Shortly after former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced his plans to run for Senate, a group backing Republicans released an ad with an echo of last year’s presidential campaign.
“Roy Cooper sides with they/them,” read the language on screen in the ad, produced by the Senate Leadership Fund.
Republicans are reprising a key attack line from last year’s presidential race for elections this year and next, betting that anti-trans messaging will help them counter Democrats running on GOP-led cuts to Medicaid and other parts of Trump’s policy megabill.
Trump allies spent tens of millions of dollars airing an ad highlighting 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ one-time commitment that detained immigrants would have access to treatment associated with gender transition as was required by federal law, including surgical care. The ad’s tagline mocked the pronouns used by non-binary individuals, saying “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”
Widely cited by strategists in both parties as having shaped the campaign, that ad is now being mimicked in North Carolina and another competitive Senate contest in Georgia. Trans and gender identity issues have also come up in this year’s race for Virginia governor.
One ad attacking Sen. Jon Ossoff aired during a basketball game and referenced the broadcast.
“Man-to-man defense isn’t woke enough for Ossoff – he’s playing for they/them. Call and tell Sen. Ossoff, stop dunking on defenseless girls,” said the ad, from an affiliate of SLF and backed by more than $350,000.
Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager and an architect of the “Kamala is for they/them” ads, said it made sense for Republicans to bring back messaging they see as driving a wedge between Democrats and key voting blocs.
“The purpose of the ads in the 2024 campaign was built around the need to increase our vote share with men, Hispanics, and moms. The ads in question - there were three - achieved the results that we were looking for,” said LaCivita in an email. “That’s what is playing out right now across the country, in Senate, House and gubernatorial races.”
Democrats argue that Republicans are using the issue as a distraction.
“Republicans have given in to the most extreme fringes of their party by abandoning pocketbook issues in favor of an anti-freedom agenda that is obsessed with letting politicians make decisions that should be left to parents and doctors,” said Viet Shelton, a spokesperson for the Democrats’ House campaign arm, in a statement. “Rather than getting involved in personal matters, House Republicans should perhaps spend their time expanding the middle class, lowering costs, and protecting freedoms.”
The Trump administration has moved across government to target trans rights in particular, from removing trans people from the military to ordering investigations of hospitals that provide particular medical services for trans children. The White House often promotes its actions against trans-friendly policies, posting Wednesday about a move to restrict visas for trans female athletes competing in women’s sports.
Trans people make up less than 0.6% of the United States population ages 13 and older, according to the Williams Institute, a public policy research center focused on sexual orientation and gender identity at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.
Similar attack ads in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia
North Carolina and Georgia host US Senate elections that are expected to rank among the most competitive contests of next year’s midterms. In both races, Republicans are launching transgender-focused attacks against Democrats, centered on policies governing youth sports participation and bathroom access.
The North Carolina GOP issued a statement slamming Cooper, saying that he “championed radical transgender ideology” and “vetoed bills to keep men out of women’s sports.” In another statement, the Senate Leadership Fund criticized Cooper’s “vetoes that allowed boys in girls’ sports.”
Meanwhile, one of Ossoff’s challengers, Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, is running an ad featuring a person wearing a dress and a wig complaining that Carter “helped Trump” in “banning people like me from competing in women’s sports.”
Ossoff campaign spokesperson Ellie Dougherty said that “National Republicans are scrambling to hide from Trump’s budget law after facing intense backlash in Georgia for gutting Medicaid and defunding hospitals.”
Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP nominee for governor in Virginia, has also been regularly targeting Democratic opponent Abigail Spanberger with attacks focused on transgender policies, as Republicans look for an opening in the challenging off-year race.
Earle-Sears wrote on social media last week that Spanberger and Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, “think your daughter should compete and share a locker room with biological men.”
Sam Newton, communications director for the Democratic Governors Association, argued that party leaders at the state level had successfully navigated similar attacks from Republicans in recent elections.
“In battleground and red-state races for governor in 2022, 2023 and 2024, voters consistently rejected Republicans who made clear they only cared about stoking division with culture wars in favor of Democratic candidates who won by staying laser-focused on addressing the biggest issues impacting working families every single day. This cycle will be no different,” Newton said.
Some Democrats are expressing sympathy for Republican views
The “they/them” ads come as some Democrats who could run for president in 2028 have debated in public where they should stand on the participation of trans female athletes in girls’ sports.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2028, told conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on his podcast in March that transgender athletes competing in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.” And Pete Buttigieg, another potential 2028 contender, also voiced sympathy for conservative complaints about transgender sports policies in an interview on NPR this week.
“I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women’s sports,” Buttigieg said.
Others have argued for resolve and attempted to build up infrastructure to support pro-transgender policies. The Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ rights organization, is planning a series of town halls in red-state cities over the summer aimed at supporting LGBTQ individuals and policies.
“Stories move people. Shared humanity is powerful. When the American people get to know who we are, and not who Donald Trump says we are, everything changes: hearts and minds first, policy and politics next,” HRC spokesperson Brandon Wolf said about the tour.
Wolf urged Democrats to “be bold, stand up to the bullies, and to say unequivocally: we refuse to compromise on freedom.”
Another effort is underway in the Christopher Street Project, a PAC formed earlier this month to endorse and raise funds for candidates that advocate for pro-transgender policies. The group released a list of 16 initial endorsees including Rep. Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, and prominent Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal, Katherine Clark, and Jamie Raskin.
During an interview last month at the Center for American Progress, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, also advised his party to avoid looking “weak” and backing down to Republicans.
“I think it’s a mistake to focus just on economics and allow trans children to get bullied or something. I think they have to go – or we look weak, if we don’t do it,” Walz said.
One minor Democratic candidate for California governor, meanwhile, tried to turn the tables on Trump and Republicans with their own line. The ad from Stephen Cloobeck’s campaign shows Trump’s photo next to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
“Trump is for they/them,” the narrator says, with the names of Epstein and Maxwell highlighted. “Stephen Cloobeck is for you.”
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Comments