Disinformation Report: October 5-11
How Anti-Trans Attacks Are Landing Across TFA’s Priority States — and How Campaigns Should Answer
13 PRIORITY STATES | 408 STATE-TAGGED POSTS | 13.5M ENGAGEMENTS |
The largest item in the week’s transgender material, of any kind, was a campaign post: a clip of the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas speaking at a 2019 legislative hearing, carried by a super PAC to 4.11 million engagements. Texas took 82% of the thirteen-state map, and a false claim about that nominee’s health reached 421,000 engagements before a national fact-checker rated it false. Michigan was second on a cable-news focus group that neither campaign made. Republican-side transgender advertising opened in five races — New Mexico’s Second District, Arizona’s Sixth and the New Hampshire and Nebraska Senate races, where the previous edition found none from that side in either library, and the Texas governor’s race, which enters this table this week — all of it starting inside this window. The Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republican leadership’s super PAC, put its Kansas attack line onto Meta and kept its Ohio testimonial running with new creative, and Nebraska’s Senate race received its first paid transgender-issue card. Two of the week’s largest state items recirculated events that are months or years old. This eighth weekly edition covers who drove each state’s attacks, what is now being paid for and by whom, and where the openings are.
Data: Trans Rhetoric Social Media Dashboard 79K+ channels · 18 platforms · 1M+ posts · Weekly electoral briefing
Topline Finding
The largest single item in the week’s transgender material was a campaign post, and it was the largest item of any kind. On Oct 11 two committees carried a clip of State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Texas’s open U.S. Senate seat, saying “There’s only one person who can determine a child’s gender identity and that’s the child.” He said it at a 2019 hearing of the Texas House Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee. Lone Star Liberty PAC, a committee supporting Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, posted it that morning and reached 2,975,633; the X account of America PAC, the super PAC funded by Elon Musk, posted it 53 minutes later and reached 4,114,844, the largest post in the week’s whole transgender slice. The same quotation had circulated at 6,887 engagements on Oct 6. Campaigns should expect committee accounts, rather than advertising, to carry the largest single items in the closing weeks.
Texas carried 11.09M, 82% of the thirteen-state map and its second-largest week in this series. Posts naming Talarico carried 10.20M across 611 posts; posts naming Paxton carried 1.85M across 244; in a Fox News interview clip relayed this week (352,637), Paxton named “the trans issue” first when asked for his campaign’s best line of attack. Two other items drove the rest. President Trump told an Oct 7 rally at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio that “the people of Texas are not going to let weak, gutless, self-hating, transgender-promoting freak shows destroy everything that we’ve built”; the line ran on 79 accounts for 1.34M, nearly all of it within about ninety minutes, the largest relay at 580,171. Separately, reporting on Oct 1 by the newsletter Popular Information put transgender-focused advertising against Talarico at $37 million since Sept 6 — more than $30 million, mostly broadcast, from Texas PAC, a committee linked to the Senate Republican leadership, more than $4 million in streaming from MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, and $1.3 million in digital from America PAC. The thirteen states together carried 13.53M against 7.73M the week before, the third-largest week in this series.
A false claim about the Texas nominee’s health was the fastest-moving attack of the week, and it was publicly corrected. Talarico was absent from the campaign trail for nine days; his campaign said he was recovering from influenza. On Oct 11 two conservative accounts said an audio recording showed he had been discharged from a named psychiatric hospital in Ohio, and a relay of that claim carried 421,361. On Oct 12 the fact-checking organization PolitiFact rated the claim “Pants on Fire,” its lowest rating, reporting that the hospital said he had never received treatment there, that he had appeared publicly in Austin on Oct 9 and in Dallas on Oct 10, and quoting his response: “I’ve never even been to Ohio.” Two smaller posts (13,708 and 13,348) relayed a claim attributed to a Republican official that he had undergone “a sex change,” one of them skeptically; the claim is unverified and is recorded here only as material that circulated. A campaign facing an unexplained absence should be prepared for gender-coded rumor to fill it within days.
Michigan carried 1.73M, its second-largest week in this series, and its largest item came from neither campaign. On Oct 6 a clip of a focus group on MS NOW, the cable network formerly called MSNBC, with Oakland County Jewish Democrats, in which a voter says “I have a transgender daughter … and I’m Jewish … a vote for Mike Rogers is a vote for my kid being oppressed,” carried 843,433 on a political clip account that posted the exchange without comment, plus 70,123 and 21,690 on two relays that mocked the speakers. Transgender issues were not a reported topic of the Oct 8 Senate debate in Grand Rapids between Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, and former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee. Arizona rose from 6K to 215K on a guilty plea and a federal appeals-court ruling; Georgia fell 90%, Kansas 91%, Iowa 91% and Pennsylvania 99% as the previous week’s largest items stopped circulating.
Two of the week’s largest state items recirculated events that are months or years old. Minnesota’s largest item (120,434) reads “Softball player lost Minnesota state championship to a biological man” — the post’s words for a transgender high-school pitcher — and carries no date; the championship it refers to was won in June 2025, and the two lawsuits over the state’s eligibility policy were argued on Sept 28, 2026 with no decision yet. Maine’s largest item (26,510) presents a federal Title IX investigation of the state as a new development; the Education Department’s finding and the Justice Department’s suit against Maine both date from 2025. Campaigns should date every item before repeating or rebutting it, because an undated item reads as current.
