CNN —
In early October, former President Donald Trump and his allies spent $21 million on television ads attacking Vice President Kamala Harris for her past support for certain rights for transgender people. I invested more than that. This message was spread during nationally broadcast NFL games and college games. Even in soccer broadcasts and battleground states.
That’s a staggering amount of money to spend on a topic that most voters say is not a top priority in this election. But the Trump campaign is betting that voters who choose between the two candidates could take sides in the culture wars that have torn apart state legislatures and school boards in recent years. This cultural struggle focuses heavily on incredibly small and marginalized groups. They are already facing violence based on discrimination. Republicans in key Senate races have echoed that message as part of a strategy to portray Democrats as out of touch with the majority of voters.
At the center of the ad is a position first reported by CNN’s K-Files last month, in which Harris will run as a presidential candidate in the 2020 primary and will not be supported by taxpayer funding, as has already been requested. and supported gender-affirming care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners. By federal law.
“Kamala’s agenda is them, not you,” one ad reads, referring to the pronouns used by some transgender and non-binary people. The Trump campaign spent about $14 million on the ad in the first two weeks of this month.
Asked Wednesday by Fox News’ Bret Baier about her current position, Harris said, referring to a New York Times report outlining that the Bureau of Prisons provided gender-affirming services under the Trump administration. He said he would follow the law. The Trump campaign disputed this report.
Even before launching his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump escalated his rhetoric against the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender Americans, but leading up to his 2016 victory and throughout his four years in Washington, he rarely I was avoiding it. At a press conference in July 2022, President Trump expressed his opposition to the participation of transgender women in women’s track and field, and was surprised by the applause that erupted at the time, expressing his opposition to the participation of transgender women in his remarks. He claimed that his advisors had insisted that the information not be included.
“They told me not to do that,” Trump said. “And that’s what gets the biggest hand. It’s crazy.”
President Trump vowed early in his recent bid for the White House to punish hospitals that provide gender-affirming treatment to minors. This is a rare outcome, usually following counseling and other prescribed treatments. He will also target schools and teachers who inform children that they “could be trapped in the wrong body,” his campaign website said. He recently falsely claimed that schools were secretly sending children to gender reassignment surgeries. And his criticism of transgender women participating in sports remains his biggest rallying cry.
But until now, much of that rhetoric has been directed at his supporters. According to campaign advertising data, of the roughly $66 million total spent on broadcast television ads by the Trump campaign and outside groups working with it so far in October, about one-third, or $21 million, was devoted to “LGBTQ rights.” ” was placed in an advertisement. Tracker AdImpact. Nearly all of the videos include clips from four years ago of Harris expressing support for pro-trans policies.
The ad outperformed nearly every other theme Republicans tried to sway the public during a critical late campaign phase — putting taxes on the back burner, ahead of crime, inflation and immigration. . As pro-Trump advertisers pour money into ads attacking transgender policies, economic messages have also shifted but remained consistent in their focus. Inflation became a top issue in August, mentioned in nearly a quarter of Republican ads from broadcast spending. But in the months that followed, as inflation continued to slow, other issues, such as taxation, began to supersede that issue, and in October it emerged as the top issue in pro-Trump ads.
The Trump campaign’s top ad so far in October is an attack calling Harris’ support for legislation requiring inmates to receive medical care, including gender-affirming care, as “insane.” Another similar ad from the Trump campaign this month, which received more than $2 million in funding, echoes this policy. “It may be hard to believe, but it’s true. Even the liberal media was shocked to learn that Kamala was supporting the sex change of prisoners and illegal aliens with taxpayer funds,” the ad reads. It’s dark.
Harris’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment. But when asked to respond to one of the Trump campaign’s ads in a Fox interview on Wednesday, Harris argued that the Trump campaign is focused on issues that most voters have little interest in.
“I think he spent $20 million on advertising to instill fear in voters because he actually has no plan to focus on the needs of the American people in this election. ” she said.
Trump’s most conservative allies have been urging him for months to make the issue a central part of his outreach to undecided voters. Parents may be especially swayed by Mr. Trump’s opposition to transgender treatment for minors, and Democrats defend their support for pro-trans policies regarding athletics and children, both in public and behind the scenes. He has claimed that he is becoming anxious about doing so.
“Politics is part of the culture, not downstream,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, one such group. “And if you want to win on an issue, you have to campaign on that issue.”
