2023 election results: Anti-trans attacks continue to lose in swing races

Republicans again used transphobic ads and messaging in a number of key elections Tuesday night and again lost — the issue remaining a loser in swing races even though many in the party keep pushing for restrictive anti-trans laws.

One of the biggest wins for Democrats came in Kentucky, where Gov. Andy Beshear won a second term by roughly five points over State Attorney General Daniel Cameron in a state Republicans had been comfortably winning in numerous federal races like president and Senate. Beshear was a popular governor for several reasons — including his handling of the economy and some tragic natural disasters that occurred during his term, as well as his support for abortion rights — but many of the Republican attacks on Beshear focused on his vetoing of a pair of anti-trans bills.

Anti-trans attacks

Earlier this year, Republicans in the state legislature overrode a veto by Beshear on a bill that banned gender-affirming care for youth. Last year, Beshear vetoed a bill that would have banned transgender students from playing women’s sports. The attacks on Beshear and the trans community were heated during the GOP primary and continued once Cameron emerged as Beshear’s general election opponent. Cameron said Beshear’s vetos would “alienate swing voters,” adding, “Kentuckians are fed up with left-wing nonsense. I’ll bring back commonsense values.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader wrote that Cameron had made anti-trans rhetoric a “cornerstone of his campaign messaging” that saw groups supporting him, including the Republican Party of Kentucky, having “elevated the intensity of the messaging.” Cameron’s dedication to the issue was questioned by some Republicans in September, with one GOP legislator saying, “I’m concerned for my party, because I worry this doesn’t portray us as compassionately as I know we are.”

The American Principles Project, which has been one of the primary backers pushing a slew of anti-trans laws across the country, weighed in heavily in the race. They spent $2 million dollars on an ad with swimmer Riley Gaines attacking Beshear as “a trans rights activist.” They also texted out an ad to voters targeting the community, writing, “Andy Beshear sided with the transgender industry, he doesn’t care about our kids. Vote against the liberal corporations he fights for.”

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A recent run of losses

Cameron, like other Republican campaigns that have focused on anti-trans messaging in recent swing elections, lost. It continues a trend that specifically includes Gaines, who has become a common fixture in Republican advertising, continually attacking transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

In Georgia, Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker used Gaines in one of his final ads for his December runoff against Democrat Raphael Warnock. Axios wrote that “A Walker campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity tells Axios the focus on the issue is due to its perceived ability to motivate GOP base and center or right-of-center voters who are unsure of or opposed to transgender athletes.” Warnock won the race in the closely divided swing state.

In August, conservatives attempted to make an Ohio ballot measure that would have made it harder to enshrine abortion rights protections into the state constitution about trans rights. That effort failed. In a key Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April, conservative candidate Daniel Kelly was supported by a series of ads and text messages stating that his opponent, liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz, and “her woke allies want to TRANS our children without notifying parents.” Protasiewicz won the race comfortably.

After Democrats had massive success in Michigan during the 2022 midterms, the state Republican Party’s chief of staff Paul Cordes blasted the focus on the issue by his party in a postmortem memo, writing, "There were more ads on transgender sports than inflation, gas prices and bread-and-butter issues that could have swayed independent voters." In advance of those midterms, a group run by former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller spent millions on ads targeting gender-affirming care for minors in swing states. Democrats ended up having a historically good midterms for the party in control of the White House.

Cameron wasn’t the only Republican who saw anti-trans messaging fail during the off-year elections. LGBTQ rights were a key issue in the battle for the school board of Bucks County, a suburb of Philadelphia. Conservatives on the board had banned books by queer authors targeting “sexualized content” as well as Pride flags in classrooms. After a race in which more than $600,000 was spent, Democrats retook the board in this year’s election.

An October 2022 headline at Fox News read “Parents stand up to 'cult' Loudoun County School board over transgender student policy,” discussing the debate over policies for transgender youths. On Tuesday night, liberals won a majority of the school board, a blow to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whose administration had rolled back rights for transgender students.

Virginia also saw the election of Danica Roem to the state Senate, who became the state’s first openly transgender state senator. Roem’s Republican opponent ran an ad promising to bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Roem's victory helped contribute to Democrats taking full control of the state legislature.