How Kamala Harris’ ‘out of touch’ trans views cost Democrats the election

Republicans were given free rein to paint party as obsessed with culture wars, says Congressman Seth Moulton

The Democrats were seen as “out of touch” on trans issues and it may have cost the party the election, one of its leading congressmen has said.
Seth Moulton, who ran against Joe Biden in 2020, said his party should have confronted Republican attacks that it was obsessed with culture wars issues instead of staying silent.
“It was one of the many issues where Democrats were out of touch with the American people, we need to do more listening and less teaching,” Massachusetts congressman Mr Moulton told The Telegraph.
“The Republicans put out a hateful agenda and they attacked us on the issue. We were silent and didn’t have a response to the hateful agenda…we refused to debate it.
“We can’t even have discussions about contentious issues like this, because anyone who disagrees with the Left-related Democratic orthodoxy just gets shut down.”
The Republicans launched a $200 million advertising blitz on the trans issue, as part of their strategy of luring working-class voters away from the Democrats in the election.
The attack ads focussed on how, during her first presidential bid in 2019, Kamala Harris said she would support funding sex-change operations for transgender prisoners in federal prisons, a law which was brought in under the original Trump administration in 2018.
“Kamala supports transgender sex changes in jail without money,” the advert said.
It continued: “Kamala even supports letting biological men compete against our girls in their sports. Kamala is for they, them. President Trump is for you.”
The clip formed part of the Republicans’ “war on woke”, which was fought in local elections and schoolboards across the country over the last couple of years.
It was an issue that both Mr Trump and his running mate JD Vance made central to their closing arguments, with the now president-elect telling the packed out Madison Square Garden rally in New York: “We will get … transgender insanity the hell out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women’s sports.”
Mr Vance also dedicated a chunk of airtime to the subject on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, claiming “upper and middle class kids” could change gender to make it easier to get into Ivy League schools with Diversity Equity and Inclusion requirements.
Kamala Harris tried to sidestep the issue in October, when questioned by reporters. 
She said she would not put herself in the place of doctors who should make the decision “in terms of what is medically necessary”.
Mr Moulton said the Harris campaign handled the attack line badly.
“It was a classic example of an issue where we just didn’t even have a response as a Democratic Party,” he said.
He added: “Exit polling showed it was a significant issue which moved the needle towards Trump by over two points.”
Just days after the Democrats’ crushing defeat, Mr Moulton, a father of two girls, raised concerns about his daughters competing on the same field as “male” or “formerly male” athletes.
“I was just speaking as a dad. But the fact we can’t even debate this issue is a fundamental problem and the backlash I have received by simply raising this question proves my point,” he said.
“We have a problem just having these debates and discussions as a party, as Republicans are banning books, Democrats are banning discussion.”
Mr Moulton also said that the party should have made more effort to talk up its plans for the economy.
“Democrats want to reduce inflation as we’ve been doing the past few years. Trump is going to dramatically increase inflation with tax cuts for billionaires and huge tariffs on imported goods,” he said.
The sentiment of Mr Moulton’s comments were echoed elsewhere.
“The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far-Left,” Representative Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, said.
And John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator, agreed the party was hit hard by the Republicans’ barrage of anti-trans adverts.
In an interview with the Semafor website, while he insisted he would not “walk away” from the trans community, he warned that the Democrats had paid a heavy price for what some party members said on gender.
“It’s also true, undeniably, that if someone ran for president in 2020 and pandered to that Squad mentality, or to get likes on Twitter, and they made those kinds of statements about gender, they were going to be pretty hard to defend. That was going to get weaponized,” he said.
Gilberto Hinojosa quit as chairman of the Texas Democratic party over the issue.
“You could, for example…support transgender rights up and down all the categories where the issue comes up, or you can understand that there’s certain things that we just go too far on, that a big bulk of our population does not support,” he said – before later apologising for his remarks on Twitter.
Their concerns appear to have been justified, judging by a poll run by Blueprint, a Democratic pollster.
It found that Trump voters believed that Ms Harris was more focussed on cultural issues – like transgender rights – than helping the middle class.
Earlier this year, Joe Biden told transgender Americans  “I have your back” in a formal proclamation from the White House to proclaim March 31 as “Transgender day of Visibility.” 
He said: “I am proud that my administration has stood for justice from the start, working to ensure that the LGBTQI+ community can live openly, in safety, with dignity and respect.   
“I am proud to have appointed transgender leaders to my administration and to have ended the ban on transgender Americans serving openly in our military.”
Even on the Left, some believe the party’s defeat – which cost it the White House and both houses of Congress – was because its lack of a clear economic message alienated traditional supporters – including blue collar workers, African Americans and Latinos.
In a stern rebuke of the party’s approach, Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
Critics from Left and Right argued that the Democrats should have put  “kitchen table” issues from health care to inflation at the forefront of their campaign.
It was this gulf that cost the Democrats the backing of normally loyal supporters.
Mr Moulton’s remarks reflected the uneasy truce between the Left and Right of the party which at times undermined the Biden administration’s efforts to restore the US economy after the pandemic.
“Voters feel like we’re not listening to their concerns. They feel like we’re always preaching from an ivory tower on what they should believe and what they should think,” Mr Moulton added.
“‘If you disagree with us, you are morally wrong’. That’s not how you represent people, that’s not how you win their votes.”