Leading members of the Grand Old Party are weaving a grand unified conspiracy theory.

Many of the same Republicans who are pushing the falsehood that Democrats want an immigrant invasion to overwhelm “traditional” voters and take over the country—their version of the “great replacement theory” that seemingly inspired the Buffalo shooter to kill 10 people last weekend—have been leading proponents of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

There’s a direct line between the two conspiracy theories. And the Americans who believe the former claim are much likelier to believe the latter.

While “big lie” proponents have pushed a variety of false claims about how the last election was supposedly stolen, one key claim pushed by Trump’s team and other top GOP officials is that scores of undocumented immigrants illegally voted in the 2020 election, swinging the election to President Biden.

Those allegations make the claims pushed by those Republicans and conservatives who are pushing “great replacement theory” all the more potent—and fills in a gap in their reasoning. In their eyes, it’s not just that Democrats want a flood of new immigrants to change the demographics of the country and eventually help their electoral chances down the line. They claim that it’s already happened.

“There is a connection between the ‘great replacement’ theory and the big lie,” said Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “In terms of the 2020...

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