Nevada is one of only a few battleground states. Nevada Democrats need to act like it.

You may have heard about the recent Washington Post poll estimating that a quarter of the people in the U.S., and a third of Republicans, think the FBI organized and instigated the attack on the Capitol three years ago.

On the bright side, three-fourths of Americans, and even two-thirds of Republicans, know or at least presume that’s absurd.

And to be fair, there is always a substantial minority of people who will believe just about anything – that the earth is flat, that the moon landing was a hoax, etc. So mere pop ignorance might explain some of the people who think the FBI caused the assault on the Capitol.

More disturbing of course is the proportion of the populace, mostly but not all Republicans, who have allowed themselves to be deliberately misled, and fallen for Trump and his lies.

Tragically, presenting dedicated MAGA Republicans with facts is a fool’s errand. Social scientists have long-documented what is often called the “backfire effect,” in which the presentation of facts can make people even more hostile to truth. That phenomenon seems to have at least something to do with Trump’s glide path to the Republican presidential nomination this year; it’s not despite his indictments but, in large part, because of them. The more facts come out about Trump’s sinister plot to overthrow democracy and deprive Americans (and specifically, Nevadans) of the right to have their votes counted, the harder his supporters want to vote for him.

Those people are a lost cause. They’re not coming back to reality, at least not between now and the election.

But more casual voters, who may have soaked up some of Trump’s lies through friends, family, or osmosis, and are currently toying with the idea of voting for Trump, are still in play. Upon reflection and as the election draws nearer, many of them will turn away from Trump with revulsion. How many? Hard to say.

There is an impediment, after all. Truth continues to be purposely obscured by Republican elected officials in Nevada and nationwide who know Trump is unfit for office, a liar and a criminal who endangers the Constitution, democracy, and individual rights. Those Republican officials lack the courage to tell the truth – to lead – so they pretend he isn’t.

Whether through mistake or miscalculation, former Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak’s reelection campaign in 2022 passed up multiple opportunities to saddle his Republican opponent, Joe Lombardo, with Trump and Trumpism.

Sisolak was also the nation’s only incumbent Democratic governor to lose in 2022.

Elected Nevada Democrats – traditionally a group fond of cloying triangulation – and their operatives mustn’t echo that strategy this year. (And that means no more participation in the polite normalization of Nevada’s fake electors.)

Some Nevada Democratic officials gathered Friday to mark Saturday’s anniversary of the insurrection. Among them was state Sen. Skip Daly.

“There’s a lack of moral and civic leadership in the governor’s office and in the Republicans that are running up and down the ballot across Nevada,” Daly said. “That can only be tied to Trump.”

That is exactly the sort of thing elected Nevada Democrats need to say regularly and frequently this election year. Not for their sakes (in general, few things are more mundane than the career aspirations of individual politicians), but for their state – and their nation.

There aren’t that many battleground states, after all, and Nevada is one of them.

A version of this column was originally published in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free, and which you can subscribe to here.