Trump campaign blankets MLB playoff games with transphobic ads against Harris

Citi Field is as electrifying as ever: Grimace, a good luck charm since a midseason ceremonial first pitch sparked the Mets’ playoff run, bounces from the 7 Train to the stadium, while the Mets continue to ride the wave of success that has catapulted them deeper into the postseason.

October baseball brings feel-good moments for Mets fans — and other fanbases competing in the postseason — but if you pay close attention, your joy may be punctured by former President Donald Trump’s campaign commercials featuring doom-and-gloom messages laced with transphobic rhetoric. 

One particularly repulsive television ad promoted by the Trump campaign begins with dramatic music and a photo of Vice President Kamala Harris next to a CNN headline from September saying she “supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners” — as if they’re exposing some negative, disqualifying feature of her candidacy. The ad then cuts to a years-old exchange between Harris and Mara Keisling, the founder of the National Center for Transgender Equality — which has since merged with Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund to create Advocates for Trans Equality.

“Even the liberal media is shocked,” the ad insists, saying Harris is a proponent of not only trans-inclusive healthcare for Americans but also undocumented immigrants. 

Advocates for Trans Equality did not respond to a request for comment about the advertisements.

The ad also features an image of US Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, the first out trans official to gain Senate confirmation, in a blatantly transphobic display of political advertising. The ad highlighted a years-old ACLU questionnaire in which Harris dared to support trans rights.

“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris wrote in the questionnaire shown on the clip.

Near the end of the ad, the Trump campaign then shows a clip featuring Harris taking a photo with a drag artist — yet again an attempt to stoke transphobia with less than a month remaining until the presidential election. The scene showing a drag artist echoes the playbook championed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and lawmakers in states such as Florida, Tennessee, and Texas.

“Kamala is for they/them,” the narrator blurts out, mocking non-binary individuals. “President Trump is for you.”

It is the most-aired ad by the Trump campaign in recent weeks, according to the New York Times.

“CRAZY LIBERAL KAMALA’S FOR THEY/THEM,” a similar television advertisement says. “PRESIDENT TRUMP IS FOR YOU.”

The advertisement stems in part from the 2020 election cycle when Harris was running in the Democratic primary race for president. She took heat at the time over a decision she made when she was California attorney general when she rejected an incarcerated transgender woman’s request to undergo gender-affirming surgery while behind bars. She reversed her position on that issue and conveyed her support for the rights of incarcerated transgender individuals. She has been an LGBTQ ally as vice president and in her previous posts.

Notably, the Mets have been thrust into the thick of swing-state politics down the stretch since the team’s playoff run coincides with the final weeks leading up to the election. The team clinched a playoff spot against the Braves in Atlanta, home to Georgia’s 16 electoral votes, before knocking out the Brewers in the Wild Card round in Milwaukee, another swing state with 10 electoral votes. 

In the subsequent round, the National League Division Series, the Mets found themselves playing in yet another swing state — Pennsylvania, home to the biggest prize of all battleground states — against the Philadelphia Phillies. Anti-trans advertisements aired during playoff games in both rounds. 

According to the New York Times, advertising data collected by AdImpact shows that Republicans have spent $65 million on anti-trans TV ads in more than a dozen states — even though such an approach failed to materialize into successful results when it was employed during the 2022 midterms. Over the last three weeks, the Times reported, the Trump campaign has steered more than $15 million towards television ads criticizing Harris over her support for gender-affirming care for incarcerated individuals.

Last month, a poll released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Community Marketing & Insights found that 74% of LGBTQ people were planning to or are leaning towards voting for the Harris-Walz ticket. Trump spent his four years in office attacking LGBTQ rights at every turn, including by banning trans troops from the military, granting waivers for states to discriminate against LGBTQ prospective parents seeking to adopt, working to roll back healthcare protections for LGBTQ people, and suing trans student-athletes for playing sports in accordance with their gender identity.