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In the first few weeks of October, three national pollsters asked three different questions about transgender issues, and all three landed in the same place from different angles: the anti-transgender ads this year may be backfiring on Republican strategists. Navigator Research, AP-NORC and ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos polls collectively found that voters trust Democrats on transgender issues and rank those issues as not very important to their vote, and that Republican and independent voters were less likely than Democrats to prioritize them. When the polls are contrasted with the massive amount of ad spend on transgender issues, there are signs, first seen in the Virginia gubernatorial election last year, that the high concentration of ads may turn voters off and could fuel, rather than suppress, a Democratic wave election in 2026.

The first poll to come out was the Navigator Research poll. In this poll, voters were asked to list up to five top issues, giving it a stronger signal than prior polls that only required voters to list their top issue. Even when voters were asked to list five, transgender issues ranked dead last among all 20 issues on the list. And Democratic voters were the most likely group to rank transgender issues a top issue, meaning many of those who did are likely voting to protect transgender rights, not to restrict those rights. Prior polls from Gallup have found similar results, although this poll is most notable due to its top-five format.

Then, another poll came out: AP-NORC asked Americans on a per-issue basis how important each issue was to their own vote. Whereas most issues asked about were considered “one of the most........

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