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Elon Musk’s America PAC has dropped $100 million to support the GOP in critical races that could control the future of the Senate. It includes TV commercials, digital ads, and a social media blitz across platforms Musk owns and platforms he doesn’t. The eleventh-hour push is a brazen attempt to stoke the anti-trans moral panic and turn equal rights for transgender people into a make-or-break campaign issue.

“The PAC’s emphasis on trans issues is striking because that’s been a much less prominent theme in GOP Senate ads so far this election cycle, per AdImpact, which tracks political advertising,” Axios’s Mike Zapler reports. “On its face, the strategy is at odds with what voters say they want candidates to talk about. Concerns about the economy dominate; trans and LGBT issues barely register. But Republicans remember how lethal the Trump campaign’s ‘Kamala is for they/them ads were to Kamala Harris’ campaign in 2024.”

The ads are a smattering of anti-trans hysterics and culture war talking points attacking James Talarico in Texas, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Josh Turek in Iowa, Mary Peltola in Alaska, and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. (Musk is also funding some ads in New Hampshire and Maine, but they did not seem to target trans people.) Ads are running on the airwaves, as well as online on sites like Google, Instagram, and Facebook.

With grainy, high-contrast images and ominous music, the ads warn: “James Talarico believes there are six genders.” They said Brown put “the trans agenda ahead of Ohio’s........

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