Could Pouring Money Into Anti-Trans Ads Be GOP's October Surprise?

It is nothing new. They tried it in 2022 and it failed, and they tried again in 2023, with the same result. But The New York Times reports that the Republicans and their standard bearer, Donald Trump, once again "are putting transgender issues at the center of their campaigns, tapping into fears about transgender women and girls in sports and about taxpayer-funded gender transitions in prisons."

"Since the beginning of August, Republicans have poured more than $65 million into television ads in more than a dozen states on these topics in some of the country's most competitive races, according to a New York Times analysis of advertising data compiled by AdImpact," the articles adds, before going on to say that "Republican strategists believe they have found a potent third leg for their messaging stool in 2024, along with the mainstays of inflation and immigration."

Have they found their October surprise at long last?

Such a strategy comes with risks, most notably because it has failed for them in the past when used as a foil for their anti-abortion stances. But in recent weeks Trump's most aired ad about Vice President Kamala Harris ends with the tagline: "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you." The ad, Democratic strategists tell the Times, was one of the most effective GOP attacks this past month.

And the Times adds that "attacks on what Mr. Trump calls 'transgender insanity' have reliably been one of his loudest applause lines at his rallies. But now Mr. Trump has shifted significant resources to move that message far beyond his most fervent fans," using such rhetoric in targeted races where they feel incumbents are vulnerable, such as in Ohio against Sen. Sherrod Brown and Montana against Sen. John Tester.

"It's one of the issues where Democrats are furthest from the center of the country," said Brad Todd, a Republican ad maker who has produced commercials on transgender issues in multiple races this year. "They are doing something that is totally illogical to appease a tiny slice that is very radical in their base."

"Republicans acknowledge there are relatively few instances in which transgender athletes compete in youth sports," the Times writes. "But they said highlighting the unwillingness of Democratic politicians to break with their party's progressive wing on the issue was a powerful tool for depicting lawmakers as liberal or extreme."

But Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, told the Times that "Republican attempts to use transgender people as political tools had failed in key races in 2022 and 2023. She predicted they would fall flat again in 2024."

"It shows that Republicans are desperate right now," Ms. Robinson said. "Instead of articulating how they're going to make the economy better or our schools safer, they're focused on sowing fear and chaos."

By not focusing on the trans community, but rather specific cases, the GOP believes it has found a winning wedge issue that appeal to one of Trump's weakest demographics: College educated suburban women. (These specific cases involve transgender women and girls in sports, transgender women's sharing of locker rooms, the use of taxpayer funds for gender-affirming surgery for people in prison and access to transition services for minors, such as puberty blockers.)

"One of the things you see in the focus groups is the moms get really visibly angry on this issue," Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin told the Times. "It's a fairness issue. They don't want their daughters to lose a scholarship, and they don't want them to get hurt."

The Times points out that "The Trump campaign placed its transgender ads in heavy rotation during football games in recent weeks, according to a person with knowledge of the ad-buying strategy." An indication the the ad's effectiveness comes from a response by radio host Charlamagne Tha God, who commented on the ads on his show "The Breakfast Club," last week.

"I don't know if it was the backdrop of football, but when you hear the narrator say, 'Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners' – that one line, I was like, hell, no, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to that," The Times quoted him as saying. "That ad was effective."

Polling data on trans issues brings a mixed response. "A Gallup poll in 2023 showed that only 26 percent of Americans believed transgender athletes should be able to play on sports teams that fit their gender identity – a drop from two years earlier," The Times noted.

"At the same time," the writeup continued, "polls routinely show that a majority of Americans believe society should accept transgender people for the gender they identify with, including in five presidential battleground states surveyed by The New York Times and Siena College: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin."

Trump's knack for overkill might mitigate his hoped-for response.In the presidential race, a pro-Trump super PAC began to echo the campaign commercial over the weekend with an ad of its own, calling Ms. Harris a "crazy liberal," showing the same clip about surgery for prisoners and ending with the same "they/them" tagline. The ad featured an image of Jonathan Van Ness, the star of the show "Queer Eye," wearing a dress. Mr. Van Ness has said he identifies as nonbinary.

"Coming after a renowned celebrity star that people love and adore that has been in our living room for years doesn't seem like the right strategy to win hearts and minds," said Ms. Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign.

But Trump supporters are boasting how they may have found a magic bullet in exploiting the issue. After Ms. Harris met with Van Ness and the "Queer Eye" staff in July, the conservative activist group American Principles Project dropped the image in an ad. Terry Schilling, the group's president, told the Times that "in a dozen focus groups it conducted last year, it found that when it introduced the issue of minors and gender identity, liberal women were much less comfortable than they were with any other issue."

"Mr. Schilling said the most effective ad his group had run in 2024 focused on Ms. Harris and her previous statements on transgender issues and that, when shown to viewers online, the 30-second ad had a completion rate of 91 percent, meaning 91 percent of viewers watched to the end and did not click the 'skip ad' option."

"This is where Republicans can run the numbers up, make Democrats look extreme and also reach the base," Mr. Schilling explained to The Times. "It's three birds with one stone."