Reach by priority state, Oct 5 – 11, with the prior week marked. Texas, Michigan, Arizona, Minnesota and North Carolina rose; the other eight states fell, Iowa and Nevada to their lowest figures in this series.
Texas and Michigan together are 95% of the week’s priority-state reach, against 80% for the same two states the week before, and seven of the thirteen states cleared 30K against eleven last week. The map measures attention; it does not rank the severity of attacks. Pennsylvania and Nevada are the quietest columns.
Narratives by Race
Every watched race appears every week; ad figures are the libraries’ lifetime ranges per creative, and neither library covers television. Rows covering a statewide race or measure in a priority state, and Ohio’s, show the state total; district-only rows and the other out-of-map rows (Mississippi, Florida and Nebraska) count posts naming the candidates.
RACE | STATUS | THE STORY THIS WEEK | REACH | WHERE IT’S RUNNING |
Texas Senate + Governor | ■ PAID | Two committees carried a hearing clip of the Democratic Senate nominee on who determines a child’s gender identity to 7.09M between them; a false claim that he had been in a psychiatric hospital reached 421K and was rated false; posts naming the governor’s-race candidates carried 59K | 11.09M | America PAC’s largest Texas card, a multi-version advertisement that an exact search for “six genders” returns, ran to Oct 5 and closed at $400K–$450K and more than a million impressions over sixteen days, about $27,000 a day; its smaller cards carrying the line in their written copy closed at up to $25K–$30K. Nothing from either Senate campaign replaced it on Meta; two news-styled “Longhorn Ledger” cards from Oct 5 are under $100 each and are not counted as paid. NEW in the governor’s race: Texans for Greg Abbott, from Oct 8, $5K–$6K and 400K–450K impressions in four days, against Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee — “Gina supports tax-payer funded sex changes for kids, prosecuting parents for misgendering their children, and boys in girls’ sports.” Statewide, the Republican Attorneys General Association ran a card for the Republican attorney-general nominee from Oct 6 ($30K–$35K), which does not change this row |
Georgia Senate + statewide | ■ ORGANIC | A transgender senior barred from a homecoming-queen ballot in Clayton County spoke publicly and her petition had drawn nearly 1,900 signatures by Oct 5; the largest post naming her repeatedly misgenders her (47K, 73% of the state) | 65K | No trans copy on Meta for Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent, or his opponent, a sixth week. A conservative parents’ group opened a Georgia card on Oct 8 ($700–$799) that a keyword search matched on words spoken in its video; it is a state-level issue card naming no candidate or race in this row, so the row stays Organic |
Ohio Senate · 9th District | ■ PAID | The Senate Leadership Fund kept its detransition testimonial running with new creative on Oct 6 and Oct 8; on Oct 8 CNN’s fact-check set out why the advertisement’s central claim is misleading (105K) | 481K | Senate Leadership Fund, three cards from Oct 8, the largest at $15K–$20K and more than a million impressions in four days. Its news-styled “Ohio Pulse” page, whose disclaimer reads “Paid for by SLF PAC,” opened three more cards Oct 8, two at $10K–$15K and one at $2.5K–$3K; the Oct 1 lead card closed Oct 8 at $60K–$70K. In the 9th: the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican leadership’s super PAC, on “men play girls’ sports,” $7K–$8K since Sept 29 |
Michigan Senate | ■ PAID | A cable-news focus group of Oakland County Jewish Democrats, in which a voter says a vote for the Republican nominee is “a vote for my kid being oppressed,” carried 843K on a political clip account — the state’s largest item, from neither campaign | 1.73M | America PAC’s two sports-framed ballot-return cards, Sept 29 – Oct 12, closed at $4K–$4.5K and $3K–$3.5K. No trans copy from either campaign |
Kansas Senate + Governor | ■ PAID | A political ad-tracking firm logged four Senate Leadership Fund television spots naming the transgender issue in one two-hour window on a Wichita station — 24K, 95% of the state’s column | 26K | NEW on Meta, Oct 9: nine Senate Leadership Fund cards carrying the transgender line, the largest at $8K–$9K; five of them read “Hamilton even supports biological men in girls’ sports,” against Adam Hamilton, the Democratic Senate nominee. Sen. Roger Marshall’s own page ran a 2021 podcast clip of the Democratic nominee on gender from Oct 9 ($3.5K–$4K). Punchbowl News reported Oct 5 that the Fund is moving $14M into the state |
Maine (statewide) | ■ PAID | A group opposing the housing of transgender women in the state women’s prison protested outside it in Windham on Oct 7 (47K across three uploads); the state’s largest single post presents a federal Title IX investigation from 2025 as new | 77K | Lead Maine Committee, a super PAC, against Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate nominee, all six cards from Oct 2 still active, lead card $1K–$1.5K: “Allowing MEN in Girls’ Sports And Jackson even voted to allow minors to receive transgender hormones WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT!” |
Minnesota (statewide) | ■ PAID | An undated post about a state softball championship won in June 2025 carried 120K, 65% of the state; a legal commentator’s post on press coverage of a WNBA dispute over transgender athletes, which names the Minnesota Lynx head coach, carried 50K | 186K | The Republican Senate nominee Michele Tafoya’s two Sept 17 videos are still active, now $1.5K–$2K each, raising women’s and girls’ sports in the video rather than in the written copy, as read in the previous edition. None in the governor’s race |