Organizations fighting for transgender rights have experienced such attacks before. Schilling’s group spent millions of dollars on ads in Kentucky in 2022 attacking incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear over his transgender policies. Mr. Beshear won re-election. The next year, when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin tried to turn the Capitol red by advocating for parental rights, Democrats won. This is a phrase regularly used by those advocating for the removal of some media outlets that talk about gender identity, sexuality, and school topics. Or for more transparency if your child comes out at school. That year, Virginia also elected the first transgender state senator in the Commonwealth.
Rodrigo Hen-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said Republicans are using a failed strategy out of “despair.”
“It really didn’t go well overall,” Henn-Lehtinen said. “Voters almost always don’t rank transgender issues high on their priority list.”
In fact, in a recent Gallup poll of registered voters, only 38 said a candidate’s position on “transgender rights” was “very” or “extremely” important to them. %, it ranks lowest out of about 20 themes.
But Americans have mixed feelings about transgender issues, with some polls suggesting many are on Trump’s side. According to Gallup, a growing number of Americans, including 67% of independent voters, oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity. The poll also found that a slightly higher proportion (51%) believe changing one’s gender is “morally wrong,” underscoring the depth of the divide.
Still, far fewer Americans think the government should intervene on this issue, with just 34% of independents supporting banning certain medical procedures.
But Trump’s advisers ultimately came to believe that if the former president focused his opposition on policies that affect children, he would not risk alienating moderate voters who support LGBTQ rights. .
“This issue defines the modern Democratic Party and is a major part of the Democratic Party platform,” said Chris Lacivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager. “But they chose not to make it part of their campaign. We decided to do it for them.”
Pro-Trump groups are following his campaign’s lead. Preserve America, a major super PAC that has received millions of dollars from mega-donor Miriam Adelson, has spliced together several major Republican attack lines, citing transgender positions along with concerns about inflation and immigration. and raised two spots earlier this month.
A Wisconsin voter featured in one of the ads criticized Harris’ past transgender positions, calling them “not just liberal, but insane.” Another candidate running in the Badger State who is raising the same issues said: Have these people lost their minds? ”
MAGA, the super PAC that spent the most money supporting Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, also released an ad this month with much the same content as the Trump campaign’s ad, saying, “Crazy liberal Kamala is for them/them.” “,” he launched an ad bashing Harris. President Trump is on your side. ”
Democrats in the presidential race have not reacted defensively. According to tracking data from AdImpact, $0 of Democratic broadcast TV ad spending during the first two weeks of October was spent on ads mentioning LGBTQ rights.
Few Democrats running for Congress are active in advocacy. Rep. Colin Allred, who is seeking to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas, produced a television commercial last week, becoming the first Senate candidate to do so. In it he said: About all this nonsense that Ted Cruz is saying. ”
Days later, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown also put up an ad pushing back against Republican attacks. “In fact, this is already prohibited in Ohio. Sherrod Brown agrees with Governor DeWine. These decisions should be made by local sports leagues, not politicians.” Brown’s ad It is written in
The attacks faced by Mr. Allred and Mr. Brown reflect how the issue has come up not only in the presidential campaign but also in the Senate campaign.
Republican campaigns and groups targeting the 10 most-seen racial groups devoted about 18% ($17.7 million) of their broadcast TV ad budgets to LGBTQ rights in the first two weeks of October. spent on ads mentioned and ranked third among all issues mentioned in ads. According to data from AdImpact.
Schilling said Democrats’ silence on President Trump’s ad attacks during the White House race is telling.
“The good thing about this issue is that Democrats are damned if they do it and damned if they don’t,” Schilling said. “If they do what Allred did, they will lose ground. If they strengthen it further, they will lose middle-class voters and even a significant portion of their base. It will become.”
But Hen-Lehtinen said she was “confident” that Harris and other Democratic candidates would “do the right thing in supporting our transgender constituency and their families.” He said his organization has worked closely with the Harris campaign, including a virtual event called “Trans Folks for Harris” when she became the nominee to replace President Joe Biden.
“The campaign, whether it’s Kamala Harris or the Senate race, Allred hasn’t pushed back, hasn’t responded with any dignity to this, which I think is smart,” Hen-Lehtinen said. Ta. “This is not the top issue for most voters. They are trying to win the votes of the majority of Americans, and therefore they are addressing issues that most Americans are concerned about. ”
CNN’s Jennifer Asiesta, Alaina Treen, Kate Sullivan and Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.
