41% Of Republican Voters Agree That GOP’s Anti-Trans Rhetoric Is ‘Sad And Shameful’

Lil Kalish
Updated Thu 24 October 2024

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has spent more than $21 million on political advertisements attacking Vice President Kamala Harris this election cycle over her support of transgender rights — and stoking fears about transgender people’s presence in public life.

In an ad that has run nationally and in swing states and is circulating widely online, the Trump campaign takes aim at Harris’ prior support of gender-affirming care for people in prisons. It ends with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

A new report from Data for Progress out Thursday shows that voters across party lines believe these ads have gotten out of hand — and that they think Democrats are better equipped to handle LGBTQ+ issues than Republicans.

The progressive polling firm surveyed 1,216 likely U.S. voters about candidates’ stances on transgender rights. Respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements.

Asked if they viewed Republican candidates’ use of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in their campaigns as “sad and shameful,” 41% of Republicans and 58% of independent voters agreed. That compares to 38% of Republicans and 25% of independents who do not think it’s “shameful.”

The survey also found that 80% of all voters polled, across party lines, agreed that the two major parties should spend more time talking about the economy and inflation than issues related to transgender people. And 52% of voters trust the Democratic Party more than the GOP to handle trans issues, including a 39% plurality of independents.

This new data is consistent with other polling from Data for Progress earlier this year. In January, the firm asked a similar number of likely U.S. voters to rank issues most important to them. The economy and employment were at the top of the list, followed by climate change and health care. LGBTQ+ issues ranked last.

Trump and Republicans have made big bets this year that anti-trans rhetoric will not only help the top of the ticket, but will help them clinch several competitive races for seats in the House and Senate in what is projected to be the most expensive election of all time.

Republican expenditures targeting a minority group that by some counts makes up as little as 0.5% of the U.S. population have not borne fruit in the past. During the midterm elections in 2022, Republican candidates who ran campaigns heavy on anti-trans rhetoric, who used hateful language to describe transgender people or who called into question the science of gender-affirming care overwhelmingly lost. By contrast, LGBTQ+ candidates won at record-setting numbers, according to the Victory Institute, which works to elect LGBTQ+ candidates.

Over each of the last two years, Republican-led state legislatures across the country have filed more than 500 bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community. They often have a particular focus on transgender children, limiting their access to certain sports teams and bathrooms, restricting LGBTQ+ topics in school curricula and banning gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors.

Now 24 states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for minors and 25 states have passed bans on trans youth participating in sports that align with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit research institution. The fate of gender-affirming care for young trans kids rests in a legal challenge that the Supreme Court will hear this December.

In the meantime, a majority of Democrats and 45% plurality of Republicans believe the government should have less involvement in the medical decisions transgender people make, according to the new Data for Progress survey. And a 48% plurality of Republicans said that the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation was “too much” and that politicians were “playing political theater and using these bills as a wedge issue.”


Majority of voters view anti-transgender ads as ‘mean-spirited’

Brooke Migdon
Thu 24 October 2024 



New polling from a left-leaning firm shows a majority of voters see a recent wave of campaign ads targeting transgender student-athletes and gender-affirming health care as “mean-spirited,” and the ads could be backfiring.

More than half of voters surveyed this month by Data For Progress said political attack ads targeting the trans community have gotten “out of hand” — including nearly a third of Republicans, whose candidates are largely responsible for the ads.

Just more than 60 percent of surveyed voters, including a majority of independents and 41 percent of Republicans, said it is “sad and shameful” for GOP candidates to make anti-LGBTQ rhetoric a part of their campaigns, according to the poll, which was released Thursday.

Former President Trump and Republicans in key House and Senate races have bet big on anti-transgender messaging in the final weeks of the election, pouring millions into political ads that paint their Democratic opponents as radical for supporting trans-inclusive policies.

“Crazy liberal Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” says one pro-Trump television ad that aired this month in battleground states.

A study released Thursday by Ground Media, a strategic communications group, found the ad yielded “no statistically significant shift” in voter choice, mobilization or likelihood to vote. It did, however, reduce public acceptance of trans people across nearly all demographics.

An ad campaign launched this year by Ground Media in partnership with GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, advocates for broad support for transgender Americans and their families.

Transgender issues are among the least important issues driving voters to the ballot box, a recent Gallup poll found, and a similar focus on transgender athletes and health care in 2022 failed to translate to election wins for Republicans.

“There were more ads on transgender sports than inflation, gas prices and bread and butter issues that could have swayed independent voters,” Paul Cordes, chief of staff for the Michigan Republican Party, wrote in a 2022 memo after the party lost control of the state Legislature for the first time in a decade. A sweep of victories on election night gave Democrats control of Michigan’s Senate for the first time in 38 years.

Eighty percent of voters in Thursday’s Data For Progress poll said political candidates on both sides of the aisle should spend less time talking about transgender issues and devote more of their energy and campaign resources toward addressing voters’ priority issues, like the economy and inflation. Eighty-five percent of Republicans said candidates should back away from transgender messaging, according to the poll, eclipsing the share of Democratic (75 percent) and independent (82 percent) voters who said the same.

Another 55 percent of voters surveyed said state lawmakers over the past year have introduced “too much” legislation aimed at limiting the rights of transgender people. More than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures this year, primarily by Republicans. Nearly all of them, however, failed to become law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Voters in Thursday’s poll said politicians “are playing political theater” and are using the bills as a wedge issue. A majority — 58 percent — said the government “should be less involved in regulating what transgender people are allowed to do, including the health care they can receive.”

While more than half of voters surveyed said they trust Democrats over Republicans to handle transgender issues, voters split more closely over which political party has taken a “more extreme stance” on trans policy. Fifty-two percent of voters surveyed, however — including 80 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of independents — said they are most likely to vote for a candidate who supports transgender rights.

A majority of Republicans, at 57 percent, said they are most likely to vote for a candidate who opposes trans rights, according to the poll. Similarly, Republicans were more likely than Democrats and independents to respond positively to a hypothetical campaign message calling for new laws to restrict access to gender-affirming health care and to keep “biological boys” out of girls’ sports.

An overwhelming majority of voters surveyed said they believe transgender people “deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” including 86 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents and 58 percent of Republicans.

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