Iowa Senate + Governor | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative from any statewide candidate; the state’s lowest figure in this series | 7.6K | NEW: a Senate Leadership Fund–paid page against Josh Turek, the Democratic Senate nominee, “The Truth About Josh Turek,” from Oct 8 ($1K–$1.5K), labeled by Meta as digitally created, with no written copy — its transgender content is in the video only. America PAC’s Iowa card closed Oct 5 at $20K–$25K |
Iowa 2nd and 3rd Districts | ■ PAID | The 3rd District incumbent added two new cards attacking Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democratic nominee, on her legislative votes; in the 2nd, the only transgender-issue creative is a Democratic-side counter-frame | 62K | NEW from Rep. Zach Nunn’s campaign against Sarah Trone Garriott, the 3rd District’s Democratic nominee, Oct 9 (under $100) and Oct 10 ($100–$199), the second reading “She voted to let men play girls’ sports… She voted to allow sex changes for children.” His war-room page’s two cards are now $1.5K–$2K each. In the 2nd, only the Democratic-side Common Ground Coalition PAC’s counter-frame ($300–$399) |
Pennsylvania 7th and 8th Districts | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative from any of the four candidates, a fifth week; the state’s 1,009 engagements are its second-lowest in this series | 202 | In the 8th only: Common Ground Coalition PAC’s counter-frame, with new cards Oct 7; its top card, running since Sept 30, is at $300–$399 and 80K–90K impressions. Nothing in the 7th. Statewide, America First Works, a conservative advocacy group, ran “The future of girls’ sports is being decided RIGHT NOW” from Oct 6 ($400–$499), naming no candidate |
Wisconsin Governor + 3rd District | ■ PAID | Two national posts from a conservative parents’ group are 89% of the state’s column: one about three families suing a North Carolina high school that names two Wisconsin schools, and one pairing a Massachusetts father with a Wisconsin student | 18K | Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative women’s advocacy group, since Oct 1 ($4.5K–$5K, 300K–350K), against David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor: “Why did David Crowley sponsor a bill to put tampons in men’s restrooms? Why won’t he pledge to sign Wisconsin’s bill to protect women’s sports?” Moms for Liberty Wisconsin since Sept 29 ($4.5K–$5K). The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin’s card ended Oct 7 |
New Hampshire (statewide) | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative from either Senate candidate; the state’s 2,849 engagements are 99% one multi-state post about three nominees | 2.8K | NEW: America PAC against Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic Senate nominee, Oct 6–12, $600–$699: “They don’t want you to return your ballot. Why? Because you know boys don’t belong in girls’ sports. Chris Pappas doesn’t.” The previous edition recorded this race as Organic |
North Carolina 1st District | ■ PAID | The Congressional Leadership Fund built a second creative out of the Democratic incumbent’s own advertisement on the issue | 29K | NEW: Congressional Leadership Fund from Oct 8, $3K–$3.5K and 125K–150K impressions in four days, quoting him before answering: “Don Davis said: ‘States should decide what’s right for protecting women and girls.’ Upon further review, Don Davis is lying…” The Republican nominee’s new Oct 7 card ($1.5K–$2K) uses a drag-performance line rather than sports |
North Carolina Senate | ■ ORGANIC | A thirteen-point attack list against the Democratic nominee that includes his vetoes of the 2023 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act and of a transgender-youth package (47K) and a conservative parents’ group’s post on a lawsuit against a Cabarrus County high school (44K) are 79% of the state | 116K | No trans copy for either candidate on Meta. Press reported Oct 5 that the Senate Leadership Fund is moving money out of this race and into Kansas. Google: $1.88M added in-state across all advertisers, subject not shown |
Arizona 1st District + ballot | ■ PAID | A guilty plea in a 2023 Phoenix murder case drew 165K across three hostile posts; the Ninth Circuit ruled against two legislative leaders on transgender birth certificates (7K across ten posts); a news report on Proposition 318 carried 21K. Posts naming the 1st District candidates drew 248 | 215K | On Google, the joint committee of Jay Feely, the Republican nominee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee ran three creatives to Oct 11 ($48K–$59K in all), content not reviewed this week; the previous edition read two of them as naming Amish Shah, the Democratic nominee, over “sex changes for children” on screen. Common Ground Coalition PAC opened a counter-frame card against the Republican nominee Oct 9. Prop 318: the opposing committee Will of the People opened new “vote no” cards Oct 10, under $800 each; no card from a committee supporting the measure appears on Meta |
Arizona 6th District | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative circulated; posts naming either candidate drew 6 engagements | 6 | NEW: Congressional Leadership Fund from Oct 8, $2K–$2.5K and 80K–90K impressions: “she runs a consulting firm focused on trans women, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people… Higher taxes for you to pay for transgender surgeries for they/them.” America PAC’s “Men in girls’ sports” card ran Oct 9–11 ($100–$199). The Democratic-side Common Ground Coalition PAC’s counter-frame continues, with new Oct 7 cards. No ad text references the Democratic nominee’s family |
Michigan 7th and 10th Districts | ■ QUIET | No transgender-issue narrative from any of the four candidates, a fourth week | 0 | No trans creative in either race this week. The Democratic-side counter-frame that ran in the 10th in the previous edition is no longer running there |
Mississippi Senate | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative circulated; posts naming either candidate drew none | 0 | The Republican incumbent’s “Transgender Defenders” card ended Oct 4, before this window. Her Oct 9 card ($1K–$1.5K) was returned by a “transgender” search and an exact search for “transgender defender” on words spoken in its video; its written copy carries no transgender line. A site imitating the Democratic nominee’s campaign page is still up |
