New Poll: Voters Prefer Democratic Candidates Approach To Trans Rights Over Republicans

A new poll, which surveys voters who will partake in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races, found that voters were not impressed with Republican anti-trans positions.

Left: Mikie Sherrill // Wikimedia Commons, Right: Abigail Spanberger // Wikimedia Commons

Two pivotal governor’s races—New Jersey and Virginia—will be decided by voters tomorrow, and in both contests, transgender rights have taken center stage. Republican candidates have poured millions into anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ ads, betting that fearmongering will move the electorate. But a new poll from AtlasIntel, a well-rated pollster, suggests the strategy may be backfiring: both Democratic candidates are leading, and voters say they prefer the Democrats’ approach to transgender rights over their Republican opponents’.

According to the poll, when voters were asked who has a better approach to transgender rights, Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger led Republican opponent Winsome Earle-Sears by double digits, with 53 percent favoring her stance. In New Jersey, Democratic candidate Mikie Sherrill also holds a commanding lead on the issue—52 percent of voters prefer her approach compared to just 32 percent for Republican Jack Ciattarelli. Both Democrats are ahead overall, with Spanberger polling at +9 and Sherrill narrowly leading at +1.

Snapshot of Spanberger - Earle-Sears Virginia Poll

Snapshot of Sherrill - Ciattarelli New Jersey Poll

This poll is the latest in a string of surveys suggesting that anti-transgender attacks may be losing traction this election cycle. The ads flooding the airwaves this year closely resemble those that dominated the 2024 races—some even reuse the same talking points. Virginia’s Winsome Earle-Sears has borrowed lines verbatim, including “Spanberger is for they/them, not us,” in a reprise of the bathroom panic playbook. Once credited (somewhat questionably) as an effective wedge in 2024, the strategy now appears to be running out of steam.

One Democratic strategist, Jesse Ferguson, said in an interview with the Washington Post, “They’re falling into the fundamental mistake of trying to refight the last war and not realizing that the battlefield has changed… They can no longer attack Democrats as focused on other issues and pretend that they are so focused on cost of living when most people feel betrayed on cost of living.”

A Republican strategist, Alex Conant, appeared to agree, stating “They realize it’s hard to beat a moderate Democrat in Virginia in this environment so they have to convince voters that she’s a radical… That’s hard to do with someone who is a fairly known commodity and is spending a ton of money on her own talking about her moderate record.”

Virginia will be a critical state to watch in 2025—it was, after all, ground zero for the GOP’s modern anti-transgender playbook. When Glenn Youngkin won the 2021 governor’s race, he did so on a platform steeped in anti-trans rhetoric, buoyed by the rise of “parental rights” activists whose campaigns centered less on parents’ rights for trans kids and more on restricting those kids’ existence. Youngkin’s victory convinced many Republicans that the strategy could work in purple states, setting off a nationwide wave of copycat campaigns built on the same manufactured moral panic.

The poll results arrive at a moment when “centrist” groups are urging Democrats to distance themselves from transgender rights—and when even figures like California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom are wavering. Yet if these numbers show anything, it’s that abandoning trans people isn’t just morally indefensible; it’s politically misguided. The idea that winning requires exclusion has never been true, and the voters here seem to know it. Standing for equality remains both the right stance and the popular one, especially when compared against Republican opponents stances, who have built their campaigns on fear and hatred of transgender people.