GOP simple messaging spurred turnout: "Voters have busy lives, and they have lots of stuff going on... [View all]

[Demovictory9]

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“Voters have busy lives, and they have lots of stuff going on, and you don't want to start getting into the weeds and the nitty gritty of everything,” Schilling said. “You want to keep messages very basic and to the point, and this women's sports issue, it's a self-evident truth.”

Donald Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas who has studied the salience of gender issues among voters, said this fear campaign likely didn’t recruit new voters to the Republican cause, but instead mobilized a base that might otherwise have been more apathetic.

“Crime is terrible. The world is falling apart. Immigrants are flooding over the border. Oh, and you have this horrible threat of these trans people trying to play girls sports,” he said, characterizing the Republicans’ general message. “We know that's an effective tool for turnout.”