New Mexico 2nd District | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative circulated in feeds, but the paid attack opened in the public libraries for the first time | 0 | NEW: Congressional Leadership Fund against Rep. Gabe Vasquez, Oct 7–10 ($300–$399) and from Oct 10 ($200–$299): “Are you a biological male wanting to join the girls’ sports team? Better call Gabe Vasquez!” The previous edition recorded this race as Quiet. Common Ground Coalition PAC opened a counter-frame card against the Republican nominee Oct 9 |
Missouri 2nd District | ■ QUIET | No transgender-issue narrative from either candidate | 0 | The Republican incumbent’s transgender creative ended Oct 1 and nothing replaced it in this window. Statewide, both sides of Amendment 3 — which would bar gender-transition procedures for minors alongside its abortion provisions — are advertising, which does not change this district’s row |
Florida Governor | ■ ORGANIC | Posts naming either nominee carried 131K across 57 posts, led by posts contrasting the two, including one tying the Democratic nominee to the Texas Senate nominee | 131K | No trans copy for either candidate on Meta. Google: the Republican nominee ran twelve or more creatives from Oct 6, one of them above ten million impressions at $400K–$450K in Google’s bundle (the advertiser page, read on the morning of Oct 12, showed $450K–$500K), content not reviewed |
Nebraska Senate | ■ PAID | A post reporting that Sen. Pete Ricketts, the Republican incumbent, got an Oct 5 Trump rally crowd to boo the mention of “transgender rights” carried 20K; Dan Osborn, the independent challenger, was attacked as a Democrat | 65K | NEW: a page titled “Democrat Dan Osborn,” paid for by Cornhusker Majority, a super PAC backing the Republican incumbent, from Oct 6, $20K–$25K and more than a million impressions, with a card headed “Men in Women’s Bathrooms.” Axios reported a $1.4M opening buy on Sept 15. The previous edition recorded this race as Unconfirmed |
New York 17th District | ■ QUIET | No transgender-issue narrative from either candidate; posts naming them drew 584 engagements | 584 | No trans creative in the district on Meta for either candidate |
Nevada (statewide) | ■ PAID | No transgender-issue narrative circulated; the state’s 8 engagements are its lowest in this series | 8 | In the 2nd District, open this year: House Freedom Action, a Freedom Caucus–aligned super PAC, through its Freedom Caucus Fund page, both cards still active since Sept 30, against Teresa Benitez-Thompson, the Democratic nominee — “Teresa Benitez-Thompson is a Socialist Democrat who supports men in women’s sports” ($1K–$1.5K) and “Republicans ended DEI, WOKENESS, and the RADICAL TRANS AGENDA” ($600–$699). No trans copy in the governor’s race |
Status. Paid: transgender-issue advertising found in the Meta or Google library this week. TV only: a transgender-issue television spot confirmed by press reports or AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm, but not in the online libraries. Unconfirmed: paid activity reported but not verified in the libraries. Organic: the narrative circulated with no paid transgender-issue creative found. Quiet: no transgender-issue narrative in the race this week. A creative found by a keyword match on words spoken in its video counts as found. News-styled explainers are not counted as paid.
Eighteen rows read “Paid,” one more than last week, and the composition changed more than the count. Three races moved into the paid column — New Mexico’s Second District and the New Hampshire and Nebraska Senate races — while Michigan’s Seventh and Tenth and Missouri’s Second moved out as the creative that had put them there stopped running. Across the House races in the table, Republican-side paid transgender-issue creative ran in seven (Arizona’s First and Sixth, Iowa’s Third, New Mexico’s Second, North Carolina’s First, Ohio’s Ninth and Nevada’s Second, the last inside the Nevada row; Arizona’s First on Google creatives read in the previous edition) and the Democratic-side counter-frame in five (Arizona’s First and Sixth, Iowa’s Second, New Mexico’s Second and Pennsylvania’s Eighth).
Key Findings
Republican-side transgender advertising opened in the public libraries in five races, and every one of those buys started inside this window. New Mexico’s Second District (where a television spot was recorded earlier in the cycle), Arizona’s Sixth, the New Hampshire and Nebraska Senate races and the Texas governor’s race, which enters this table this week, all opened on creative that began Oct 6 or later, so no earlier edition’s reading was wrong when it was made.
One House super PAC opened the same attack in three districts in four days. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican leadership’s super PAC, opened transgender creative in New Mexico’s Second, Arizona’s Sixth and North Carolina’s First between Oct 7 and Oct 10, and its national Google spending rose from $1.74M to $2.04M week over week.
The Senate Leadership Fund is moving money between states, and the transgender line is moving with it. Punchbowl News reported on Oct 5 that the committee is putting $14 million into Kansas while pulling back in North Carolina; four days later its Kansas attack line reached Meta, and North Carolina’s Senate race shows no paid transgender creative on Meta.
Nebraska’s Senate race received its first paid transgender-issue card in the public libraries, from a committee formed in September. A page titled “Democrat Dan Osborn,” paid for by Cornhusker Majority, a super PAC backing the Republican incumbent, opened Oct 6 at $20,000–$25,000 and more than a million impressions with a card headed “Men in Women’s Bathrooms”; the challenger it names is an independent, not a Democrat.
