How "wildly successful" anti-trans ads fired up Texas voters for Republicans

[LetMyPeopleVote]

These attack ads were a mainstay of Carnival Cruz' campaign and the few trump/gop ads that I saw on tv. These ads were offensive to me but were effective.

Link to tweet

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/08/transgender-ads-motivate-texas-republicans/

In the final weeks of a heated reelection campaign, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released a television ad with a simple message — “Boys and girls: They’re different.”

In the ad, Cruz accused his Democratic challenger, Colin Allred, of wanting boys to play on girls’ sports teams. Allred released his own ad vehemently denying the claim. Neither mentioned that the Texas Legislature had already banned student athletes from playing on teams that didn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth......

The day after a red wave swept Texas and the nation, these strategists, as well as political scientists and advocates on both sides of the aisle, say focusing on these social issues seems to have mobilized the Republican base.

“This election was when the dam broke,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a right-wing political advocacy group. “Republicans have now figured out how to win parts of the culture war where Democrats are out of step with the American people.”

Schilling’s group spent $18 million on anti-trans ads nationally, of more than $200 million conservative groups spent messaging on this issue. He said Texans were particularly primed to act on this messaging — “warmed up,” as he put it — because the state Legislature has led the way on restricting trans student athletes and access to gender-affirming care......

In addition to the youth sports angle, Republicans have also hammered Democrats for using taxpayer dollars to pay for inmates to medically transition. The federal government is required to provide medical care to prisoners, and in some cases, after long legal battles, inmates in state and federal custody have been able to have gender-affirming surgeries.

National Republicans targeted Vice President Kamala Harris on this front, running an ad saying “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.” But they also ran similar ads against U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in South Texas. While Gonzalez ended up narrowly defeating his Republican challenger, former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, the region as a whole swung sharply for President-elect Donald Trump this cycle.

[Ocelot II]

1. How much does it suck

that a small, marginalized group of people who want nothing more than to live their lives as who they are without being harassed and othered are used as a weapon against the party who supports them?

As a nation we suck hard enough to bend light.

[Zambero]

2. Were any of those folks worried about a punitive national abortion ban?

Apparently not. There will always be another "bright shiny object" representing a very small minority of the population that can be used to distract people from the hammer that is about to come down on them. The Face-Eating Leopard Party knows precisely which buttons to push. Not only for placing targets on the backs of a miniscule yet highly vulnerable segment of the population, but for setting up unwitting victims representing a much larger segment who will be summarily devoured at a later date. Those in question who believe that no harm would ever come to them will need to enjoy their faces while still attached.

[keep_left]

3. They also pushed that shit *constantly* on religious right radio and TV...

...stations, particularly those of the radtrad Catholic variety (EWTN, Relevant Radio, Ave Maria Radio, etc.). They didn't usually run the same political ads (too offensive for their audience), but instead spent huge chunks of their programming on "evil gender ideology", and they did so all day, every day, for months on end.

[Happy Hoosier]

4. Hate and fear are powerful emotions. NT

[Ocelot II]

5. Somebody explain to me why I, or anybody, should hate and fear trans people.

[Happy Hoosier]

10. Well they shouldn't of course...

But neither should people be racists or misogynists. But they are out there in droves…

[LeftInTX]

20. One of the ads was about free surgery for prisoners

Kamala had supported tax payer dollars for gender affirming surgery for prisoners. I can see the $$$$ resonating

[W_HAMILTON]

6. "Seems to have mobilized the Republican base"

Yeah, I'm gonna need a bit more confirmation than someone who gets paid to run anti-trans ads saying it """seems""" like they helped Republicans.

Given the fact that there went plenty of areas that weren't as bigoted and weren't blanketed with as many anti-trans ads as Texas yet still went more Republican than usual, I would say that there were more overriding factors responsible for their victories rather than scapegoating a small minority of the population. Most anyone that cares that much about anti-trans policies are already voting for Republicans anyway because they are deep in the echo chamber convincing them that they are some sort of existential threat.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. There's a lot of people

who were fired up by the idea of transgender women competing in women’s sports. Just anecdotally, I would say the ads did motivate some people to vote Republican who might normally not. Of course, they’re idiots who chose that over their own future social security and Medicare but you can’t expect logic from some people.

