Fox News Poll: Americans Prefer Democrats On Transgender Issues +22 Points

Virtually every subgroup surveyed—from mothers to Black voters to even rural white voters—expressed greater confidence in the Democratic Party’s handling of transgender issues in the latest poll.

Ted Eytan // Wikimedia Commons

Anti-transgender politics appears to be losing steam with American voters. That trend was already visible in November, when multiple candidates who centered their campaigns on anti-trans messaging were soundly defeated despite spending enormous sums on attack ads. Now, there is fresh evidence from an unlikely source. According to a new poll released Thursday by Fox News, voters say Democrats have a better approach to transgender issues by a wide margin—an outcome that suggests the years-long anti-trans panic may finally be wearing thin, at least among voters.

According to the latest Fox News poll, when respondents were asked which political party they believe would do a better job on transgender issues, 60 percent said Democrats, compared with just 38 percent who chose Republicans—a 22-point advantage. The result suggests a growing disconnect between how political leaders frame transgender issues and how voters actually respond to them. While the public holds a wide range of views on specific questions involving bathrooms, sports, and medical care, voters appear to find the Democratic approach on transgender issues significantly more palatable than the Republican one.

The breakdown among key demographic groups was even more striking. Black voters were among the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party’s approach to transgender issues, with 71 percent siding with Democrats compared with 28 percent favoring Republicans—a staggering 43-point margin. Every age group favored Democrats over Republicans, but support was strongest among voters under 45, where 65 percent backed Democratic policies versus 35 percent for Republicans, a 30-point gap. Even self-identified moderates broke heavily toward Democrats, with 63 percent supporting the Democratic platform compared with 32 percent backing the Republican one—a 31-point margin that underscores how broadly anti-trans messaging appears to be backfiring beyond the party base.

Perhaps most striking, voters typically assumed to lean Republican still favored Democrats on transgender issues. As expected, urban and suburban voters backed Democrats by wide margins—roughly 30 points—but rural voters also broke in Democrats’ favor. Even there, Democrats held a 10-point advantage. That shift suggests Republicans may be losing an advantage they long believed they held, based largely on assumptions about prejudice in rural areas. Notably, Democrats even led among white rural voters, 51 to 45 percent, indicating that the edge persists among groups often considered central to the Republican base.

Democrats also performed surprisingly well across most religious groups. They held an edge among Catholics—including white Catholics—as well as among Protestants. While those margins were narrower than in other demographics—about a 16-point advantage among Catholic voters—they are notable given that Trump carried many of these groups comfortably. Even among evangelical Christians, one of the few constituencies that still leaned Republican on transgender issues, support for the Democratic approach was substantial, with 41 percent siding with Democrats.

These numbers do not appear to be aberrations. Instead, they point to a growing problem for a Republican Party that has increasingly elevated anti-transgender policy into a central political strategy, pouring tens of millions of dollars into anti-trans advertising. That investment has not paid off. In places like Virginia and New Jersey, and in school board races across the country, Republicans were decisively defeated when targeting transgender people became a defining priority. Far from being a political liability, supporting transgender people may increasingly be an electoral asset. Democrats, if they choose to recognize it, can run openly on their supportive stances—and on exposing the cruelty of Republican policy—and be rewarded by voters for doing so.