A sitting president used an anti-transgender slur against a Senate nominee who is not transgender, and she answered with an advertisement. On Oct 5 President Trump applied the slur three times to Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee in South Carolina, and on Oct 8 she released a spot saying she does not support “biological men playing in women’s sports”; posts naming her carried 1.89M, more than every priority state except Texas.
Transgender attacks on four Democratic Senate nominees were fact-checked in one article. On Oct 8 CNN set out why advertisements against the Ohio, Texas, Iowa and South Carolina Senate nominees mislead about their positions on surgery for minors, and reported that the South Carolina advertisement displays a fabricated newspaper headline with gibberish text.
A company’s logo appeared on anti-transgender campaign signs because of a political contribution, and the company disavowed them. Signs attacking an Arizona legislative candidate over girls’ sports carried Airbnb’s logo because the company had given $90,000 to the committee that paid for them, and a company spokesperson said the message “doesn’t represent the views of Airbnb” — which makes contribution disclosure a route by which a corporate brand reaches this material.
A federal appeals court ruled against two Arizona legislative leaders on transgender birth certificates. On Oct 6 the Ninth Circuit held that transgender Arizonans may obtain an amended birth certificate by court order without surgery, rejecting the argument of Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro, four weeks before the state votes on a sports-and-facilities measure.
The Battleground at a Glance
A post counts toward a state when the dashboard’s geographic tagging links it to that state, by place or by the state’s races. Many posts that name a state’s candidates, and many from accounts based in a state, carry no state tag, so these figures are floors and measure attention on a state.
STATE | PRIMARY | POSTS | REACH | VS LAST | ANTI / PRO | TOP MESSENGER |
Texas | 3/3/26 | 269 | 11.1M | ▲ 89% | 10.6M / 39K | America PAC |
Michigan | 8/4/26 | 25 | 1.7M | ▲ 431% | 1.5M / 78K | Clipping Wings |
Arizona | 7/21/26 | 24 | 215K | ▲ 34x | 175K / 6K | Daily Wire |
Minnesota | 8/11/26 | 21 | 186K | ▲ 124% | 172K / 15K | Daily Loud |
North Carolina | 3/3/26 | 9 | 116K | ▲ 148% | 116K / 12 | Moms for Liberty |
Maine | 6/9/26 | 8 | 77K | ▼ 61% | 76K / 280 | The Maine Wire |
Georgia | 5/19/26 | 23 | 65K | ▼ 90% | 50K / 3K | Wall Street Apes |
Kansas | 8/4/26 | 11 | 26K | ▼ 91% | 681 / 171 | Medium Buying |
Wisconsin | 8/11/26 | 12 | 18K | ▼ 69% | 17K / 791 | Moms for Liberty |
Iowa | 6/2/26 | 14 | 8K | ▼ 91% | 3K / 2K | an individual account |
N. Hampshire | 9/8/26 | 3 | 3K | ▼ 95% | 3K / 28 | an individual account |
Pennsylvania | 5/19/26 | 4 | 1K | ▼ 99% | 717 / 0 | an individual account |
Nevada | 6/9/26 | 1 | 8 | ▼ 96% | 0 / 8 | Culinary Union |
“vs last” compares reach with the previous weekly edition (≈ means within ±10%). Both weeks were collected and filtered the same way, so the thirteen comparisons are direct.
Top messengers: America PAC, the super PAC funded by Elon Musk; Clipping Wings, an account that posts political video clips; Daily Wire, a conservative outlet; Daily Loud, a news aggregator; Moms for Liberty, a conservative parents’ group; The Maine Wire, a conservative Maine outlet; Wall Street Apes, an anti-establishment account; Medium Buying, a firm that tracks television advertising; Culinary Union, a Nevada labor union; and, where the largest messenger is a private account rather than an organization, “an individual account.”
One judgment shapes three of these thirteen figures. Larger posts that name a state’s candidates, officials or institutions but never name the state or its residents in words are counted toward it, on the same rule applied in every edition since Aug 24. This week those posts supply 3.97M of Texas’s 11.09M, 1.02M of Michigan’s 1.73M and 10K of Georgia’s 65K, and nothing in the other ten states.
Counted the strictest way — only posts that name the state or its residents in words — Texas reads 7.12M, Michigan 703K and Georgia 54K, and every other figure here is unchanged. Texas ranks first and Michigan second on either count. The larger figure counts attention on a race; the smaller counts attention that named the place.
Texas and Michigan together are 95% of the map, the highest concentration this series has recorded. Five states carry a concentration caveat. Kansas’s 26K is 95% one post from a television-advertising tracking firm, New Hampshire’s 2,849 is 99% a single multi-state post naming three nominees, Georgia’s 65K is 73% one post, Minnesota’s 186K is 65% one undated post about a 2025 championship, and Wisconsin’s 18K is 89% two national posts from one parents’ group, only one of which names a Wisconsin student. At that concentration a state figure describes one story rather than a state. Nevada’s 8 engagements are the lowest figure this series has recorded for Nevada, and Pennsylvania’s 1,009 its second-lowest for Pennsylvania.
Tone is an automated, directional reading; “neutral” absorbs a large share of hostile-leaning coverage, so the anti-trans shares shown are conservative. Eight states need context this week. Texas, North Carolina, Maine and New Hampshire all read above 95% hostile, which is accurate for what was posted and says nothing about opinion in those states. Kansas reads almost entirely neutral because 95% of its column is one firm’s factual log of which advertisements aired on a Wichita station — a record of hostile advertising, read as neutral because the post itself takes no side. Michigan’s supportive share is almost entirely one commentary post (75K) about the Democratic Senate nominee’s appeal to Trump voters. Pennsylvania and Nevada are below 1,100 engagements and their percentages describe four posts and one post respectively.
