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Reporters at ProPublica live and work in 26 states across the country, from California to Minnesota, Texas to New York. Many have covered key election issues and how they are resonating at national, state and local levels. On Election Day, our reporters will be on the ground in many of these locations, on the lookout for what’s going right and what isn’t. The topics we’re watching include how extremist groups react to the election, the actions of newly recruited poll workers who were mobilized on the basis of their distrust of election administration, and how well embattled election boards and commissions handle potential challenges to voting processes.
Some are paying attention to the defining cultural debates of today. In Missouri, a reliably red state, we’ll be watching whether a voter-initiated constitutional amendment aimed at restoring abortion rights passes. We’re also looking at whether voters in states opt to expand school voucher programs or elect legislators who will do so.
You can reach our whole team at propublica.org/tips if you have a tip for us to investigate. You can also text or call 917-512-0201, or send us a message at that number on Signal, a secure messaging app. Below you’ll find a list of some of our reporters, what they’re covering and individual contact information.
Voting IssuesAndy Kroll, reporter, will be watching for disruptions and disputes at the polls and among political organizations.
I have extensive experience covering dark money in politics, legal battles over voting and election-related disinformation. On Election Day, I’ll be watching swing states for any disruptions or attempts to suppress the vote. I’ll also be monitoring last-minute lawsuits related to the election and viral rumors or misleading information about voting and the integrity of the elections. If you believe you witnessed possible voter suppression, attempts to knowingly mislead voters or other efforts to subvert the election, please get in touch.
Email: andy.kroll@propublica.org; call or text: 202-215-6203
The Role of Extremist GroupsJoshua Kaplan, A.C. Thompson and James Bandler, reporters, will be looking at how extremist groups are reacting to election results.
We are reporting on extremism tied to the election. For years, we’ve covered violence and intimidation in American politics — we’ve explored how social media companies helped extremists organize, dug into botched responses by law enforcement, and exposed the people and groups committing harm. Do you know a voter or election official who has been threatened? Do you have information about efforts to incite violence? Are you seeing this kind of conduct on specific social media or messaging platforms? Please contact us.
Email: joshua.kaplan@propublica.org, ac.thompson@propublica.org, james.bandler@propublica.org
School VouchersJeremy Schwartz, reporter for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, will be monitoring state races to see if school voucher supporters are elected.
Following primary runoff elections in May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared he finally would have enough votes in the Legislature to pass his top priority: a private-school voucher system. But Democrats in the state are holding out hope they can flip a handful of Republican-held seats on Tuesday and keep Abbott from his goal. I have been covering the voucher debate in Texas for the past two years, reporting on the decadeslong effort to build political support behind the scenes and efforts by pro-voucher billionaires to influence school board races and bond elections. On Election Day, I’ll be looking at how issues of vouchers and public education play out up and down the ballot in Texas, from school board races to key Texas legislative battles.
Email: jeremy.schwartz@propublica.org; call or text: 708-967-5730
Texas Voter Roll RemovalsVianna Davila and Lexi Churchill, reporters for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, will be watching to see whether people who were removed from the voter rolls because they were incorrectly flagged as noncitizens show up to vote.
In late August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that 1.1 million voters across the state were removed from the rolls since 2021, including 6,500 potential noncitizens. Our reporting has found that the claims of noncitizens on the voter rolls are likely inflated and, in some cases, wrong. So far, we have found at least 10 U.S. citizens in three Texas counties who were likely included in that total, and our research shows there are almost certainly others. The voters we have pinned down come from a range of political and racial backgrounds, including a lifelong Republican and Donald Trump supporter who never thought her citizenship or right to vote would be in question. We want to hear from voters who discover their registration has been canceled and face hurdles to vote at the polls, as well as county officials who witness these issues. Even if your registration has been canceled, voting rights experts say you should almost always be able to cast a ballot, even if it’s a provisional one. Check out our guide on the steps U.S. citizens can take to vote if you’ve been removed after your citizenship was questioned.
Email: vianna.davila@propublica.org, lexi.churchill@propublica.org; text or Signal: 512-596-0148, 816-898-5462
Georgia’s New Election RulesDoug Bock Clark, reporter, will be looking at how new election rules approved in Georgia affect voting and tabulating results.
