Now, back to Virginia…

A second “they/them” ad has hit the campaign trail. This one is running in Virginia, where the governor’s race is closely watched but not particularly close, as moderate Democrat Abigail Spanberger has held on to a healthy lead for most of the year. But with a month to go, the flailing Republican nominee, Winsome Earle-Sears, has pivoted to a full scorched-earth campaign on the issue of trans rights—a topic that continues to trip up Democrats a full year after Kamala Harris was swamped by searing ads highlighting her support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for prisoners.

The new commercial from Earle-Sears in Virginia sounds a lot like that old one. “How liberal is Abigail Spanberger?” a narrator asks, before listing the Democrat’s alleged sins: letting trans people use public restrooms and locker rooms, supporting trans kids in girls’ sports, and allowing trans students to hide their gender identity from parents at home. “That’s insane. Spanberger is for they/them. Not for us.” Spanberger’s face is juxtaposed onscreen with a pair of trans appointees from the Biden administration, along with the mugshot of a Fairfax County man who was arrested earlier this month after identifying himself as a woman and then exposing himself to children in women’s locker rooms. Meanwhile, Earle-Sears is depicted as the candidate of “common sense.” (For close watchers of Republican politics in Virginia, the ad is also a source of amusement: The original they/them ad was the brainchild of Trump strategist Chris LaCivita, a Richmonder who has publicly attacked Earle-Sears for her past criticisms of Trump, who is not endorsing her in the race.)

With her late culture-war push, Earle-Sears is reaching for a reliable MAGA playbook—that’s not a surprise. But what caught Democrats off guard last week was Spanberger’s clunky response to these predictable attacks. Spanberger, a former C.I.A. operative and reliably centrist member of Congress, has been running on kitchen-table issues like healthcare and housing affordability, while positioning herself as a safe contrast to the chaotic president who threatens Virginia jobs with DOGE cuts and government shutdown threats. But now she’s once again showcased how prominent Democrats haven’t quite figured out how to talk about trans issues—specifically youth sports—in a way that satisfies the median voter without angering LGBTQ groups on the left.

Pretty much every poll shows the same thing: Americans are very much against trans athletes playing in women’s and girls’ sports. Gallup found earlier this year that 69 percent of U.S. adults support requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their birth sex, including 41 percent of Democrats. Another poll from The New York Times found even greater opposition: 79 percent of Americans want trans athletes barred from girls’ and women’s sports, including 67 percent of Democrats.

And while the topic of trans athletics certainly isn’t as consequential as the global economy or vaccines or the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, it’s also no longer some phony election-year controversy ginned up by the right. There are now laws in 27 states banning trans youth from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. Those laws might impact only a small percentage of Americans—the Williams Institute at UCLA estimated this year that roughly 122,000 transgender youth are participating in high-school-level team athletics around the country—but just a single child amounts to many more parents, teams, leagues, school boards, and state athletic associations who must wrestle with the issue. At the same time, when it comes to a policy framework or a political response, it doesn’t appear that many elected Democrats are thinking deeply about these concerns at all—except when they have to dodge questions that might get them in trouble.

“Uh, this is bad,” one prominent Dem in Richmond texted me last week about Spanberger. “And she’s considered one of our best candidates.” This Democrat sent me a link to WJLA reporter Nick Minock asking Spanberger about the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding to Fairfax County schools unless they stop giving trans students access to locker rooms and bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity.

“Can you tell us directly, do you support biological males who say they are women using women’s locker rooms and bathrooms and competing in women’s sports?” Minock asked. Spanberger did not tell him directly. She gave a meandering 90-second nonanswer about court cases and Title IX and the importance of public education and Trump’s threats against Virginia. Minock, who has annoyed the Spanberger campaign by chasing the candidate around with trans questions, asked a follow-up looking for a more direct answer, but Spanberger grinned through it and ignored him.

Republicans I talked to were shocked that Spanberger, known for her message discipline, fumbled the question so badly, allowing Earle-Sears to win news cycles for possibly the first time all year. “Democrats are just never going to sell transgender sports or bathrooms to independents,” one Virginia G.O.P. operative told me. “I can’t believe they’re just continuing to let this issue burn. It’s an easy answer, but they’re too afraid to cross the base.” Zack Roday, a veteran G.O.P. strategist based in Richmond, was almost giddy. “Even their so-called ‘moderate’ can’t summon the courage to buck the leftists running her party,” Roday told me.

A few days after her hemming and hawing went viral in the Virginia press, Spanberger did some cleanup, setting up an interview with a reporter in Roanoke in which she sounded much more practiced. Asked again whether trans girls should be allowed to play girls’ sports, Spanberger said the issue should ultimately be up to local schools, parents, and coaches. “I absolutely recognize, as the mom of three daughters in Virginia public schools, they participate in all activities across the board,” she said. “I recognize the concern that families and community members might have about the safety of their own kids, about competitiveness, about fairness.”

