The trans issue is losing Kamala the election, Republicans believe

Donald Trump’s campaign launches attack ads against Democrats’ stance on LGBTQ issues in final push to win voters

Donald Trump’s campaign has poured millions of dollars into adverts attacking Kamala Harris’s policies for transgender Americans in the final stretch of the election.
The Republican nominee appears to be banking on America’s top culture war to get him elected on Nov 5.
“Crazy liberal Kamala is for they/them, president Trump is for you,” declares one Harris-Walz attack ad airing in the battleground states. Another simply proclaims: “No men in girls’ sports.”
Even in liberal areas, Republicans have made transgender rights the focus of their campaign  – protesting against a New York referendum that could add gender to a list of protected characteristics in state equality legislation.
Adverts by the campaigns, which include Trump’s and those of down ballot Republicans, feature images of drag queens and transgender women. In one, Ms Harris appears beside a person with a moustache wearing a dress.
The late-stage campaign push on LGBTQ issues is an attempt by Republicans to “get out the vote” on Tuesday, and has cost the campaign more than $20 million.
Although polling shows that few voters consider the overreach of trans rights to be a major concern at this election, voters who are interested in the issue are more likely to be highly motivated by it.
Although he once said he preferred not to use the term “culture war”, Trump has leaned into the idea in the final months of his campaign and positioned himself against what Republicans view as an attempt to impose “gender ideology” on communities.
Trump has consistently positioned himself against those attempts, promising to “cut federal funding” for schools pushing “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children” on “day one” of his second administration.
Some of his campaigning has also focussed on “taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners” under the Biden administration, and its proposed expansion of Title IX, which would enforce protections for transgender children in schools. He has said he would put a stop to gender-affirming care for minors.
If nothing else, Trump’s focus on trans rights appears to have crowded out Democrats, who rarely talk about the issue on the campaign trail. Perhaps concerned by the toxicity of the debate, Ms Harris only mentions transgender policy when she is directly asked about it.
In her recent Fox News interview with Bret Baier, the vice-president said of the sex change operations in prisons that she would “follow the law” and allow “medically necessary” procedures.
Amid debates on the economy, abortion and immigration, transgender rights are rarely top of the news agenda during this campaign but are playing a quiet role in getting Trump elected again.
On election day, Ms Harris may find that his focus on the issue has played to his advantage among cultural conservatives. In an election of fine margins, getting supporters to the polling booth is half the battle.