. Polls among likely voters are usually more reliable, and so the +2 number for Laxalt is the one in our polling average and forecast. But it does suggest a gap that could be closed by a strong turnout operation.

Reid, for instance, won comfortably in 2010 despite trailing in the polling average. Cortez Masto may need a little bit of Reid magic to hold onto her seat.

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Nevada Could Be Senate Republicans Ace In The Hole - FiveThirtyEight

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER

No state voting for governor this year has seen a longer Republican drought than Oregon. In 1982, Republican Gov. Vic Atiyeh handily won reelection, but since then Democrats have come out on top in 10 consecutive gubernatorial elections, allowing them to govern Oregon for nearly four decades.

But 2022 might be the year Republicans finally break their Beaver State losing streak. Republican Christine Drazan, the former minority leader of the Oregon House of Representatives, is running neck and neck with Democrat Tina Kotek, the former longtime speaker of the state House who could become the first out lesbian governor in the U.S. FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm forecast views the race as a toss-up, giving Kotek and Drazan each about a 1-in-2 shot of victory. And Drazan holds a narrow 34 percent to 33 percent advantage over Kotek in FiveThirtyEights polling average, with independent Betsy Johnson, a former state legislator who served for nearly two decades as a Democrat, attracting about 20 percent.

One reason Drazan has a chance is that, while Oregon leans Democratic, its far from being a deep-blue state. For instance, George W. Bush nearly won the state in the 2000 presidential race, and in 2016, Oregon elected Republican Dennis Richardson as secretary of state, making him the first GOP candidate to win a statewide race since 2002. In fact, while Oregon has consistently elected Democrats to the governorship since the 1980s, the Democratic margin of victory has only once exceeded 10 percentage points, with Republicans coming closest to winning in 2010, when they lost by just 1.5 points.

Results for gubernatorial elections in Oregon, 1982-2018

* Elected incumbent Special election

Sources: Dave Leips Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, Oregon Secretary of State

Still, even very favorable Republican midterm years like 2010 havent been good enough for the GOP to capture the governors mansion in Salem, so what explains Drazans heightened chance of success? At least three factors seem to be playing a part: Johnsons role as a major independent candidate, Koteks poor public perception and Democratic Gov. Kate Browns unpopularity all of which may have many Oregonians looking for change.

Few statewide races involve a truly competitive third wheel, but Johnson could significantly impact this election. Not only is she polling well, shes also outraised Drazan and Kotek: Johnson had brought in $13.2 million in total contributions, more than Koteks $12.7 million and Drazans $10.7 million. And Johnson has positioned herself between her opponents, dinging Drazan for her anti-abortion stance and Kotek for allegedly intending to make Oregon woke and broke. Johnson has received high-profile, bipartisan endorsements from former Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski and former Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, and major financial support from uber-wealthy Nike co-founder Phil Knight and timber industry executives (Johnson herself comes from a wealthy family with timber interests).

But for all the attention and money it has garnered, Johnsons candidacy is less a question about winning she has less than a 1-in-100 shot of winning the governorship, and FiveThirtyEight only recently made her a viable candidate in our forecast and more a question of whether she boosts either candidates chances by siphoning off more Democrats or Republicans. Emerson College released a poll on Tuesday that found Drazan a smidge ahead of Kotek, with both in the mid-30s, and Johnson trailing at 19 percent. But Johnson earned more support among Democrats (17 percent) than Republicans (9 percent). Additionally, the poll found Kotek winning only 59 percent of self-identified Biden voters, with Johnson carrying 27 percent of them, while Drazan was winning 79 percent of Trump voters and Johnson just 9 percent. Similarly, a late September poll by DHM Research on behalf of The Oregonian/OregonLive also put Drazan and Kotek both in the low 30s, with Johnson at 18 percent, and that poll also found more Democrats (19 percent) than Republicans (13 percent) planned to vote for Johnson.

This is not to say Drazans path to victory is all down to Johnson complicating Koteks efforts to consolidate the Democratic base, as the public sees Kotek more negatively than it sees Drazan. The Emerson poll found, for example, that only 38 percent of likely voters viewed Kotek favorably, while 50 percent viewed her unfavorably, including a rough 55 percent unfavorable rating among independents. By comparison, Drazan ran about even among all likely voters, at 42 percent favorable and 41 percent favorable. (Johnson had overall numbers similar to Kotek.) This may be down to Koteks profile as a strong progressive on social issues, which may make it easier for her opponents to paint her as too left-wing for even a blue-leaning state like Oregon. At the same time, she has a reputation as a wheeler-dealer, which has at times angered members of her party; this could help explain why almost 1 in 5 Democrats also held an unfavorable view of Kotek in the Emerson poll.

