Midterm campaign updates: GOP's Cheney endorses Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan for Senate

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has been dominating the politics of the week, as flight trackers, the White House, a Texas sheriff and his political opponents try to figure out what he has already done -- and what he might do next.

But there are fresh signs of the political climate shifting yet again ahead of the midterms, in races far from Florida and from the U.S.-Mexico border.

A new Spectrum News/Siena College poll out of Wisconsin shows a virtual tie in the Senate race, with Democrat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes at 48% and GOP Sen. Ron Johnson at 47%. That comes after Barnes and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers have been hammered by TV advertisements focusing on crime.

In Georgia, two new polls out Tuesday had Sen. Raphael Warnock now leading inside the margin of error against Republican Herschel Walker. Warnock has been criticized by his rival over urban crime rates and his support for the Biden administration's economic and immigration policies.

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–ABC News' Rick Klein

Frank LaRose, Ohio's Republican secretary of state running for reelection with former President Donald Trump's endorsement, said Tuesday that -- in a break with Trump -- mail-in ballots represent a "secure" method to vote in this year's midterms.

At a brewery in Cleveland, LaRose said he was happy he received Trump's endorsement but that the support doesn't mean the two "agree on everything." Trump has lambasted absentee and mail-in voting, baselessly claiming without evidence that those methods are ripe for fraud.

"I don't speak for President Trump. He speaks for himself and does so very well," said LaRose. "But that doesn't mean we agree on everything. I can tell you that Ohio runs secure elections. In many ways, we're really the example for the rest of the country. And President Trump himself has said that Ohio runs clean elections."

LaRose defended his record, leaning into GOP talking points on drop boxes and other voting issues.

"We faced this in Ohio in the month of September of 2020. I was sued five different times. And they were asking us to expand drop boxes to locations that we couldn't secure so we were worried about doing that. There were lawsuits that were asking us to stop doing signature verification, which I thought was a positively terrible idea," LaRose said.

-- ABC News’ Paulina Tam

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic Senate nominee, for the second time this month will skip out on a Biden administration campaign stop in his state.

Barnes will not attend the Democratic Attorneys General Association conference with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday in Milwaukee, his communications director confirmed to ABC News. That follows his absence at a Milwaukee Labor Day speech delivered by President Joe Biden earlier this month.

"The Lt. Governor doesn’t have plans to attend the Democratic Attorney Generals Association conference. He appreciates the Vice President taking the time to visit Wisconsin,” Barnes' communications director said in a statement to ABC News.

Ahead of Biden’s earlier visit, Barnes told ABC affiliate WISN that he had a "pretty packed schedule" and noted that he was "grateful that the president has shown his support for the labor movement here in Wisconsin."

While she is in Milwaukee, Harris is expected to also meet with local Latino leaders and young Americans as the midterm elections are now just seven weeks away.

Barnes, who according to a Spectrum News/Siena College released on Tuesday is leading his race against incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson by 1%, is one of multiple swing-state Democrats who have been delicately balancing their affiliation with the Biden administration at a time when the White House is consistently polling low in their handling of inflation and the economy.

-- ABC News’ Paulina Tam

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have managed to move immigration and border debates to an island in Massachusetts and to Massachusetts Avenue in Washington -- and also to the middle of the midterm campaign season.

"It's on the ballot," DeSantis said at a weekend rally in Wisconsin, "and we got to make the most of it."

That includes, from DeSantis' perspective, spending up to $12 million in state funds for more efforts like the stunt that involved a plane taking would-be refugees to Martha's Vineyard.

But the current combination of policy goals and future ambitions that manifests itself in this moment is also surfacing intra-party tensions while also playing directly into reelection politics. The Democratic sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, said Monday he is opening a criminal investigation of the operation DeSantis directed, saying there is a “high possibility” that laws were broken. Immigration advocates on Tuesday are also planning a rally in Florida to protest treatment of migrants that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist is calling "cruel" and "heartless."

-- ABC News' Rick Klein