Sarah McBride Says Voters Didn't Respond To Trump's Anti-Trans Message

The first openly transgender incoming member of Congress said Monday she didn’t think President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-trans TV ads were a major reason for his victory in last week’s election.

As Democrats reel from their losses, some moderates have suggested the party distance itself from messages supporting trans rights. But Sarah McBride said her own election to Delaware’s at-large House seat showed the anti-trans ads weren’t effective.

“I didn’t run on my identity, but my identity was not a secret, and in a state where two-thirds of the voters are in the Philadelphia media market, with a trans candidate on the ballot statewide, that candidate not only performed on par with other Democrats, but had the highest percentage of any Democrat running for major statewide office in Delaware this cycle,” McBride said Monday outside the U.S. Capitol.

McBride defeated Republican James Whalen by a comfortable margin and will be seated in January when the next Congress convenes. Democrats have held Delaware’s sole House seat since 2010; control of the House remains uncertain as votes are still being counted in some western districts, though Republicans appear likely to prevail. McBride spoke Monday at a press conference with other new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Trump campaign spent millions on ads highlighting Vice President Kamala Harris’ past support for gender-affirming surgery for federal prisoners and supposedly letting “biological men compete against our girls” in school sports.

Trans issues may have been a factor in the presidential election, but polling offers a mixed picture. One survey by a Democratic firm, released last week, suggested hardly any voters made their decision based on trans rights, even though most had seen Trump’s ads. But in another survey by a different Democratic firm, independent voters who broke for Trump cited Harris’ alleged support for trans rights more than any other issue.

On Monday, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) cited the second survey as a reason for Democrats’ drubbing in an interview with GBH, Boston’s NPR affiliate.

“Here we are accusing Republicans of being weird and we’re the ones who are suddenly requiring people to put pronouns in their email signatures. I mean, that’s kind of weird, to be honest,” Moulton said.

McBride noted her district contains urban, suburban and rural areas and that voters talked to her about wanting a more fair and affordable economy.

“What we have to all recognize here is that when a politician tries to take an issue that impacts a handful of people in a handful of states and turn it into the most important issue in an election, everyone has to ask why? And the answer to that question is that Donald Trump was trying to divide and distract from the fact that he has absolutely no policy solutions for the issues that are actually keeping voters up at night, the issues that I was hearing about on the campaign trail.”