Republicans have spent an estimated $183 million on TV ads attacking Democrats over transgender issues in the last stretch of this year's election, according to the Associated Press, in a story republished by the Arkansas Times. That money bought about 217,000 TV spots through October 25. It's more than Republicans had spent on the same kind of ads at this point in 2024, a presidential year.
Arkansas Republicans have leaned hard into it. Ads attacking transgender rights have run this year in support of Sarah Sanders, Tom Cotton and French Hill.
Here is the problem with that. The thing those ads warn about is already against the law in Arkansas. And the Arkansas Times points out the state has reported zero cases of transgender athletes unfairly dominating girls' youth sports.
So Arkansas Republicans are spending this fall on a fight they've already won, about a problem the state hasn't documented — while voters nationwide keep telling pollsters that what's really on their minds is prices.
Arkansas settled this years ago
In 2021, Arkansas passed the SAFE Act. It bans doctors from giving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender-transition surgery to anyone under 18. It also bars doctors from referring kids for that care, and blocks public money from paying for it. The law was tied up in court for four years. In August 2025, a federal appeals court let it take effect.
Arkansas's ban on transgender girls in girls' sports is even older. As we reported when Sanders's own ad came out, Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed it in March 2021 — almost two years before Sanders took office.
Both laws were on the books before this campaign started.
The ad against French Hill's opponent
In the 2nd District, French Hill faces Democrat Chris Jones. A super PAC called the Committee for American Leadership has spent $1 million against Jones since it registered with the FEC on July 21. Its donors through September 30 included the Stephens family and First Security Bank chair Reynie Rutledge.
Its ads say Jones supports transgender surgery for children. He says he doesn't.
Former Arkansas congressman Vic Snyder laid out where the attack comes from in an Arkansas Times column. In 2021, Hutchinson — a Republican governor — vetoed the SAFE Act, calling it a "vast government overreach." He also made clear he didn't support transgender surgery on minors. When Jones ran for governor in 2022, he said he agreed with Hutchinson's veto. Jones has said plainly that he does not support transgender surgery on minors either.
According to Snyder, the super PAC used Jones's agreement with a Republican governor's veto to claim, falsely, that Jones supports transgender surgery for minors.
Snyder adds one more detail: in 2020, that same Hutchinson supported French Hill and did ads for him. So the man whose veto is now being used to smear Hill's opponent once appeared in ads for Hill.
An editor's note on Snyder's column says gender-affirming surgery for minors is "exceedingly rare," and quotes a 2024 study from Harvard's public health school concluding that laws blocking this care seek to address "a perceived problem that does not actually exist."
Sarah Sanders's ad was her own
Sanders didn't need an outside group. Her campaign made its own ad, with a bearded adult man in a women's uniform trying to join a team of young athletes. In it, she claims she refused to "comply" with a Biden order on trans athletes and "won the fight to keep men out of women's sports."
We took that ad apart in September. Biden's 2024 Title IX rule didn't cover sports. The sports ban was Hutchinson's, not hers. There was no fight left for her to win.
Tom Cotton, running on ads instead of debates
The AP reports anti-trans ads have run in support of Tom Cotton too. Cotton has had plenty of airtime to fill: as we reported, he and the groups backing him outspent Democrat Hallie Shoffner and her allies on advertising 65 to 1.
What he hasn't done is face her. Cotton turned down Arkansas TV's debate and agreed only to one on Salem Media, a conservative Christian outlet. Then, Cotton's campaign says, Salem withdrew the offer, and the two will not debate at all before November 3. On the night of the Arkansas TV debate, his campaign said, Cotton was at a family friend's birthday party.
What voters actually say they care about
This isn't what's on most voters' minds. In an AP-NORC poll from October, only about 1 in 10 registered voters said transgender issues are "one of the most important issues" in this election. About 8 in 10 named the economy or the cost of living. Transgender issues also ranked below healthcare and the war with Iran.
Even a Republican pollster said as much. "It's not necessarily that transgender policy is a top voting priority," Chris Wilson told the AP, "it's that voters can use a candidate's position on it as a proxy for their broader values and judgment."
What Arkansans are actually dealing with
Here's what's on the table in Arkansas that these ads don't mention:
- Hunger. A statewide survey found 37% of Arkansans say they don't have enough food. Sanders praised Trump's budget bill for moving welfare recipients "off the path to dependency."
- Food stamps that don't cover a meal. Cotton, Hill and Arkansas's other House Republicans voted for the budget bill that blocks the main fix for food stamps falling behind grocery prices. In Pulaski County, in Hill's district, a modestly priced meal already costs 22% more than SNAP pays.
- Health coverage. 200,000 Arkansans could lose the coverage they have under the private option, with the Trump administration citing authority from the same budget bill every Arkansas Republican in Congress voted for. And 14,441 Arkansans lost Obamacare coverage this year after Congress let health subsidies expire.
- Bank fees. Hill, a former bank CEO, wrote the House version of the resolution that killed a $5 cap on overdraft fees.
Every one of those is about money in an Arkansas family's pocket. None of them shows up in an ad about a bearded man in a women's sports uniform.
It's the same playbook everywhere
Arkansas isn't alone. The biggest share of this money — about $58 million for more than 50,000 airings — went to the Texas Senate race, where a super PAC largely funded by Elon Musk is backing Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico. One of its ads tells viewers, "If you care about your children, do not vote for James Talarico." The AP notes Talarico has publicly said he opposes gender-reassignment surgery for minors.
In Ohio, Republican groups have spent nearly $26 million on these attacks against Sherrod Brown. The AP reports PolitiFact rated one of those ads false, and that it twists a 2023 interview in which Brown said a child's medical decisions belong to families and doctors.
We've seen the same move in other races: a pro-Byron Donalds PAC cut a sentence in half to make David Jolly appear to back surgery on kids, and Greg Abbott ran an ad claiming his opponent voted to let parents be prosecuted over a bill that allowed no such thing.
What it adds up to
Republicans have spent an estimated $183 million on anti-transgender TV ads this fall, and in Arkansas those ads have run for Sarah Sanders, Tom Cotton and French Hill. Arkansas banned gender-transition care for minors and transgender girls in girls' sports in 2021, and both laws are in force. The super PAC attacking Hill's opponent has spent $1 million against Chris Jones, including an ad claiming he supports transgender surgery for minors, which he has said he does not. Only about 1 in 10 voters call transgender issues one of the most important in this election; about 8 in 10 name the economy and the cost of living.