Spanberger has an impressive political antenna—it’s how she’s managed to win repeatedly in the Virginia suburbs, punching left against the socialist crowd and focusing on salient issues like crime, affordability, and education. It’s also why she’s mentioned as a future presidential candidate. That she repeated the words “safety,” “competitiveness,” and “fairness” four different times in the same Roanoke interview was a tell—she knows that the swing voters who decide statewide elections in Virginia aren’t comfortable having their daughters share a playing field or a locker room with someone who wasn’t born female.

Virginia Republicans admit that Earle-Sears isn’t going to pull off a Hail Mary upset by pivoting to trans issues this late in the game. Most polls have her losing by around 10 points, and most in the commonwealth expect a Democratic sweep of all three statewide offices. Earle-Sears also lacks the kind of political talents—and money—that helped Glenn Youngkin win the governor’s race back in 2021. Earlier this year, one veteran G.O.P. operative in Virginia told me that Earle-Sears is “bizarre and tone-deaf,” despite her compelling biography as a Jamaican immigrant and Marine Corps veteran.

What’s more, Republicans and Democrats have both told me that the “they/them” attack against Spanberger doesn’t have the same kind of potency as it did last October against Harris, because the campaign environment and candidates are just different. Back then, Trump was the challenger running on lowering costs, and Biden and Harris were seen as too fixated on cultural issues. “Remember, that ad wasn’t only about trans issues,” one Virginia G.O.P. strategist told me. “That spot showed what Kamala cared about, and that she was out to lunch on the issues that people cared about last year.”

The dynamic has flipped this year—and possibly in next year’s midterms—especially with Spanberger signaling to the rest of the party that candidates should focus relentlessly on the cost of living. “Are trans issues a problem for Democrats nationally and something they need to have an answer on? Yes,” said Chaz Nuttycombe, the Virginia-based election forecaster at State Navigate. “But this year, in this governor’s race, I don’t see it being a major problem. Spanberger is running on affordability, the theme that Democrats everywhere are running on, learning from their mistakes from last year. Trump’s standing on the economy has just cratered throughout the year. Part of that is Dem messaging, but also, he made promises that were hard to keep. Bringing down grocery prices, for instance.”

Matthew Hurtt, the chairman of the Arlington County G.O.P., told me that while the trans attacks could grab the attention of some voters who are just starting to follow the race, Earle-Sears hasn’t done enough work to establish herself as a viable alternative to Spanberger. “The trans question definitely rattled Spanberger, but Winsome didn’t spend the summer defining herself or her agenda,” he said. “Maybe it’s a lack of money. But if people are paying attention right now in the contrast part of the campaign, they’re like, Who is Winsome Sears?”

She’s apparently enough of an afterthought that her putative boss, Youngkin, has barely lifted a finger to boost his lieutenant governor as he turns his eyes to the national stage. The governor’s “Spirit of Virginia” PAC has transferred about as much money to the Earle-Sears campaign (about $100,000) as he has to Turning Point USA, which received a $100,000 gift from him last week at a Blacksburg event honoring the late Charlie Kirk.

Spanberger has used her law enforcement credentials—her father was a police officer and she’s been endorsed by the Virginia Police Benevolent Association—to blunt suggestions that she somehow supports a sex offender exposing himself in a Fairfax bathroom. Just yesterday, Spanberger quickly went on television with a response ad to the G.O.P. onslaught, tapping the voices of cops and U.S. Marshals to defend her. “Abigail Spanberger is from a military and law enforcement family,” the ad says. “She went after child abusers and predators. They can’t tear down a lifetime of service with a 30-second ad. Abigail Spanberger stands for safety and security.” In other words, this Democrat is decidedly not a Defund the Police leftist.

If successful, Spanberger’s down-the-middle campaign—in a state that’s usually a bellwether in non-presidential years—could be read as course correction for Democrats after years of catering to progressive orthodoxies, niche online interests, and the identity politics left. But it’s telling that Republicans still see trans issues, especially youth sports, as a powerful cudgel to wield against Democrats when all else fails. Since last November, there have been a handful of prominent Democrats—Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, Seth Moulton, and Rahm Emanuel—who have spoken up to say they’re worried about trans kids playing in girls’ sports for reasons of safety and fairness. Plenty of activists were mad at them, but few elected Democrats bothered to condemn their remarks, suggesting a desire in the party to get past a genuine political liability. But the comments from Newsom et al. were vague and off-the-cuff observations in podcasts and interviews, not thoughtful or detailed policy proposals that could be implemented if Democrats win next year or in 2028.

Maybe Spanberger’s fuzzy answer about leaving these decisions up to localities is the right one, substantively and politically. But one Virginia Republican I spoke to this week—accidentally being generous—floated a solution for Spanberger and her party as they continue to face these tricky questions. “It’s almost like gay marriage for Republicans. It’s not that hard to get past this,” this Republican told me. “Just drill down on sports and locker rooms and state the obvious—say that trans kids shouldn’t play in girls’ sports for fairness and safety reasons, but promise to fight for trans people in other parts of society.” This person said that had Spanberger used the moment to actually help define the issue for the party, it would only have enhanced her stature after the campaign. “So what if she frustrates a few moms in northern Virginia?” this person said. “She is still going to win. Now is the right time for Democrats to say something.”

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10006