For months, national right-wing groups have been working behind the scenes to change Georgia’s election rules to benefit Trump. And although courts have blocked those rule changes for the moment, those groups are still active. They have been recruiting and training poll watchers and preparing to push for a Trump victory. On Election Day, I’ll be on the ground in Atlanta, Georgia, to monitor some of the most electorally important counties in the swing state and the nation. I’m interested in hearing from readers who encounter unusual poll watcher activity. I have also reported extensively on challenges to voter registrations, and I’m looking to hear from anyone who finds themselves dealing with such a challenge. Fulton County, Georgia, was the epicenter of numerous conspiracy theories about election malfeasance in 2020, and I’ll be closely examining any such claims this time. And as ProPublica’s democracy reporter for the South, I’ll also be keeping an eye on other states, such as North Carolina.
Email: doug.clark@propublica.org; text or Signal: 678-243-0784
The Outcome in MinnesotaJessica Lussenhop, reporter, will be monitoring results from Minnesota, Tim Walz’s home state.
I’m a native Minnesotan who has been reporting on how Tim Walz, our governor and the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has handled crucial matters in the state, including health care and police reform. If Kamala Harris wins the election and takes Walz to the White House with her, that will cause a huge political shake-up here, so I’ll be paying close attention to that. In the near term, though, I’ll have my attention focused on Michigan and any fallout in such an important swing state during and following the election.
Email: Jessica.Lussenhop@propublica.org; Signal: 612-460-1202
Poll WorkersPhoebe Petrovic, a Local Reporting Network partner at Wisconsin Watch, will be watching the conduct of poll workers recruited by Christian nationalist groups.
I’ve been reporting about Christian nationalist efforts to recruit poll workers and undermine certification ahead of the election. And on Election Day I’ll be looking to see if those efforts will be successful. Specifically, I’ll be watching for misinformation or misconduct from both poll workers and poll watchers, especially in Wisconsin. I’ll also be looking for activity from extremist groups and conspiracy theorists online and on the ground, as well as their influence on the certification of results and lawsuits in the days after. Together, all these reflect attempts to erode the public’s trust in elections. I’m eager to hear from voters who got turned away due to misinformation from poll workers, elections officials facing threats or anyone with knowledge of attempts to block certification.
Email: ppetrovic@wisconsinwatch.org; call, text or Signal: 608-571-3748
Missouri’s Abortion Rights AmendmentJeremy Kohler, reporter, will be reporting on the fate of a constitutional amendment in Missouri to restore abortion rights.
Although Missouri is a reliably red state where the outcome of the presidential election isn’t in doubt, it is at the center of a pivotal election issue: a voter-initiated constitutional amendment aimed at restoring abortion rights. This initiative follows years of the state legislature tightening abortion restrictions, culminating in the trigger ban that nearly eliminated access to the procedure upon the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Missouri is among 10 states with an amendment to restore access to abortion on the ballot. In my earlier reporting, I showed how anti-abortion activists have employed disinformation tactics, attempting to sway public opinion against abortion rights by linking the amendment to unrelated issues like gender-affirming care for transgender people. While polling showed the amendment leading by a wide margin, I’ll be watching to see whether late campaign efforts sway public opinion and how abortion foes try to regroup to repeal the amendment if it passes. And I’ll be watching developments in other states where abortion is on the ballot.
Email: jeremy.kohler@propublica.org; call, text or Signal: 314-486-7204
Nevada’s New Voter SystemAnjeanette Damon, reporter, will be watching how Nevada’s new centralized voter registration system holds up.
Eight weeks before the general election, 16 of Nevada’s 17 counties switched to a new centralized voter registration system that promises to vastly improve election security and efficiency in the state. But the rollout, which consisted of transferring massive voter datasets from antiquated county systems, was difficult for understaffed and overtaxed county clerk offices. As with any system upgrade, problems with the data were discovered that had to be corrected before early voting began on Oct. 16. (In Nevada, nearly 90% of people vote before Election Day.) I am based in Washoe County, Nevada’s key swing county, which is home to Reno. Washoe County’s clerk, who is on administrative leave from her job, said she didn’t think her office would have time to fix all of the problems. County and state officials said all identified issues were corrected. Please reach out to me if you encounter difficulty checking in at the polls, if you received an incorrect ballot or if you were mistakenly marked inactive. I’ll also be watching the ballot cure process, in which clerks take additional steps to verify ballot signatures that had issues on initial review.