How the Attacks Travel — Originators vs. Amplifiers
Reach on this subject is produced by two kinds of accounts: a small set originate stories, and a larger set amplify stories others started. This week’s two largest items of campaign material traveled in opposite ways, and both chains can be traced post by post.
The Texas hearing clip did not build. The quotation, from a 2019 hearing, appeared this week on Oct 6 on a commentator’s account at 6,887 engagements and twice more on Oct 10 at 2,002 and 1,238. Nothing carried it past a few thousand engagements for five days. Then on Oct 11, within 53 minutes, two committee accounts posted it and reached 2,975,633 and 4,114,844; six further accounts carried it later the same day, the largest of them at 41,171 and the rest under 7,000. Eleven posts, 7.15M in total, 99% of it on two posts. The attack’s reach came from two accounts choosing the same item on the same morning, not from a chain of relays.
The rally line traveled the opposite way. The President’s Oct 7 San Antonio sentence ran on 79 accounts for 1.34M, with the largest at 580,171 and more than sixty of them under 10,000, nearly all within ninety minutes of the speech. An originator can be pre-empted; a chain of this width cannot, which leaves rapid response as the available option once it starts.
Case Studies
Case Study 1: Texas — A Hearing Clip, a Health Rumor, and a Published Correction
What happened. State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Texas’s open U.S. Senate seat, was absent from the campaign trail for nine days; his campaign said he was recovering from influenza. During the absence, attacks moved to two subjects at once. On Oct 11 a clip from a 2019 hearing in which he says “There’s only one person who can determine a child’s gender identity and that’s the child” was posted by Lone Star Liberty PAC, a committee supporting Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, and 53 minutes later by the X account of America PAC, the super PAC funded by Elon Musk. The two posts carried 2,975,633 and 4,114,844; Musk himself posted the clip with the comment “Madness.” The same day, two conservative accounts said an audio recording showed the nominee had been discharged from a named psychiatric hospital in Ohio, and a relay of that claim carried 421,361.
On Oct 12 the fact-checking organization PolitiFact rated the hospital claim “Pants on Fire.” It reported that the hospital said the nominee had never received treatment there, that he had appeared publicly in Austin on Oct 9 and in Dallas on Oct 10, and that the recording had been obtained by deception; it quoted his response, “I’ve never even been to Ohio,” and his campaign’s description of the claim as “a lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory.” Four days earlier, on Oct 8, CNN had separately set out why advertising claiming the nominee voted “for taxpayer-funded sex changes on kids” misleads: he voted against a 2023 bill that covered hormone therapy and puberty blockers as well as surgery, and supported amendments narrowing it to surgery.
Why it matters. The record supports three statements. The clip, from a 2019 hearing, had circulated for five days and reached 10,127 engagements across three posts, none above 6,887, before two committees, posting 53 minutes apart, carried it to 7.09M, so the size of the item was a function of who posted it rather than what it said. The health rumor reached 421,361 before it was checked, and the correction came a day after the window closed, which is the ordinary sequence rather than a failure of fact-checking. And the policy attack and the personal rumor arrived on the same day against the same absence. Whether the two were coordinated is not established by the record; what would show it is the sourcing of the recording and the timing of the buys behind the clip, neither of which is public.
Takeaway. A campaign should hold a dated, sourced account of any candidate absence ready before it is needed, because the correction that eventually lands will be measured against the first explanation given. A campaign should also assume that legislative hearing video from any past session is available to committees at no cost, and decide in advance which recorded statements it will stand behind.
Case Study 2: One House Super PAC Opens the Same Attack in Three Districts in Four Days
What happened. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican leadership’s super PAC, opened transgender-issue creative in three districts between Oct 7 and Oct 10. In New Mexico’s Second District it ran two cards against Rep. Gabe Vasquez — “Are you a biological male wanting to join the girls’ sports team? Better call Gabe Vasquez!” (Oct 7–10, $300–$399) and a second version from Oct 10 ($200–$299). In Arizona’s Sixth it opened a card from Oct 8 ($2,000–$2,500, 80,000–90,000 impressions) against JoAnna Mendoza, the Democratic nominee: “she runs a consulting firm focused on trans women, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people… Higher taxes for you to pay for transgender surgeries for they/them.” In North Carolina’s First it opened a second creative against Rep. Don Davis from Oct 8 ($3,000–$3,500, 125,000–150,000 impressions), built from his own words: “Don Davis said: ‘States should decide what’s right for protecting women and girls.’ Upon further review, Don Davis is lying…” The committee’s national Google spending rose from $1,741,600 to $2,041,500 week over week.
Two of the three districts had been recorded differently a week earlier: New Mexico’s Second was Quiet and Arizona’s Sixth carried only a Democratic-side counter-frame. Every one of the new cards began on Oct 7 or later, inside this window, so neither earlier reading was wrong when it was made. Measured by daily pace rather than lifetime total, the North Carolina card is the largest of the three at roughly $800 a day over four days, against about $560 a day for the Arizona card over four days and about $120 a day for each New Mexico card.
Why it matters. The observation is that one committee opened the same line of attack in three districts within four days, at spend levels between $200 and $3,500 per card. Two readings fit the record and it does not choose between them: a committee testing the message in districts it had not used it in, or the opening of a planned closing sequence. What would distinguish them is visible in the October libraries — whether these cards scale past a few thousand dollars and whether the committee adds further districts. The spend is small enough that a district campaign watching only television would not see it.