[W_HAMILTON]

9. Once again, I doubt it. Anyone who sees trans people as some significant threat, they are already deeply brainwashed...

...and were going to vote anyway because of that and all the other Republican-manufactured boogeyman they get beat into their head every day.

Most people voted because of inflation, and they are going to learn the hard way over these next few years the error in their ways.

[Elessar Zappa]

14. I agree that inflation was a huge part of it.

I also think plain old sexism played a role too.

[LisaL]

11. I am one of those people who is not fired out by the idea of transgender women competing in women's sport.

It didn't motive me to vote Republican, but I don't see this idea as a winning strategy.

[BannonsLiver]

12. +1000

Our party leaders should be able to say that without fear of being ostracized, canceled etc.

[Elessar Zappa]

13. Well, you're a DUer, so you're smart enough to know

that voting based on one small issue is stupid when the Republicans are a literal threat to our republic.

[LisaL]

16. Exactly.

NT

[dalton99a]

7. Yep.

[gulliver]

15. If bad things aren't happening, we should have no problem outlawing and empowering litigation against them

Are the medical, psychological, and pharmaceutical industry guilds and monopolies selling products they can't really deliver? Over- or misdiagnosing people? Creating robotic, process-driven "standards of care" that are cruel, inhumane, and grotesquely incompetent?

If not, we should have no problem making any of those things illegal or subject to litigation.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

17. Trump's campaign spent $123 million on TV ads about transgender medical care in prisons

Link to tweet

Trump’s campaign spent $123 million on TV ads about transgender medical care in prisons—almost as much as the entire 2004 Kerry presidential campaign budget, inflation-adjusted. An illustration of the big-money corruption of our politics by SCOTUS’ 2010 Citizens United decision.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

18. After Trump wins on a campaign rife with anti-trans ads, LGBTQ people flood crisis hotlines

Transgender Americans have said the president-elect’s relentless attacks on their community are taking a toll.

Link to tweet

After Trump wins on a campaign rife with anti-trans ads, LGBTQ people flood crisis hotlines

Transgender Americans have said the president-elect’s relentless attacks on their community are taking a toll.

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/lgbtq-crisis-hotlines-trump-anti-trans-election-rcna179464

LGBTQ advocacy organizations have reported a flood of calls and chats to their crisis communication hotlines after Donald Trump won the election this week, following a campaign that was rife with anti-trans attacks.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides mental health crisis services to LGBTQ people, reported a nearly 700% increase in reach-outs to its crisis services on Nov. 6, the day after the election. The organization said it saw “significantly high outreach from LGBTQ+ young people needing support in direct response to election results.” One-third of those who contacted its crisis services after the election identified themselves as Black, Indigenous or people of color, the organization said.

The day after the election, The Washington Post reported that the Rainbow Youth Project, a nonprofit advocacy group for LGBTQ youth, had received more calls in the first six days of November than it receives in an average month.

Trump’s vow to strip trans people of their rights was a big part of his election pitch. He flooded airwaves with ads targeting trans rights and vilifying trans women in sports. Republicans have also spent much of the past few years enacting legislation to curtail trans rights and demonizing trans people.

NBC News exit polls show that a huge majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender voters surveyed supported Harris in this election, while fewer LGBT voters cast their vote for the Republican candidate in this race than in any of the three previous presidential elections. Yet after a stinging defeat, some Democrats have suggested that the party should not be “pandering to the far left” — a proposal that my colleague Hayes Brown called “an instinct based on fear that should be rejected loudly and firmly from all corners of the party.”

[Demovictory9]

19. Hate works..against Trans and immigrants

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. These anti-trans ads were very effective

Link to tweet

83% of voters who broke for Trump in the final days think Harris and the Democrats support using taxpayer dollars to pay for transgender surgeries for undocumented immigrants in prison.

77% believe Democrats support allow minors to transition genders without informing parents.