GOP’s culture war shtick is wearing thin with voters
The Republican Party has always leaned on culture war issues to win elections, but for the last three years, since Joe Biden won office in 2020, an aggressive and virulent form of culture war demagoguery has been at the center of Republican political strategy.
If the results of Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio tell us anything, however, it’s that this post-Roe form of culture warring is an abject failure, an approach that repels and alienates voters far more than it appeals to or persuades them.
To be fair to Republican strategists, there was a moment, in autumn 2021, when it looked like the plan was working. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee for governor in Virginia, ran on a campaign of “parents’ rights” against “critical race theory” and won a narrow victory against Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic governor, sweeping Republicans into power statewide for the first time since 2009. Youngkin shot to national prominence, and Republicans made immediate plans to take the strategy to every competitive race.
In 2022, with “parental rights” as their rallying cry, Republican lawmakers unleashed a barrage of legislation targeting transgender rights, and Republican candidates ran explicit campaigns against transgender and other gender-nonconforming people. “They kicked God out of schools and welcomed the drag queens,” said Kari Lake, an Arizona Republican, during her 2022 campaign for governor. “They took down our flag and replaced it with a rainbow.”
Republican candidates and political committees spent millions of dollars attacking gender-affirming care for minors and transgender participation in youth sports. Republican opponents of Michigan’s initiative to protect abortion access in the state warned voters that it would give transgender youth the right to obtain certain forms of care without parental consent. An ad aired in opposition to Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., who was running for reelection to the House that year, portrayed gender-affirming care as a way to “chemically castrate” children.
Lake lost her race. Michigan voters successfully amended their state constitution to protect the right to an abortion. Spanberger won reelection, too. Overall, election night 2022 was a serious disappointment for the Republican Party, which failed to win a Senate majority and barely won control of the House of Representatives. The hoped-for red wave was little more than a puddle.
The culture war strategy had fallen flat on its face.
Undaunted, Republicans stepped back up to the plate and took another swing at transgender rights. Attorney General Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, the Republican nominee for governor of that state, and his allies spent millions on anti-transgender ads in his race against Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear. In one television ad, a narrator warns viewers of a “radical transgender agenda” that’s “bombarding our children everywhere we turn.” Beshear won reelection.
Youngkin was not on the ballot in Virginia, but he led the effort to win a Republican trifecta in the state, targeting Democrats once again on parents’ rights and endorsing candidates who ran hard against transgender inclusion in schools. “No more are we going to make parents stand outside of the room,” Youngkin said to a crowd of Republicans on Monday at a rally in Leesburg. “We are going to put them at the head of the table in charge of our children’s lives.”
Youngkin and his fellow Republicans failed to flip the state Senate and hold on to the House of Delegates. He’ll face a Democratic majority in both chambers of the General Assembly for the rest of his term.
If the Republican Party were a normal political party that was still capable of strategic adjustment, I’d say to expect some rhetorical moderation before the presidential election. But consider the most recent Republican presidential debate — held Wednesday — in which candidates continued to emphasize their opposition to the inclusion of transgender people in mainstream American life. “If God made you a man, you play sports against men,” declared Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., at the conclusion of the debate.
So I suppose that when the next election comes around, we should just expect more of the same.