By now, you have likely seen the results of the 2026 midterms: a wave election for Democrats the likes of which we have not seen in years. Republicans and their allies spent nearly $200 million on anti-transgender ads alone, bankrolled in part by billionaires like Elon Musk. Virtually every Democrat in a highly contested race was the target of these kinds of ads. And what did it buy the Republican Party? An earth-shattering loss, and a stunning rebuke of anti-transgender politics.
A blue Texas in the face of the biggest anti-trans ad spend of any race this cycle … a victory in Michigan from a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate who forcefully defended trans people at every step of the race … a western Montana smokejumper who will go to Congress after telling voters the government has “no business sticking its nose into our personal lives” when it comes to transgender health care and sports … and an Alabama trans Democrat who won her race running on bread-and-butter issues in a conservative district in the Huntsville suburbs. These are just a small handful of the dozens of races we will remember as proof that anti-trans politics simply no longer works for the Republican Party, and that Democrats need never fear such attacks again.
I started writing about anti-transgender politics back in 2022 after the extreme efforts of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton to sweep the state for transgender kids. In that dark time, they ordered child abuse investigations into the parents of transgender youth, and many of those families fled the state. Now, not only does James Talarico win in the face of ads built around him saying “God is nonbinary,” but Gina Hinojosa, who waved a trans flag on the Texas House floor after Democrats ran out the clock on a sports ban in 2021, wins the governorship. Vikki Goodwin wins the lieutenant governorship after being endorsed by Equality Texas and after voting no on every anti-trans bill that reached the House floor. And more than that, it appears the Texas House is going to go to Democrats for the first time since 2003. The dark era of horrific anti-trans targeting of trans Texans is over, and there is hope that one day, some of the trans people who fled may get to return to the state, despite the millions Elon Musk poured into Texas trying to prevent it.
The positive results for transgender people were not limited to Texas—they were seen across the board. If you were a Democratic consultant who believed that you had to moderate on transgender issues to win an election, the results in places like Montana’s 1st Congressional District make it clear that such capitulation is not necessary in the slightest. Smokejumper Sam Forstag, a Democrat running in a stubbornly Republican House district, won his election handily. When asked whether he supports transgender participation in sports or gender-affirming care for transgender youth, his answer was that the government has no place banning any of it, and that the issue is an attempt to distract voters while Republicans “pick our pockets.” Trump campaigned in Montana for Aaron Flint, his opponent, who ran anti-trans ads. It wasn’t enough. Western Montana will have a Democratic congressman who supports transgender people, and he won one of the toughest races in the country handily.
Several Democrats who championed transgender people won in major swing races, and the most notable was probably Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed. El-Sayed was the target of millions in anti-transgender ads on one side, and drew the ire of centrist Democrats on the other for not moderating on many progressive causes, including transgender people. When asked in a hostile CBS 60 Minutes interview about trans people and other “social cultural issues,” his response was that “a failure to show up and fight for that right is a failure to show up and fight for your own.” Then, when asked specifically about schools, he called the fight over what kids learn in school a manufactured “cultural flash point.” It cost him nothing in a state Trump won in 2024. El-Sayed won Michigan’s U.S. Senate race by about 6 points as of the early morning hours.
It was also a big night for transgender candidates. Washington state will have the first out Black transgender woman elected to a state legislature in Jaelynn Scott, and Michigan will have a trans woman legislator as well in Joanna Whaley. But perhaps the most stunning result when it comes to transgender people winning their elections was Allison Montgomery, who won in a relatively conservative suburban Huntsville, Alabama, district. She ran on bread-and-butter economic issues. In 2022, the last time the seat was on the ballot, Republican Phillip Rigsby won it by 16 points. Now, she has beaten Rigsby by more than 6 points, a major swing for any Democrat, much less a trans Democrat running in Alabama. “I know the headlines tomorrow are gonna be provocative and catchy, but let’s focus on the most important part of this victory: we showed that a truly grassroots campaign that stands on its policies and its principles has a real shot in Alabama. We the people are tired of attempts to distract us with culture war issues, whether we’re in a minority group or not,” she posted to her campaign site after her victory.
The victories for transgender people didn’t stop there. Of 160 races being tracked by Erin In The Morning with transgender implications, 107 races went for the side supportive of transgender people while 53 went for the side that was not supportive. These races range from school board fights such as the Wake County board of Education going to trans-supportive candidates in North Carolina, to Wisconsin likely carrying a Democratic trifecta, allowing for real protections for transgender people to pass in the state. Meanwhile, candidates like Peggy Flanagan win in Minnesota, even after drawing the ire of Republicans for wearing a Protect trans kids t-shirt with a knife on it. In Mississippi, anti-transgender ads failed against the Democratic candidate for US Senate, who was within striking distance as of this morning. And even in Tennessee, there were victories against anti-transgender politics to be found: Victoria Broderick, a LGBTQ+ woman who has made supportive statements about transgender people, is likely to win her election against Scott DesJarlais in what was supposed to be a safe Republican Seat. “Any politician talking about men in women's sports is a lazy politician,” Broderick said in the leadup to the election. “They are deflecting from questions about the war in Iran, the gas crisis and what is going on in our country.”
The results were not unanimously good for transgender people. Some anti-transgender democrats such as Josh Turek won, though their influence will be diluted in a party that sent many pro-transgender Democrats from swing states as well. Meanwhile, Anti-trans ballot measures look likely to pass in Colorado and Washington, although the forced outing measure in Washington is trailing, and the same was true in Arizona. But even in these results, the anti-trans side was winning by only 52-48 in Colorado and 57-43 in Arizona and Washington as of the early morning, with plenty of votes left to count. No longer can Republicans claim that even trans sports, the issue they have pegged as the most polarizing of trans-related issues, is an “80-20 issue.” Given the razor-thin margins in Colorado and the incredibly protective state courts in Washington and Colorado, it seems likely that these measures will end up in court, where they could be overturned or defanged. And in some states, transgender people won on ballot measures, such as Vermont, where gender identity will be enshrined in the state constitution, only the third state to do so.
Now, Democrats will hold significant power in state legislatures and nationwide, and they can present a real check on Trump’s power, including his attacks on transgender people. They may be able to stymie Trump’s trans military ban, or use the budget process to hinder the investigations of hospitals and schools that support transgender people. They can ensure that no new national anti-trans policy makes its way into budgets or law. The congressional bathroom ban will likely fall soon, and multiple states could pass protective legislation for transgender people that they could not before. And all of this happened in a national environment where Republicans put more effort into anti-transgender attacks than ever before, only to suffer one of the most devastating results any party has seen in a generation. The election was a stunning rebuke of anti-transgender politics, and Democrats should take note moving forward: it costs nothing to defend transgender people, and it may even lead Republicans to waste their time and money attacking us for virtually no gain.
Thank you for your great efforts to keep us informed and to stay with it last night and this morning to give us such an early exciting report on the elections. You rock!
I’m so relieved and sooo hopeful, but also know there is a lot of work that needs to be done.