Email: anjeanette.damon@propublica.org; call, text or Signal: 775-303-8857
Wisconsin Elections CommissionMegan O’Matz, reporter, will be watching out for how the embattled Wisconsin Elections Commission handles voting and the results.
Wisconsin has a highly decentralized system of administering elections. More than 1,800 clerks in cities, towns and villages oversee the balloting. After Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020, voters and officials upset with the outcome focused their ire on the state agency that issues guidance to the clerks and considers complaints. I reported on the effort — ultimately unsuccessful — to oust the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s neutral administrator, as well as the bullying of a Republican member who rejected the stolen election myth. On Election Day I’ll be watching the mechanics of voting and pressures on election officials. Are controversial drop boxes inflaming tensions? Are there threats, signs of voter intimidation or suppression? What events could become fodder for lawsuits? How is law enforcement responding? I’m eager to hear from voters, public officials, poll workers or observers.
Email: megan.omatz@propublica.org
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ProPublica launched its coverage of this year’s presidential race back in 2022. No, we didn’t send a reporter to Iowa to check out how people were feeling about Donald Trump or try to figure out Nikki Haley’s prospects in New Hampshire. We’ve long believed that sort of story is best left to the nation’s cadre of capable political reporters.
Instead, we turned our attention to Afghanistan, taking a close look at the chaotic final days of the war. Working with Alive in Afghanistan and their journalists in Kabul, we explored the extent to which the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal contributed to the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemen in a suicide bombing. Headlined “Hell at Abbey Gate: Chaos, Confusion and Death in the Final Days of the War in Afghanistan,” the story found the typical mix of policy missteps and on-the-ground miscalculations that contribute to such tragedies. We concluded that the Biden administration had underestimated how quickly the Afghan Army would collapse and failed to plan for events that, in retrospect, appeared probable if not inevitable.
“The shadow of the Afghanistan withdrawal looms large over the administration of President Joe Biden as it navigates the growing conflict in Ukraine,” we wrote. “The widely publicized chaos of the evacuation caused an immediate drop in Biden’s approval ratings, and Republican groups have signaled they intend to make it a wedge issue in future elections.’’
Things didn’t turn out as we anticipated. While Haley, Trump and other Republicans did attack the Biden administration’s handling of Afghanistan, other issues turned out to play a much larger role in the 2024 campaign.
As an organization that specializes in investigative reporting, our role in the political process is a bit hard to define. We say in our mission statement that our goal is to expose “abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust” in the belief that our stories will spur “reform.’’ We're a nonprofit that doesn't engage in advocacy for either party. When it comes to politics, we focus on the process of elections, the substance of issues and the behind-the-scenes forces that stand to benefit from particular outcomes.
Back in 2011, we spent considerable time digging into the intricacies of gerrymandering. We documented how, in state after state, majority parties tilted electoral maps in their favor. The attractions of gerrymandering, we learned, were bipartisan. The Democratic supermajority in California was just as likely to jigger the maps as the Republicans in North Carolina and Florida.
In the winter of 2016, our reporter Alec MacGillis set out to see what was happening to the Republican Party in Ohio. What he found were the beginnings of a profound split, in which an alienated, politically homeless electorate was quite willing to vote for Trump.
“The stresses that created these Trump voters had been building for decades in places like Dayton,’’ he wrote. “For the most part, the political establishment ignored, dismissed or overlooked these forces, until suddenly they blew apart nearly everyone’s blueprint for the presidential campaign.’’
MacGillis’ work proved prescient. Rereading it for this column, I was struck again by how important it is to subject the conventional wisdom to the stresses of on-the-ground reporting.
Our efforts to contribute to voters’ understanding of what many see as the most consequential election in modern American history have been even broader.
One key question we and many others tried to address is the likely policies of a second Trump administration. Trump had been clear about his plans in 2016, announcing his intentions to build a wall on the southwest border, ban Muslim immigrants and raise tariffs.
