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“They realize it’s hard to beat a moderate Democrat in Virginia in this environment so they have to convince voters that she’s a radical,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, of the Earle-Sears campaign. “That’s hard to do with someone who is a fairly known commodity and is spending a ton of money on her own talking about her moderate record.” Republicans and many Democrats see the treatment of transgender children as a politically powerful issue because polls consistently show most Americans do not believe transgender girls should be allowed to play in girls’ sports. In a Gallup poll from May, 69 percent of Americans said transgender people should be allowed to play only on sports teams that match their sex assigned at birth. Transgender attack ads also tell voters that Democrats are consumed with cultural issues instead of the economy. That’s an image Democrats are determined to reject as they gear up for the 2026 midterms. “They’ve really gotten effective at scouring any kind of public records of our candidates and looking for places where the candidate is on film taking a position on transgender issues and then they take that out of context and use that,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “That’s a pretty effective attack if not responded to.” Trans-related attacks are not as potent in this race, however, said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. In 2024, many voters were angry at Democrats, who were in power nationally, over rising costs. Painting them as overly focused on transgender issues instead of the economy effectively stoked that anger. But this time, in 2025, Virginians are blaming Republicans - who control the White House, Congress and the Virginia governor’s mansion - for cost-of-living issues. “They’re falling into the fundamental mistake of trying to refight the last war and not realizing that the battlefield has changed,” Ferguson said. “They can no longer attack Democrats as focused on other issues and pretend that they are so focused on cost of living when most people feel betrayed on cost of living.” At the end of September, Earle-Sears was spending about $2 million per week on the ads. Overall, she and outside GOP groups spent $9,269,297 on the ads in this race - more than a third of the $25.8 million her campaign and outside groups have plowed into the race overall. Democrats and liberal groups have spent $49.4 million in advertising in the race over the past year, according to data from AdImpact. Polling indicates that anger over school policies for transgender students is unlikely to be enough to carry statewide candidates to victory this year. Only 3 percent of voters named those policies as a top issue in their choice for governor, according to an October Washington Post-Schar School poll of Virginia voters. That’s down from 4 percent in September, and after millions of dollars were spent in ads. That same poll showed Spanberger with a 12-point lead over Earle-Sears. Spanberger has stayed relatively vague on her position on both transgender children in sports and in bathrooms, saying local communities and parents should make decisions about trans inclusion policies. Unlike Harris in 2024, Spanberger quickly put out a response ad after facing the attack. She said the “lies” in the ad made her angry and that, as a mom and former law enforcement officer, her main goal is protecting children. That appears to have been enough for Spanberger, an ex-CIA operative who already has a moderate reputation in the state. Ads work best when they convince voters that a candidate is too extreme to be trusted, strategists said. But some strategists said Democrats should aim for a clearer response than Spanberger’s in the future. “Responding via an opaque ad that calls out unspecified lies and promises to prioritize children’s safety is unlikely to be a sufficient antidote,” said Anat Shenker-Osorio, a Democratic strategist who has researched transgender attack ads. “It doesn’t serve or behoove Democrats to try to be evasive on this,” said Tré Easton, vice president for policy at the Democratic think tank the Searchlight Institute, which has researched the politics of transgender issues. “It’s really important to answer head-on and address the issue and answer honestly. Once you’ve established that threshold then you can get into the nuance.” The transgender issue has permeated the campaign in Virginia, where GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin successfully ran four years ago on overhauling how schools taught history and race, under the banner of parental rights. In 2023, Youngkin called for student facilities and activities to be guided by biological sex rather than gender identity. Many school districts around the state did not comply. Earle-Sears’s campaign has opposed school policies that allow transgender students to use facilities like locker rooms and bathrooms that match their gender identity. Earle-Sears has spoken at school board meetings and parent rallies. She highlighted key incidents where the issue was thrust into the public spotlight. Some of her campaign ads featured an Arlington case in which a registered sex offender was arrested for exposure in women’s changing areas. In their only gubernatorial debate, Earle-Sears was asked whether she believed transgender students “were a safety threat.” She briefly mentioned the “biological differences” between men and women before turning the question back to Spanberger. “I’m asking my opponent, if your little girl comes home and said she was forced to undress in a locker room with a biological boy, what would you say?” Earle-Sears said onstage. “She’s crying. What would you say?” Spanberger ignored the question. When pressed about her stance at another moment in the debate, Spanberger again said she wants to protect children. “I’m a mother of three daughters in Virginia public schools and nothing is more important to me than their safety and their experience in school,” Spanberger said. “I’m also a former federal agent, and I work to investigate crimes against children, and so nothing is more important to me than the safety of all of our children.” When probed further, she said local school districts and schools should decide locker room and sports team policies for transgender girls, before adding: “There should never be nude men in locker rooms.”
