"A Stunning Rebuke Of Anti-Trans Politics"—Dems Win Elections Nationwide Despite Anti-Trans Ads

As election results poured in on Tuesday night, it became clear that Democrats were winning nationwide against anti-trans opponents.

In 2024, as election results rolled in and it became clear that Trump had won, LGBTQ+ people across the country braced for what was coming. Their fears proved justified. Over the past year, the administration has unleashed a wave of anti-trans policies and overseen a political landscape flooded with ads vilifying transgender people. Yet tonight told a different story. As race after race was called, Democrats won by wide margins in contests where anti-trans rhetoric dominated the campaign—a stunning rebuke of anti-trans politics. For all the centrist consultants urging Democrats to “moderate” or sacrifice transgender people for political gain, the results suggest the opposite: conviction, not capitulation, is what wins.

The first major call of the night came in Virginia, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger quickly secured victory. By 11 p.m. Tuesday, she led Republican opponent Winsome Earle-Sears by 13 points—a decisive margin that underscored the collapse of Earle-Sears’s central campaign strategy. According to MSNBC, more than 57 percent of Republican ad spending in the Virginia governor’s race went toward anti-transgender messaging, an effort to revive what the party saw as a winning wedge issue in 2024. But a year later, with prices still high and anti-trans rhetoric solving none of voters’ real problems, the strategy appeared to backfire. Voters seemed tired of the culture wars and frustrated that Republicans remained fixated on scapegoating instead of governing.

The victories in Virginia extended far beyond the governor’s race. Up and down the ballot, Democrats scored sweeping wins. Attorney General candidate Jay Jones clinched his race, and by 11 p.m. Tuesday, Democrats were leading in 65 House of Delegates contests. If those results hold, it would mark one of the largest Democratic gains in any state legislature in recent years—positioning Virginia to advance new pro-LGBTQ+ protections and progressive legislation under a governor willing to sign them into law.

In local races, pro-trans candidates also scored key victories. In Loudoun County—targeted by the Trump administration with the revoking of federal funds after it defied Trump threats and upheld restroom access for trans students—voters rejected anti-trans candidate Santos O. Muñoz Melendez. Instead, they elected April Moore Chandler and Ross C. Svenson, both supporters of transgender rights. Svenson, who previously represented trans students in legal battles against Governor Glenn Youngkin’s policies, will now help shape education policy from within the school board itself, ensuring continued protection for transgender students. Similar results played out in nearby Arlington County, where Monique A. “Moe” Bryant, another pro-trans candidate, won in a landslide.

Similar results followed in New Jersey, where Democrat Mikie Sherrill won decisively. Her opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, ran on a platform centered around the forced outing of transgender students and opposition to gender-affirming care for youth. His campaign flooded the airwaves with ads accusing Sherrill of “pushing LGBTQ+ identities on children,” reviving the familiar moral panic that queer visibility is somehow dangerous. The tactic backfired badly. By 10 p.m. Tuesday, Sherrill led by 13 points in a race once expected to come down to the wire—a clear rejection of anti-trans campaigning.

In the biggest news of the night, New York City elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor—a stunning rebuke to his opponents’ anti-trans rhetoric and a victory built on an unapologetically pro-trans platform. Just weeks before Election Day, Mamdani released a two-minute ad set to transgender artist SOPHIE’s “It’s OK to Cry,” pledging to declare New York an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, restore millions in transgender health care funding cut under federal pressure, and deploy “hundreds of lawyers” to fight the administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. His commitment to the community was no campaign pivot; it has been central to his public life. Long before his candidacy surged, Mamdani stood on the front lines protesting NYU Langone’s decision to drop transgender youth care in deference to the Trump administration—a stance that now defines his mandate as mayor.

In a rousing speech, Mamdani proclaimed after his victory, “In this new age that we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against each other. In this moment of political darkness, new York will be the light. Here we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with your back against the wall. Your struggle is ours too.”

These were only some of the many other results that clearly broke for Democrats and in favor of transgender rights on Tuesday. In Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court maintained its 5-2 majority, with the Philadelphia Gay News reporting each justice that was retained had a record of protecting LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians and in California, Proposition 50 wins, which will almost certainly result in a handful of anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans losing their seats in the state.

Taken together, the results amount to a resounding rejection of the notion that Democrats must soften—or stay silent—on LGBTQ+ rights to win. The Republicans who built their campaigns on anti-trans and anti-queer messaging, convinced that bigotry was a shortcut to victory, will not be holding the levers of power. And despite the pleas of centrist consultants urging Democrats to abandon transgender people, it was those who targeted them who saw their electoral fortunes collapse on Tuesday night. For the first time in years, transgender Americans can take a breath and see evidence that the wave of anti-transgender panic aimed at them may finally be receding.