As we head into the homestretch of this election cycle, at least two things are clear to me. This election is as hard fought as any in our history and the margin of victory will be incredibly slim with the winner of Pennsylvania becoming president.
The margin of victory in Pennsylvania will likely be under 50,000 votes.
It’s also clear to me that inflation and the border are the two issues that dominate the minds of voters. However, the stealth issue that will also deeply affect the outcome revolves around transgender controversies, particularly Vice President Harris’ support for gender affirming care with taxpayer funded surgeries for even illegal immigrants in prison. The other part of this involves the battle over gender fluid and transgendered boys and men who compete in women’s sports.
Axios reports the Trump campaign agrees with me. Its closing ad campaign has focused on the battle over transgender issues. The main ad is entitled “Kamala’s agenda is they/them, not you.” It’s also reported the Trump campaign, exclusive of outside PAC spending, has spent more than $30 million on trans-focused ads that include an ad in Spanish in just the past 36 days. The source was AdImpact data. This amount of spending indicates the campaign believes Harris has flip flopped on it and it frames her as radical.
This issue is also important because every day there are renewed battles that often get media attention. For example, we have the ongoing battle in the Mountain West Conference after five women’s college volleyball teams have forfeited games against the San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team because it has a biological male who identifies as a woman as a key player.
This raises not only the issue of fair competition but also a real risk of injury because of the San Jose State’s ability to spike a volleyball. The recent forfeit by the University of Nevada’s team to San Jose State showed a change in attitude by female athletes. Unlike the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team, which was forced by the university to conceal Lia Thomas, a male swimmer on the team, the women at Nevada spoke out and publicly pushed back against the school officials who according to Outkick told them they were not ‘educated enough ‘around the science of transgenderism.
Maybe the women are like the 69 percent of Americans who told Gallup that “transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform to their birth gender.”
The Wall Street Journal noted that poll in a recent piece citing transgender sports as the sleeper issue of 2024 in the races of Democratic U.S. Sens. Casey, Brown, Tester, and Baldwin. The Journal stated, “But these days the hard edge of the transgender movement has dictated that its view of gender must be imposed nationwide. Senate Democrats have toed that line.” I would argue that Vice President Harris has toed that line even more firmly.
Harris has started to try to deflect from her previous positions in this area. In the interview with Brett Baier on Fox News Channel, she argued that President Trump was for sex change operations for people in prisons and she was just following the same principles. On the Breakfast Club Show out of New York, she argued she was only involved in two cases of gender changing surgery. I don’t think she can escape her support for these radical policies.
So, when this election is finally settled, I’m sure we’ll hear that inflation, the border, and the canard that Trump will end our democracy will all be analyzed. But don’t forget the sleeper issue of 2024.
