Voters delivered a split verdict on trans rights in the 2026 US midterms. Several candidates targeted by anti-trans advertising won, while ballot measures in four states restricted transgender students’ access to school sports. The contrast matters: candidate races and direct votes on policy can tell very different stories about public opinion.
Essential Takeaways
- Targeted candidates still won: Many Democrats criticised in anti-trans campaign ads were elected.
- Sports restrictions passed: Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington approved measures limiting trans students’ participation in school sports.
- Missouri rejected a care ban: Voters turned down a proposal restricting gender-affirming care for minors, which was linked to an abortion-rights question.
- Trans candidates made gains: New transgender state legislators were elected in five states, including Washington’s Jaelynn Scott.
Anti-trans ads did not deliver a clear electoral win
The 2026 midterms produced an awkward result for campaigns built around attacking trans rights: many of the Democrats targeted won. The Washington Post, reporting before election day, estimated that Republicans had spent $183 million on transgender-focused ads by 25 October, airing roughly 217,000 television spots. Yet that spending didn’t stop a number of candidates under fire from winning their races.
In Texas, Republican groups reportedly spent at least $78 million on ads attacking James Talarico’s support for trans people. One advert used the line “for they/them, not you”; another falsely claimed he supported jailing parents who wouldn’t allow their children to transition. Prism Reports noted that Talarico won, alongside other Democrats who had been targeted by anti-trans messaging.
The contrast is striking, but it doesn’t prove the ads had no effect. As the Washington Post’s pre-election report made clear, the spending showed what campaigns hoped to make salient, not what voters ultimately thought of the messages.
Voters drew a different line on ballot measures
Candidate races weren’t the whole story. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington approved measures restricting transgender students’ participation in school sports according to their gender identity, according to Axios. In Missouri, by contrast, voters rejected a proposal that combined limits on gender-affirming care for minors with an abortion-rights question.
That makes for a more complicated picture than a simple election-night win or loss for trans rights. Amnesty International USA also describes the ballot results as mixed, distinguishing the four successful sports restrictions from the failed Missouri proposal. Colorado voters separately approved a measure restricting specified gender-affirming care for minors, as Axios reported.
And ballot questions don’t always move in step with votes for candidates. A person may support a particular candidate while taking a different view on a specific policy, so the two kinds of results shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable.
Why the ads may have struggled to cut through
One possible explanation is that transgender issues ranked low among voters’ concerns. Prism Reports cited an October Navigator Research poll in which Democrats and Republicans placed transgender issues last among 20 topics, behind matters including inflation, jobs, healthcare, housing and immigration.
That context offers a plausible reason why an expensive campaign message might not have been decisive. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also described trans-focused advertising as a failed effort to scare Republicans into voting, saying it wasn’t the issue motivating voters, according to Prism Reports.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis argued that anti-trans campaigns drove voters away. That’s an advocacy group’s interpretation of the results, rather than proof that the ads alone determined any race, but it adds to the debate over whether cultural attacks can compete with the issues voters rank more highly.
Democrats faced their own test on trans rights
Republicans weren’t the only candidates to take positions against trans rights. Prism Reports described Democratic candidates who spoke against trans inclusion in school sports, including Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and Ohio Governor-elect Amy Acton. LGBTQIA+ advocates criticised those positions, with the Human Rights Campaign declining to endorse either candidate, according to Prism.
That reaction points to a question that goes beyond party labels: how much should voters and advocacy groups expect a candidate’s political affiliation to signal support for trans people? Prism Reports quoted former Ohio Democratic Party Pride Caucus vice-chair Arienne Childrey arguing that candidates needed to earn that trust through their actions.
It’s a reminder that a win at the ballot box doesn’t settle every disagreement within a political coalition. For advocates, holding elected officials accountable may matter just as much as getting them elected.
Trans candidates made history amid uneven results
The election also brought significant gains in representation. The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund reported that newly elected transgender state legislators included candidates in Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Washington and Wisconsin. Among them was Jaelynn Scott, whom Prism Reports identified as Washington’s first openly trans state legislator and the first Black trans woman elected to any US state legislature.
The contrast in Washington is especially telling: voters backed Initiative 638, while Scott won office in the same election. The two results don’t cancel each other out. Instead, they show how a community can see both political progress and new restrictions arrive at once.
For anyone trying to read the results as a guide to what comes next, that may be the clearest lesson: election outcomes on trans rights are uneven, and each race or ballot measure deserves a closer look.
The midterms delivered neither a single verdict nor a reason to stop paying attention.
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