Takeaway. A House campaign should run a weekly library search on its own candidate’s name and its opponent’s, filtered to all statuses rather than active advertisements, because a card that ran for three days and stopped is still the message voters saw. The North Carolina creative also shows that a candidate’s own statement on this subject becomes the raw material of the next attack, so a statement should be written on the assumption that an opponent will quote it before answering it.
Case Study 3: Two State Columns Built on Events That Are Months or Years Old
What happened. Minnesota’s largest item, at 120,434 engagements, reads “Softball player lost Minnesota state championship to a biological man.” It carries no date. The championship it describes was won in June 2025 by a high-school team whose pitcher is transgender and whom the post misgenders; the two lawsuits over the state’s eligibility policy — one brought by three softball players and a women’s-sports advocacy group, one by the federal government — were argued in federal court in St. Paul on Sept 28, 2026, and no decision has been issued. The post was 65% of Minnesota’s column and the state rose 124% on it. Maine’s largest item, at 26,510, presents a federal Title IX investigation of the state and a warning to Gov. Janet Mills as a new development; the Education Department’s finding against the Maine Department of Education (March 2025) and the Justice Department’s subsequent suit (April 2025) both date from 2025. The in-window Maine event was something else: on Oct 7 New England Women’s Solidarity, a group that opposes housing transgender women in women’s prisons, protested outside the state women’s prison in Windham, and three uploads of that protest carried 47,138 between them.
A third item followed the same pattern. A Westchester County jury returned a $2 million detransition malpractice verdict on Jan 30, 2026; the item recirculated again this week without a date, opening “A New York jury just awarded $2 MILLION…” and carrying 195,607 on its largest upload and 273,716 across twenty-six posts. The previous edition recorded the same verdict recirculating in the same format.
Why it matters. Two statements are supported. First, an undated item reads as current, and in two of the thirteen states this week the largest single item was undated and not current. Second, this is measurable: a state’s figure can rise substantially on an event that no campaign in that state can respond to, because there is nothing new to respond to. Whether recirculation is deliberate timing or ordinary platform behavior is not established here; what would show deliberate timing is a pattern of the same old items returning in the final weeks, which the October and November editions will be able to test against this record.
Takeaway. A campaign should date every item before it responds, and should check whether an item that appears to be news is a recirculation, because a response that treats an old event as new supplies the attack with a fresh news cycle. Where the underlying event is real but old, the dated record is the shortest available answer.
Attack Formats to Watch
The committee account as the largest item. The largest and third-largest transgender posts of the week were committee X accounts, not advertisements: 4,114,844 and 2,975,633 on the same hearing clip, carried 53 minutes apart on Oct 11 (the second-largest was a non-political viral video). Neither appears in any ad library, because an organic post from a committee page is not paid media. A campaign tracking only the libraries will miss the largest items in the race.
The legislative hearing clip. The clip at the center of the Texas week comes from a state House committee hearing. Committee video is archived, free and searchable, and the format requires no new statement from the candidate. Campaigns should know which of their candidate’s recorded hearing remarks on this subject exist before an opponent finds them.
The health or absence rumor with a gender frame. A claim that the Texas nominee had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital reached 421,361 before being rated false, and separate posts attached a surgery claim to the same absence. The format attaches a gender-coded rumor to an ordinary gap in a schedule, which is why a dated, sourced account of any absence is worth preparing in advance.
The video-only transgender line. Three creatives new to this edition’s table carry no transgender language in their written copy and were found only because the library’s keyword search also matches words spoken in video: a Senate Leadership Fund–paid page against the Iowa Senate nominee from Oct 8, a conservative parents’ group’s Georgia card from Oct 8, and the Mississippi incumbent’s card from Oct 9. The Minnesota Senate nominee’s two Sept 17 videos, carried over from the previous edition, were found the same way on a sports search; a Democratic response advertisement in Ohio, which is not in the table, was found the same way on a “transgender” search. Reading ad copy alone misses them, so a library check should use keyword searches rather than scanning copy.
The advertisement labeled as digitally created. The Senate Leadership Fund–paid page against the Iowa Senate nominee carries Meta’s own “digitally created” label and has no written copy at all. The label appears because Meta requires political advertisers to disclose digitally created or altered content and adds the disclosure to the library entry — the committee’s own admission, published by the platform, which makes it a checkable fact a campaign can cite rather than an allegation it has to prove.
The look-alike news page. Three pages styled as local news outlets ran transgender creative this week: “Ohio Pulse,” paid for by the Senate Leadership Fund’s PAC, against the Ohio Senate nominee (three new cards on Oct 8, two of them $10,000–$15,000 each and above a million impressions), “Longhorn Ledger” in Texas (two cards from Oct 5, under $100 each) and the “Grand Canyon Gazette” explainer on Arizona’s ballot measure, which gave only the supporters’ argument when it was read in a previous edition. A fourth advertiser with a news-styled name, “The Maine Standard,” is new to Google in Maine at $23,200; what its creatives say was not reviewed. A campaign should check the page behind any local-sounding headline against the disclaimer the library publishes.
The candidate’s own advertisement as the next attack. In North Carolina’s First District the Congressional Leadership Fund’s Oct 8 creative quotes the Democratic incumbent’s own advertisement before answering it. A statement on this issue should be written on the assumption that it will be quoted in an opponent’s advertisement, in the opponent’s framing.
