Jim Hartman
The 20% cost-of-living increase during the Biden/Harris term of office left a big opening for Donald Trump in 2024. Inflation was voters’ top issue.
Democrats also bungled the politics of immigration. Chaos and a massive new migrant surge at the border became another major political gift to Trump.
But as the campaign neared its conclusion, it was the transgender issue that emerged as a powerful force working in Trump’s favor and against Harris.
In the campaign’s closing weeks, Trump rolled out an ad on the hot-button issue of transgender rights.
It featured 2019 footage of Harris, saying she supported taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender inmates. The tagline: “Kamala’s For They/Them. President Trump is for you.”
That message boosted him with swing voters.
The issue popped up in other campaigns as well. Republican Senate candidates in Michigan (Mike Rogers) and Wisconsin (Eric Hovde) heavily advertised that their Democratic opponents “voted to let biological men into women’s sports.” That got spontaneous applause when they raised the issue at campaign events.
In the 2024 election cycle, a reported $123 million was spend by political campaigns on TV ads referencing transgender athletes. It’s an issue that affects a small portion of the population but generates huge amounts of attention in political discussions at all levels.
The issue exploded on the national scene in 2022 when Lia Thomas, a transgender woman on the University of Pennsylvania swim team, won the NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle title.
While more American young people identify as transgender in recent years, the number of transgender girls on teams remains tiny – sometimes none in a specific state.
The Trump campaign was alert to the issue. Trump regularly vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” during his rallies. It got the most applause.
The Trump campaign decided to amplify the controversy in the campaign’s final weeks. Polling showed the transgender topic was hitting home. The response was huge, elevating the issue above all others.
Asked what levers the president could pull on the issue, Trump responded simply: “You ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”
Last year 69% of Americans told the Gallup poll that “transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.”
That’s not bigotry, it’s what most Americans see as common sense. It represents fairness and equal opportunity for women in sports enshrined in Title IX. Not long ago Democrats believed in that principle.
What many people resent is having progressive cultural values imposed on them. That includes compelling their daughters to compete against athletes who were born male. To many, those advocating for transgender rights have gone too far in recent years.
At the beginning of the campaign, it appeared Republicans faced a problem with independent and moderate Republican women, as support for abortion rights had become an increasingly bipartisan issue.
While these women took a live and let live view concerning gender transitioning policy, they found transgender athletes competing against their daughters and granddaughters a huge issue.
Some Democratic operatives warned weeks before Election Day that Trump’s transgender ads were resonating with voters. The ads struck a chord but were ignored.
In the aftermath of Harris’s defeat, some Democrats are urging the Democratic Party to rethink its approach to transgender issues.
Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat with a long history of supporting LGBTQ+ rights, expressed concern about transgender athletes participating in girls’ sports saying, “I have two little girls. I don’t want to see them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”
Rep. Tom Suozzi, New York Democrat, said his party needs to “stop pandering to the far-left,” adding, “I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports… Democrats aren’t saying that and they should be.”
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.