Facing a barrage of Republican anti-trans ads, some Democrats are changing how they respond

By Patrick Svitek, David Wright, CNN

(CNN) — Two years ago, President Donald Trump’s campaign buried then-Vice President Kamala Harris with ads on transgender issues as he stormed back into the White House.

Now, Democrats are confronting a fresh wave of attacks that sound like Trump’s – and this time, after a party reckoning about how to address the topic with voters, they are responding more forcefully.

Some Democrats in competitive races are stating their clear opposition to trans athletes playing in girls’ sports teams or even saying they oppose trans “ideology.” Candidates like James Talarico in the Texas Senate race are trying to reconcile past positions receiving new scrutiny. And others, like former Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, are downplaying certain issues altogether, noting their states already have laws addressing them.

Some of the candidates’ strategies have proven controversial within the party and among advocates for transgender people, who fear further marginalization of their community, but praise from other Democrats who believe the party needs to defuse the issue.

A CNN poll released Wednesday found that transgender issues were less important voters in the midterm than 10 other issues that were tested, starting with the economy. But asked who they sided more with on transgender issues, voters gave the GOP an edge.

According to data from AdImpact, GOP advertisers spent more than $60 million airing more than 190 TV ads that reference transgender policies since the start of the year.

Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, whose redrawn district went for Trump by almost 11 points in 2024, has been rebuked by some Democrats in her district for airing ads recently that note she “voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of schools.” The Democratic Party in Lucas County, home to Kaptur’s hometown of Toledo, called on her Tuesday to take down the ads, saying she “stooped” to the level of Republicans.

Kaptur’s campaign stood by the general message of the ads in a statement, saying she “supports parents having more insight into their children’s education.”

The LGBT advocacy group Equality Ohio changed its rating of Kaptur from “B” to “D” after her latest ads. The group also downgraded Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for governor, from “A” to “B” after she said in June that she does “not support boys playing in girls’ sports.”

“Targeting trans people isn’t the winning strategy some people think it is,” Equality Ohio’s CEO and executive director, Dwayne Steward, said in a statement. “Real leadership means refusing this culture war bait, not reaching for it.”

Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who like Kaptur is running in a district redrawn by Republicans targeting him, said his responding directly to anti-trans rhetoric helped him keep his seat two years ago even as South Texas shifted sharply to the right. In one 2024 ad, he says in Spanish, “I have never promoted sex changes.”

“I took some very heavy pushback,” he told CNN, “and I think they were all wrong and we were right.”

Democrats confront the ghosts of ‘Kamala is for they/them’

In 2024, Trump’s campaign hammered Harris with ads using the tagline, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.” The attack stemmed from comments that Harris made in 2019 expressing support for gender-affirming care for transgender people in federal prison.

Harris later conceded in her memoir that it was a “winning message” and that her campaign should have “given even more attention to how we might mitigate Trump’s attacks.”

“It wasn’t that Vice President Harris had a certain view on an issue, it was that Trump made it look like it was the No. 1 issue for her,” said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, whom Democrats credit with effectively handling the issue in his 2023 reelection campaign and is now a potential 2028 presidential contender.

Then came the 2025 Virginia governor’s race, when Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears blanketed the airwaves with ads that characterized Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, as “being for they/them.” Spanberger responded with ads calling to “get politics out of our schools and trust parents and local communities.” She won by 15 points.

Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender advocacy group, said Spanberger showed the way because she took on the issue head-on “but also didn’t throw anyone under the bus.” The Human Rights Campaign cited Spanberger’s response in its guidance for 2026 candidates, which in part urges them to “address concerns directly.”

“There’s a school of thought that says, don’t answer the attacks, you give them more airtime. In practicality, that’s not helpful,” one national Democratic strategist said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss campaign tactics. “It’s important because once you neutralize the attack, you can run the campaign you want to run.”

A mix of Democratic responses

Alaska Senate nominee Mary Peltola, running in a state Trump won two years ago by 13 points, embodies the direct approach. She says in a direct-to-camera ad, “No, I don’t want kids getting surgery to change genders or men in girls’ bathrooms.”

In Texas, Talarico has deployed a more nuanced strategy. After previously voting against restrictions on transgender athletes in the state House, he told Fox News he would “oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness.”

Other Democrats have tried to push back more obliquely, invoking their own experience as parents and saying they will always protect kids, without even mentioning transgender people.

And then some Democrats have been more dismissive. That was the message of a recent ad by Brown, which opens with Ohioans appearing to express exasperation with the Republican focus on transgender people.

“In Ohio, it’s against the law to perform transgender surgeries on kids,” one man says. “That’s right — it’s illegal.”

Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, said he liked Brown’s strategy the best, likening it to a tennis match.

“A slam we have is the economy,” Pocan said. “Hit (the transgender attack) back over the net and just get ready to win the game, and I think Sherrod Brown showed the classiest, most intellectual way to do it that was very real and really honest.”

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