Washington — Former President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign and his allies have spent tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} on political advertisements specializing in transgender rights points within the weeks main as much as the election.
The Trump marketing campaign has spent greater than $19 million on two tv advertisements which have aired almost 55,000 occasions since Oct. 1, in keeping with information from AdImpact. Make America Nice Once more Inc., the main tremendous political motion committee supporting Trump, has spent greater than $1.1 million throughout the identical time interval on the same advert that has aired greater than 6,000 occasions.
The marketing campaign’s advertisements are taking part in in all battleground states and airing throughout NFL and school soccer video games, a Trump marketing campaign official stated.
The advertisements concentrate on taxpayer-funded gender transitions for folks in jail and immigrant detainees. They use Vice President Kamala Harris’ feedback from 2019 wherein she stated she supported transgender inmates accessing gender-affirming surgical procedure. She made comparable feedback in an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire in 2019, saying she supported “medically crucial care” for federal inmates and detained migrants.
“Kamala is for they/them,” one advert says. “Trump is for you.”
The reply within the questionnaire “just isn’t what she’s proposing, it is not what she’s operating on,” Harris’ communications director, Michael Tyler, instructed Fox Information in September.
Solely 38% of voters stated transgender rights are extraordinarily or essential to their vote alternative in November, in keeping with a current Gallup ballot. A 2023 ballot from Gallup confirmed a rising majority of People believed transgender athletes ought to solely be allowed to compete on sports activities groups that matched their gender at delivery. Solely 26% believed transgender athletes ought to be capable of play on groups that match their gender identification.
Voters have stated their prime issues are points just like the financial system, abortion and immigration.
The Trump marketing campaign is betting that with time dwindling till Nov. 5, the problem of transgender rights will sway voters greater than the financial system or immigration.
“It is the very last thing on Earth they wish to speak about,” co-campaign supervisor Chris LaCivita instructed NBC Information. “So we’ll speak about it for them.”
Trump has underscored that on the marketing campaign path, usually repeating a line about “preserving males out of girls’s sports activities” — it usually will get probably the most applause at his rallies.
Trump just isn’t the one candidate utilizing the problem to criticize his Democratic rival. The controversy over transgender women in sports activities and locker rooms is featured in Republican advertisements in key Senate races.
Cameron Shelton, a political financial system professor at Claremont McKenna Faculty, stated political advertisements usually do not persuade voters however moderately affirm preexisting emotions that might gasoline turnout.
“[Republicans] are looking for a problem on which the bulk is on their aspect,” stated Shelton, who has researched the impacts of marketing campaign advertisements in earlier election cycles. “What they’re attempting to say is, ‘Hey, look, overlook about these different issues that we disagree on. If I can remind you that you just agree with me on transgender rights…’ Then perhaps that’ll spill over.”
In a memo earlier this month, the Human Rights Marketing campaign highlighted the dearth of success that anti-transgender advertisements had in earlier elections, together with in Senate and gubernatorial races and on poll measures.
“Anti-trans assaults do not work,” Human Rights Marketing campaign spokesperson Brandon Wolf stated. “Time and time once more this type of concern mongering has been a political loser, and the American folks will see via it once more in November.”
Olivia Rinaldi
contributed to this report.
