March 23, 2022 – Sen. Ted Cruz questions Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), along with Congressional Republicans, are among a group of candidates and deep-pocketed political committees unleashing a massive ad buy on Democratic opponents who they say favor “sex changes for kids” without parental consent and support “boys in girls’ bathrooms,” among other false charges.
The renewed focus on anti-trans messaging comes as desperate Republicans try to turn the spotlight away from the imploding Trump campaign and onto an issue they believe will motivate voters to the polls.
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On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) unveiled its first ad for the general election season, accusing Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) of pushing “sex changes for kids” without parental consent.
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On the same day, Cruz accused his opponent for the U.S. Senate, Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), of voting “to allow boys in girls’ restrooms” in the imperiled senator’s largest ad buy so far this year. Cruz and Allred are in a statistical dead heat in their Texas race.
The slick bilingual spot from the NRCC targeting Gonzalez in his South Texas district against Republican challenger Mayra Flores employs an actor baling hay in a barn to cast the incumbent Democrat as “loco” for pushing “sex changes for kids,” when “I could use that money in our community.” The ad levels two false charges at once: that Gonzalez supports “sex changes” for kids and tax dollars are paying for them.
Republicans view the South Texas seat as competitive.
Cruz goes after Allred for voting for the Equality Act in Congress and against the transphobic Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act in 2023. Both measures passed in the House but stalled in the Senate.
“Our girls are being left in the dust, robbed of their right to compete freely,” the ad intones. “Allred voted in Congress to oppose Texas State law that protects women’s sports. Colin Allred voted to allow boys in girls bathrooms, boys in girls locker rooms, boys and girls sports. That’s not competition. That’s not fair.”
Allred’s campaign called out the lies as a “disgusting, false attack, and another example of how Ted Cruz only wants to divide Texans,” in a statement to the Texas Tribune.
Cruz will “say anything to distract from his dangerous abortion ban that is putting women’s lives at risk, trying to raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare and fleeing to Cancun during a deadly winter storm,” Josh Stewart, an Allred spokesperson, said in a statement.
Republicans are training their attention and dollars on the anti-trans messaging — and ignoring voters’ top priorities, including the economy and health care — despite the strategy’s overt failure in 2022, when the GOP failed to produce a red wave in the midterms with a massive ad campaign focused on the same trans tropes.
The anti-Gonzalez ad falsely portrays the moderate Latino Democrat, who’s voted with Republicans in the past, as radical as well as crazy. In response, he reiterated he’s “never supported tax dollars paying for gender transition surgeries and never will” and said Flores “should mention how she’s opposed lowering drug costs and healthcare prices — how she supports defunding Social Security and Medicare. Let’s let the record speak for itself.”
Cruz cohort Josh Hawley of Missouri is adopting the same late election strategy as his fellow MAGA provocateur. This week, he rolled out fifth-place college swimmer and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines to accuse his Democratic opponent of promoting a “radical trans agenda” in the Show Me State.
