By Helen Coster and Leah Douglas
Oct 8 (Reuters) - After being caught flat-footed on transgender issues in the last US election, Democrats in tight midterm races are pursuing different strategies, with some adopting more conservative stances and others trying to deflect, according to a Reuters review of campaign messaging and interviews with nine party strategists and insiders.
Ahead of the November 3 election, vulnerable Republican candidates have renewed their attacks over transgender rights, a message
that political strategists say helped Donald Trump and his party win unified control of Washington in 2024.
In response, some Democratic candidates have moved closer to Republican positions on transgender participation in women's sports and gender-affirming care for minors. Others are seeking to redirect the conversation back to the flagging economy and Trump’s unpopular war with Iran.
The different strategies can be seen most clearly in Iowa and Ohio, states that Republicans have dominated during the Trump era but which now feature competitive congressional and gubernatorial races.
Whether Democrats in these Midwestern states can convince moderate voters they agree with their views on trans issues, or successfully change the topic, could determine how much support they are able to win back from cultural conservatives — and could foreshadow how the party's presidential hopefuls handle the issue in 2028.
Critics warn that moving towards Republicans on trans issues is unlikely to win Democrats new support, and risks alienating LGBTQ voters and the party’s ascendant progressive wing.
DEMOCRATS MOVE RIGHT
In Iowa, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, Senate candidate Josh Turek and congressional candidates Lindsay James and Sarah Trone Garriott have all distanced themselves from progressive positions on transgender issues.
“I oppose letting men in women's locker rooms and voted to let parents, not politicians, make decisions for their kids,” Trone Garriott said in a recent ad.
LGBTQ advocates have criticized such language, saying misgendering transgender women as men represents a betrayal of the party's LGBTQ supporters at a uniquely vulnerable moment.
Since returning to office, Trump has directed the federal government to recognize only two sexes; sought to bar transgender people from military service; restricted transgender girls' participation in women's sports, and moved to limit federal support for gender-affirming care for minors.
“You don't have to capitulate and use Republican talking points to win elections,” said Aime Wichtendahl, the first transgender person elected to the Iowa General Assembly.
Gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand told Politico last month that "girls' sports are for girls." And his approach may be working, with polls showing him favored to become the first Democrat to win the governor's race since 2006.
At a recent town hall he said “I tend to agree” with Republicans that transgender women and girls should be barred from female sports teams.
“Coward!” a man in the room shouted in protest.
'PARENTS KNOW WHAT'S BEST'
Transgender issues have also featured prominently in Ohio, which Trump carried by double digits in 2024.
Republican Derek Merrin, running to represent the 9th congressional district, released a September 10 ad saying that Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur had “voted to let biological men compete against girls in their sports.”
Kaptur, who faces an uphill race in her recently redrawn district, countered a week later with an ad saying she had “voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools because parents know what’s best for their kids … and boys should not play in girls’ sports.”
The ad was criticized by local LGBTQ organizations, including the Lucas County Stonewall Democrats, who wrote in a letter to Kaptur that she was “engaged in a race to the bottom with Republicans.”
Asked for a response to that letter, Kaptur's campaign did not respond.
Former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, running against Trump-backed Jon Husted, has tried a different approach. A recent ad from Elon Musk’s PAC accused him of supporting an “extremist” agenda under which children are “abused and exploited” through “sex change surgery.”
Brown, who polls show with a narrow lead over Husted, has opted not to engage, framing the attacks as a distraction from more pressing issues: “With everything going on, that’s what they’re talking about?” asks one Ohio voter who was featured in a recent ad from Brown’s campaign.
THE ISSUE THAT BOXED IN HARRIS
Among the most indelible ads from 2024’s presidential contest between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris was one that featured the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
A Democratic Party election report concluded the ads were “very effective” and boxed in Harris, who had previously supported gender-affirming care for inmates in federal custody.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in April found that 67% of survey respondents supported banning transgender people from competing in female school sports. But the party splits were severe: Ninety-two percent of Republicans said they supported such bans, compared with just 44% of Democrats.
“We have extensive research that shows voters prefer an argument that broadens the conversation to all of us and doesn't leave anyone behind over a divisive narrative that misgenders people and throws them under the bus," said Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender advocacy organization.
With their anti-trans attacks, Republicans are “abandoning pocketbook issues in favor of an anti-freedom agenda that is obsessed with politicians making decisions that should be left to parents and schools,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement, echoing a framing used by Republicans that emphasizes local government control on transgender policies.
Democratic strategist Eric Stern thinks Republicans got “over-confident” about the effectiveness of their anti-trans strategy in 2024.
“I’m skeptical that if there are some low-propensity voters whose wages are being stretched thin because of Trump’s wars and tariffs that they’re going to care about some cultural issue that doesn't impact their lives,” Stern said.
Veteran Republican strategist Charlie Black said the party is right to build on messaging that connected with voters in 2024, and which “might help” in some places, but agreed that "economic issues are predominant this year.”
Hack of the Christopher Street Project added there's no one-size-fits-all approach to such a polarizing topic.
"We want to make sure that candidates talk about these issues in a way that's inclusive and in a way that makes sense for their individual communities," he said, "and that doesn't always look the exact same."
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York and Leah Douglas in Washington. Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage and Aurora Ellis)
