Republican politician Reid Ribble, who preceded Gallagher in Congress, said he believes a Democrat can actually win the 8th District.
But Ribble warns against focusing too much on abortion to the detriment of other issues such as infrastructure and security.
“Dr. Lyerly, as an OB-GYN, can focus so much on abortion that she loses sight of the bigger picture: We need roads to get around, we need trucks to transport,” Ribble said. “We need a military to take care of us in a dangerous world.”
Ribble described the district's voters as working-class moderates: “Reagan Democrats who loved to hunt deer but were part of a union and attended a Catholic church.”
But while voters in the district supported Republican candidate Donald Trump during the past two presidential election cycles, Ribble said there was also a strong base of support for figures like Bernie Sanders, the left-wing progressive from Vermont.
“If you go into the rural areas of Wisconsin's 8th District, which is a big part of it, there are a lot of Bernie Sanders voters in those areas as well,” Ribble said.
“I don’t think the district is so much conservative as populist.”
Other experts warn that Democrats may not be able to count on the same wave of angry voters who supported them after the Supreme Court decision.
Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School poll, told Al Jazeera that polls conducted ahead of the June presidential debate suggested Wisconsin voters ranked abortion third among their top priorities, behind the economy and immigration.
Less than 10 percent of independents surveyed ranked abortion as their top issue, even though 76 percent said they wholeheartedly supported abortion rights.
“Preaching to the already convinced can get a lot of cheers at Democratic rallies. They agree on the issue of abortion rights,” Franklin said. “But can the campaign raise the salience of the issue so that more votes are swayed by their position on abortion, rather than the economy or immigration?”
Jackie Esker, 37, is a voter in Wisconsin’s 8th District. She describes herself as “a non-political person.” Speaking from her family’s hardware store in the small town of Wittenberg, she also expressed skepticism that abortion alone would draw voters to the Democratic Party.
The recent July 13 assassination attempt on Trump seemed like a more pressing issue, Esker explained. “I’m sure [abortion is] will take a backseat because gun control is on more people's minds than abortion.”