In 2024, the wish list for a Republican administration was assembled under the banner of Project 2025, written by an assortment of former officials, most of whom had worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign or in his first term. The document they produced was covered in detail by various outlets.
Working with our partners at the nonprofit Documented, we obtained 14 hours of training videos that shed further light on what Project 2025 intends to accomplish. There is advice on how to avoid embarrassing disclosures through the Freedom of Information Act along with reams of strategies for vanquishing the bureaucrats in the “Deep State.’’ One video that caught our eye was a senior official in the first Trump administration who said an early task of the next Trump presidency would be to “eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.’’
In a separate collaboration with Documented, we uncovered a speech in which another top Trump ally said the plan was to put career civil servants “in trauma.’’ Such extreme steps were necessary, he said, because the United States was in the midst of a “Marxist takeover’’ and faced a crisis comparable to 1776 and 1860.
Another key function of journalism in elections is to write about the issues voters care about. We’ve dispatched journalists to scrutinize two pivotal issues in this year’s campaign: immigration and abortion.
As Trump steamrollered his opponents in the 2024 primaries, it quickly became clear that immigration was going to be a major flash point for voters. The numbers of migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border were way up from their pandemic lows, and the Biden administration had been slow to react. Democratic mayors like New York’s Eric Adams were publicly criticizing Biden as thousands of migrants from countries like Venezuela were showing up in cities looking for shelter.
We assembled a team of ProPublica journalists to dig deeper. Mica Rosenberg, our newly hired immigration reporter, and data reporter Jeff Ernsthausen began with the central question: What changed in the past decade to make the issue such an important part of the American political conversation? They found new patterns in the masses of data collected by federal agencies. The mix of migrants traveling to the southwest border had radically changed, from mostly single Mexican adults in decades past to an increasing number of families and children from Central America starting around 2014. And more recently, new migrants have been coming from a much broader array of countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, China and West African nations. We found that the changing face of immigration to America had been set in motion by the policies of both Presidents Trump and Biden.
Our data analysis showed that the number of migrants crossing the southwest border into the United States was not vastly higher than in other periods of history. But the new migrants were more visible than their predecessors, as many applied for asylum or entered through other legal pathways instead of trying to escape arrest at the border. They have moved to new cities and towns that, in some cases, lacked the infrastructure to deal with their needs for schools, housing, driver’s licenses and medical care. The strains were real, and their impact was vastly magnified by social media and television.
One of those communities affected by the new migrants was the tiny town of Whitewater, Wisconsin. Hundreds of Nicaraguans had moved to Whitewater, and many of them were driving without licenses or much experience behind the wheel. The police chief had written a letter to President Biden asking for help. He said he didn’t need much — just a few hundred thousand dollars to hire a couple of police officers, preferably some who could speak Spanish. The White House did not respond to the chief’s request for close to two months, and when it did it told the chief about a program unavailable to Whitewater. Meanwhile, Trump turned Whitewater into yet another flashpoint in his argument that Democrats are ignoring an “invasion.’’
Our reporters Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel had spent years exploring the role of immigrants in Wisconsin’s dairy industry. Their story, “What Happened in Whitewater,’’ added more nuanced context. Yes, the chief’s initial plea for help went unheeded. But he eventually did get some funding to hire more officers, and Whitewater is on its way to integrating its new residents.
We’ve done a myriad of other reporting that figures in the election. Our reporting on the women who died trying to obtain medical care in states with abortion bans began long before the 2024 campaign turned white hot. We had no idea one of those stories would end up as the centerpiece of a political ad aired by the Harris-Walz campaign.
A final thought on politics and ProPublica. No one knows what’s going to happen on Nov. 5. Like most American newsrooms, we’re planning for multiple outcomes, from a clear victory by either candidate to a grinding conflict in the courts and, possibly, in state legislatures and the Congress. Whatever happens, we’ll be there, trying to figure out what’s really happening.
Return to a time when steamboats ruled the river. The one-hour narrated riverfront cruise aboard the Riverboats at the Gateway Arch explores the history of downtown St. Louis, including the […]
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