WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, is vaulting into the midterms with a $15 million investment targeting Republicans in battleground districts after a series of setbacks in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that this is the election that\u2019s going to be the sea change, not only for getting to a pro-equality majority but for changing the momentum on this fight for equality,\u201d said Kelley Robinson, the organization’s president, in an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cThis movement is ready for its next wind, its second wind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides eight congressional districts that could help determine control of the U.S. House, the Human Rights Campaign is also supporting Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio and Texas. The money will be spent on advertising, events and canvassers.<\/p>\n
The LGBTQ+ movement has been reckoning with a wave of defeats on the campaign trail and in the courtroom that have left Democrats struggling to regain their footing.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration has rolled back protections for transgender people, such as banning them from serving in the military<\/a> and cutting off gender-affirming care for children<\/a>. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has upheld Republican states\u2019 restrictions<\/a> while striking down bans on \u201cconversion therapy\u201d practices<\/a> in Democratic states.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that our movement made ourselves believe that we were closer to equality than we actually are,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cThe last few years, we\u2019ve been doing an incredible amount of listening, of learning, also of repositioning this work.\u201d<\/p>\n After the 2024 presidential election, Democrats were divided over the role that LGBTQ+ rights played in their party\u2019s losses. The Trump campaign ran a series of advertisements mocking Vice President Kamala Harris for supporting medical gender transitions for incarcerated people and highlighting the issue of transgender people playing on women’s sports teams.<\/p>\n \u201cKamala Harris is for they\/them,\u201d said a voice-over in one national ad. \u201cPresident Trump is for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson argued that the ad was effective because of an implicit economic message, not for its critiques of the policy toward transgender people. But conservative activists and some moderate Democrats have argued such stances are too unpopular with swing voters.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a real disconnect between most voters and the party elite,” said Leor Sapir, a fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cIf I\u2019m a Democrat consultant, my advice would be: Do everything in your power to keep this issue off the public agenda.”<\/p>\n Robinson said her organization has been soul-searching on how to best craft winning messages on LGBTQ+ rights.<\/p>\n \u201cOur job is to move away from the fireballs that our opposition wants to talk about and instead find a way to get back to the things that are impacting folks every day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In January, the Human Rights Campaign published a guide to blunting conservative attacks on LGBTQ+ issues, citing the successful campaigns of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger<\/a> and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although the guide encourages candidates to \u201clead with your values\u201d and \u201caddress concerns directly,” it also encourages them to \u201cgo big\u201d and quickly pivot to issues like cost-of-living concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the number one way to shut out a voter is to try to make them believe that their fears are not real. So what we coach candidates on doing is listening,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cFor folks who have questions about the issues, that\u2019s OK. We\u2019re in a moment where the stakes in front of us are too high to look away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, is vaulting into the midterms with a $15 million investment targeting Republicans in battleground districts after a series of setbacks in recent years. \u201cI think that this is the election that\u2019s going to be the sea change, not only for … Continue reading Human Rights Campaign targets battleground districts during broader reckoning over LGBTQ+ rights<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1498831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 04:07:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1498831"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500101,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1498831\/revisions\/1500101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1498831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1498831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1498831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}