Having served as speaker from 2013 to early 2022, Kotek is also linked to outgoing Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who held the states top job for most of the same period, after becoming governor following Democratic Gov. John Kitzhabers 2015 resignation. But Brown is leaving office unpopular amid complaints about lengthy school closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about conditions in Portland, which has suffered from vandalism, public disorder and a lack of affordable housing. In the second quarter of 2022, 55 percent of Oregons registered voters disapproved of Brown and only 40 percent approved, according to Morning Consults polling, so the incumbent may serve as an anchor weighing down Kotek and encouraging voters even Democrats and left-leaning independents to consider their alternatives.

With a month to go, Drazan is far from certain to win, but for a Republican to be in a toss-up race for Oregon governor presents the best opportunity the GOP has had since 2010, when Republican Chris Dudley, a former NBA player, narrowly lost amid that years red wave. This time around, were not really seeing the same sort of wave developing, but the dynamics of the three-way race combined with the unpopularity of Kotek and Brown may still deliver Republicans a win, ending four decades of futility.

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Why Republicans Could Win Oregons Governorship For The First Time In 40 Years - FiveThirtyEight

Transcript coming soon.

"We know what happened in 2020," said state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican from Menomonee Falls.

"Powerful and rich forces are aligned against me," said Michael Gableman, a former state Supreme Court Justice.

"Was it rigged? Was it fixed? I'm going to stop it!" said Tim Michels, the 2022 Republican nominee for governor.

Republicans in Wisconsin have been amplifying Donald Trump's debunked election conspiracy theories for nearly two years.

Rachel Rodriguez has heard them all.

"There is absolutely no glamor in elections," said Rodriguez, an elections specialist in the Dane County Clerk's Office. "Every time you think you have put one conspiracy theory to bed, it seems like another different one just pops up in its place."

An elections specialist in the Dane County Clerk's Office, Rachel Rodriguez describes the difficulty of responding to an ongoing stream of misinformation and conspiracy theories about voting in Wisconsin in an interview on Aug. 24, 2022. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

She knows every step of the process, so when Republicans in the Legislature started holding invitation-only hearings to give an official platform to election conspiracy theorists, she followed them closely.

"It was readily apparent that within minutes that the experts that they were trotting out had absolutely no expertise in actual elections," said Rodriguez.

She started fact-checking the hearings over Twitter.

Soon, Rodriguez was being retweeted by the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and gained an audience looking for the truth.

"I think people were really looking for that other side of it the actual expert side because that wasn't happening at the hearings," she said.

Republicans hired the former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to lead an investigation on the 2020 election, but what he produced was open records violations, a contempt of court order and a million-dollar bill for taxpayers.

Michael Gableman, the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who was hired by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to probe the 2020 election, declares he won't answer any questions while seated in a witness box during a June 10, 2022 hearing in Dane County Court over an open records lawsuit. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

Gableman was fired after endorsing the primary opponent of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the man who hired him.

"Mike Gableman is an embarrassment to the state," said Vos.

Rodriguez said the cumulative effect was the truth around election conspiracies started to look like partisan politics.

"Where the problem is right now is that when you have one party and it is one party who is driving all of this misinformation and all of the conspiracies and all of the doubt when you take the side of actual facts and truth, which is opposite to that, it's going to look like it's one party over the other," she said.

"I'm going to get rid of the Wisconsin Elections Commission," declared Michels at an Aug. 5 rally in Waukesha where he appeared with the former president.

Michels is the Republican candidate for governor, and while he doesn't outright say the 2020 election was stolen, he does campaign with those that do. Michels even saluted Republican state Rep. Tim Ramthun, a full-on election conspiracist who wanted to somehow "reclaim" Wisconsin's 2020 electoral votes.

"I see my friend out here, ran a spirited primary Tim Ramthun was very big on election integrity as well," Michels said at a Sept. 18 rally in Green Bay with Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

At one event, Michels told a supporter in order to win, he had to overcome a cheating percentage.

Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for governor in the 2022 election, speaks at the Chicken Burn, a conservative rally held in Wauwatosa on Aug. 28, 2022. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

"What's the cheating percentage? It's probably a point or two. I think we're going to come out ahead," said Michels at the Chicken Burn, an annual conservative gathering in Wauwatosa held on Aug. 28.

Tim Michels did not agree to an interview for this story.

"For people to continue harboring that 'Big Lie' that's not good for democracy. It's not good for democracy at all," said Wisconsin's Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Evers vetoed a series of Republican bills that would have changed how elections are run in Wisconsin.

"Senate Bill 292: not approved there we go, folks," said Evers while delivering his veto message for SB 292 on Aug. 10, 2021.

During a ceremony in the Wisconsin state Capitol's rotunda on Aug. 10, 2021, Gov. Tony Evers vetoes SB 292, which related to broadcasting election night proceedings. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

Michels has said he would sign those bills, and Democrats fear as governor, Michels could overturn Wisconsin's presidential electoral votes in 2024.

"If they are in power and Trump comes calling asking them to change an election result, we've seen that they're willing to do anything to get Trump's approval," said Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

"This is a very serious moment in the history of our country, and it's hard to think of words that would be too strong to express the stakes in this fall's election," added Wikler.

"You know, when you look at it, election integrity has been a great topic for everybody to get some fodder both ways," said Paul Farrow, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

"When I look back at the 2020 election, there are some challenges. We know there are issues that are there that we have to figure out how to regulate and how to make sure it doesn't happen again," added Farrow.

"How can you lead the state if you're afraid to tell the base of our party the truth? asked Rohn Bishop, former chair of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County.

Bishop is concerned the GOP's obsession with 2020 will hurt them in 2022.

"Republicans should be looking at a tidal wave election. The one way to screw it up is to keep focusing on 2020. And we keep doing that. We just can't turn the page and focus on 2022," he said.

Bishop was attacked by his own party members for pointing out Trump lost in Wisconsin because enough Republicans voted, but not for Trump.

"The election's not stolen when Glenn Grothman's getting more votes than Donald Trump in the 6th Congressional District," said Bishop. "There was just a falloff. There were people who wanted to vote for Republican conservative principles, but not Trump."

Rohn Bishop, the former chair of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County and the mayor of Waupun, says fellow Republicans are too focused on the 2020 presidential vote and ostracize those who don't subscribe to conspiracy theories about it. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

Bishop said when Michels campaigns with Gableman and Trump, he risks alienating those same voters.

"Coming into 2022, Tim Michaels has to figure out how to get those 50,000 Republicans who voted Republican but not for Donald Trump," said Bishop.

Since the 2020 election, Bishop left party politics and in April 2022 was elected mayor of Waupun, a non-partisan office.

"I just really want to focus on this job and give it all that I have," said Bishop.

He's still a Republican, but worries others might have left the party for good.

"Because of the hyper-partisan nature of it and the negativity, we're busy trying to always kick people out. That's a term that they use in our party of the RINO: Republican in Name Only. I've been called that by people because I didn't think the election was stolen. Well, if you kick me out and I don't vote for you, you're in a lot of trouble," said Bishop.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Waukesha on Aug. 5, 2022, with Republican candidate for governor Tim Michels, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls also giving speeches. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

So what impact will these conspiracy theories have on the 2022 election?

For one, there will be a lot more people in the room when voters cast their ballots.

Paul Farrow said in 2020, Republicans had about 1,300 election observers at the polls statewide.

"We are well over 5,000 this time around," he said about the party's 2022 plans. "We've got a lot more eyes that are watching the process."

People like Christopher Bossert, a Republican from West Bend: "I had concerns about election integrity. And the best way to resolve those concerns one way or the other is to get involved. So I chose to volunteer for the Republican Party as a poll worker."

Christopher Bossert, a member of the Washington County Board of Supervisors and resident of West Bend, is a Republican who is volunteering as a poll worker to help assuage his concerns about election practices. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)

Bossert said he still has concerns about voter fraud elsewhere in Wisconsin, but is no longer worried about the Dominion voting machines used in his hometown, even if his neighbors aren't convinced.

"I have constituents who believe Dominion is a problem," said Bossert, "and even though I've told them from what I can see, Dominion's not a problem, they still believe it.

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Wisconsin Republicans still fixated on 2020 election in 2022 - PBS Wisconsin