[Following is an abstract from Washington Post’s second article on Door County]

Abortion Fight Unites the Left and Rattles the Right in Key Wisconsin Battleground

Story by Danielle Paquette and Sabrina Rodriguez

Photography by Carolyn Van Houten

Aug. 31 at 6:00 p.m.

DOOR COUNTY, Wis. — The Republican Party tent’s centerpiece sign blared appeals to potential voters: 

Defend America! We stand for our flag. 

Protect women’s sports. #Bidenflation.

If that failed to catch eyes at this summer’s Door County Fair, there was always the four-foot plastic elephant wearing an American flag top hat. But the wallet-size cards featuring illustrated fetuses? Those stayed on a table in the back-left corner. You’d have to look down, perhaps through glasses, to see anything about abortion.

“We’ve got disagreements on this issue within our own party,” said Stephanie Soucek, the GOP chairwoman in this stretch of northeast Wisconsin, who’d set up the booth between a lemonade stand and the hypnosis stage. “That’s the challenge: Finding a message we can all agree on.”

Across the fairgrounds, past a woman selling cheesecake on a stick, the Democrats had readily plunged their most popular yard banners into the grass:

Free to Choose.

Roe, Roe, Roe Your Vote.

“Fires people up, 100 percent,” said Carol Jensen-Olson, the vice chairwoman in charge of membership, beckoning the August crowds toward her email sign-up sheet.

“We’ve got disagreements on this issue within our own party.”

— Stephanie Soucek, Door County GOP chairwoman

The opposing displays captured how the Supreme Court’s move to overturn Roe v. Wade 14 months ago has reshaped the landscape of American politics, right down to the familiar ritual of county fair politicking. Long a rousing issue among conservatives, abortion is stirring voters on the left and mobilizing independents troubled by the government’s policing intimate decisions.

Most Americans aren’t in favor of revoking the option to end a pregnancy, and growing numbers of political moderates indicate that the issue will influence their vote. Republicans felt the impact in November when five states across the political spectrum put abortion referendums on the ballot, and voters in each case chose to safeguard access. Even in conservative strongholds, typically sleepy statewide contests have seen unusually high turnout when abortion access was at stake — most recently in Ohio, where a hearty majority rejected a measure that would have made it tougher to enshrine protections.

In Wisconsin, the high court’s decision reactivated a 174-year-old law interpreted as forbidding the procedure except to save a woman’s life — and ignited a fierce legal battle over whether that rule will stay on the books. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has pledged to repeal the ban through litigation expected to land as early as next year before Wisconsin’s Supreme Court — which flipped to a liberal majority after voters this spring elected a justice who had campaigned on abortion rights.

Abortion is a galvanizing topic in Door County, a peninsular expanse between Green Bay and Lake Michigan known as “the Cape Cod of the Midwest” — and the swingiest place in what’s shaping up to be a crucial 2024 battleground. It’s one of nine U.S. counties that has sided with every presidential election’s winner since 2000. In fact, Door voted for the winning White House contender all but twice in the past 50 years — in 1992 and 1976. The county’s role as a barometer of political opinion extends to other races, too: the winners of Wisconsin’s state and federal races last year — including the governorship and House — all won this region of roughly 30,000.

How many times has your county picked the winner of the presidential election?

In late-summer interviews with dozens of county residents, conservatives said they are feeling the fallout of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision on the ground — and are worried that Republicans will be hurt politically by a backlash in 2024. Buoyant Democrats, meanwhile, said they are benefiting from a surge of new energy from both their base and those who are not regular party activists.

No county is a crystal ball, but politicos here on both sides of the aisle say Door County offers a strangely reliable taste of the broader mood: You’ll find more Trump signs in the rural southern end, where dairy farms stretch for miles; more “RESIST” buttons on the northern tip, where transplants from bluer cities have settled into lake houses; and a kaleidoscope of expression in the fisherman’s haven of Sturgeon Bay, the county seat, where everyone converges at the fair.

For five days at this summer’s expo, the Republicans operated a straw poll asking who should be the GOP nominee as the Democrats steered passersby toward Mason jars, each labeled with what they considered America’s most pressing issues.

“Drop a bean into the ones that are important to you,” said Jensen-Olson, the membership specialist, as a woman with cropped blond hair, red-framed glasses and a can of Mug root beer walked up.

“Let me see,” replied Susan Lindner, 53, a dishwasher at a lakefront resort in town.

Inflation? The environment? Affordable child care? Reproductive rights?

She plunked a bean into reproductive rights.

“Thank you!” Jensen-Olson said. “Would you like to sign up for our emails?”

No, Lindner replied. She wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican. She liked to vote by candidate — though, during the 2020 election, she hadn’t voted at all. She’d just moved and wasn’t sure where to find her polling site.

This time around, Lindner felt more motivated, recalling how, 15 years ago, she was almost raped by a man she trusted.

“If I’d gotten pregnant …”

Lindner didn’t like to think about what could happen to a victim of sexual assault today.

“It’s the women who are punished,” she said.

[To Be Continued

with Joel Kitchens’ views on the abortion issue –

it has been an “Important Factor in Democrats’ recent victories.

Part two of this article will publish Friday, September 8th]

About our Bellwether County series

Why we’re doing this series

As part of coverage exploring the views of voters in advance of the 2024 election, we are reporting on a county that has backed every presidential winner since 2000: Door County, Wis. The margins here have historically been narrow: In 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 292 votes; four years earlier, Donald Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 558 votes.

How we chose Door County

Door is one of nine counties in the United States that have backed every presidential winner since 2000 and is located in what’s likely to be a key battleground state. The other bellwether counties are Delaware’s Kent; Minnesota’s Clay; Montana’s Blaine; New Hampshire’s Hillsborough; New York’s Essex and Saratoga; Virginia’s Chesapeake; and Washington’s Clallam.

More in this series

During their previous visit to Door County in May, national correspondent Danielle Paquette, national politics reporter Sabrina Rodriguez and staff photojournalist Carolyn Van Houten chronicled how a persistent labor shortage, an affordable-housing crunch and demographic change were roiling the community.