The corporate logo arriving through a contribution. Signs attacking an Arizona legislative candidate on girls’ sports carried Airbnb’s logo because the company had given $90,000 to the committee that paid for them; Airbnb said the message does not represent its views. Where a state requires donor disclosure on campaign material, a company’s brand can appear on this content without its knowledge, and the resulting disavowal is itself a story.
Looking Ahead — The Calendar
October 14: early voting opens in Iowa. Iowa’s Third District is the one House race in this map where the Republican incumbent’s own campaign is advertising on the subject, and it added two cards on Oct 9 and Oct 10. Iowa’s statewide figure, meanwhile, is the lowest this series has recorded for the state, so the paid attack and the organic conversation are running in opposite directions there.
Mid-October: the Senate Leadership Fund’s Kansas money arrives. Punchbowl News reported on Oct 5 that the committee is putting $14 million into Kansas while scaling back in North Carolina, and its Kansas transgender line reached Meta on Oct 9 in nine cards. A Kansas campaign should expect the television weight to follow within days rather than weeks.
Pending, with no date: the Minnesota and Kansas rulings. A federal judge in St. Paul heard argument on Sept 28 in two suits against Minnesota’s eligibility policy and has not ruled; in Kansas a Douglas County judge took four days of testimony Sept 29 – Oct 2 and heard closing arguments on Oct 7 in a challenge to the state’s driver’s-license and restroom law. Either decision would travel beyond its state, and in Minnesota it would attach a current event to an item that has been circulating undated since 2025.
End of October: the Texas detransition clinic is due to open. Under the settlement the state attorney general secured in May, Texas Children’s Hospital must open what the attorney general called the country’s first “detransition clinic” by the end of October and pay $10 million, $8.6 million of it to the state. An opening in the final days before the election would fall in the state that produced 82% of this week’s map.
The last week of October: the stated target. President Trump said on Sept 9 that he likes to wait until “about a week before the election” to attack Democrats over transgender athletes, and called the issue “one of our great sound bites of all time.” He used the subject at an Oct 7 rally in San Antonio and in an Oct 5 post attacking the South Carolina Senate nominee, both ahead of that target. Campaigns should plan for principal-level attacks in the final ten days and should not treat the current pace of paid advertising as the ceiling.
November 3: four states vote on sports eligibility directly. Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington will decide whether eligibility must follow sex at birth — for school sports in all four, and for college sports in Arizona, Nebraska and Colorado. Arizona’s Proposition 318 would also require schools and athletic associations to designate teams by the sex recorded at birth, extend the rule to private-sector schools and athletic associations, including college and adult sports organizations, restrict use of bathrooms and locker rooms, and allow suits against athletic associations as well as schools; it would take effect Jan 1, 2027. Colorado also votes on Proposition 135, barring gender-transition surgery for minors, and Missouri’s Amendment 3 would prohibit gender-transition procedures for minors alongside its abortion provisions. On Meta, the only committee advertising on Arizona’s measure is the one opposing it, which opened new cards on Oct 10.
Undated, and in the House: the college-sports bill. The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77 to 22 on Sept 28. The bill sets national rules on athlete compensation and eligibility and now goes to the House, which is not scheduled to return until Nov 9, after the election, so any floor vote would come in the lame-duck session.
The Bottom LineThe largest transgender item of the week in any category was a campaign post: a committee account carried a hearing clip of the Texas Senate nominee to 4.11 million engagements, and a second committee carried the same clip to 2.98 million 53 minutes earlier. Texas took 82% of the thirteen-state map at 11.09M and Michigan 1.73M, together 95% of the week — the highest concentration this series has recorded. A false claim about the Texas nominee’s health reached 421,361 before a national fact-checker rated it false. In the paid lane the attack reached more races at small per-card spend: the House Republican leadership’s super PAC opened transgender creative in three districts between Oct 7 and Oct 10, America PAC opened it against the New Hampshire Senate nominee on Oct 6, a new committee opened it in Nebraska on Oct 6, and the Texas governor’s campaign opened it on Oct 8 — all of it starting inside this window, and none of those cards banded above $25,000. No state reached a series high. Two things in this week’s record are worth separating from the volume. The first is that the Senate Leadership Fund is visibly moving money between states — $14 million into Kansas, less in North Carolina — and the transgender line moved with it within four days, which means a state’s quiet week is not evidence that it will stay quiet. The second is that in two of the thirteen states the largest single item was an undated recirculation of an event from 2025, which means a state figure can rise on something no campaign in that state can answer. Whether the committees’ October openings are tests or the start of a closing sequence is not established by this week’s record; the October libraries will show whether the cards scale past a few thousand dollars and whether further districts are added. Campaigns should treat the final week of October as the announced date for the heaviest wave of this attack. |
Limitations
Geography comes from the dashboard’s geographic tagging, which links roughly 10% of posts to a state by place or race. State reach therefore measures attention on a state; posts from accounts based in a state count only when the post itself is tagged, and many posts that name a state’s candidates carry no tag, so state figures are floors. Off-topic viral posts are excluded. The largest single judgment in this edition is the rule that counts larger posts naming a state’s candidates, officials or institutions toward that state even when they never name the state or its residents in words. It has been applied the same way every week since Aug 24, and this week it reaches three columns: counted the strictest way, on posts that name the state or its residents in words, Texas reads 7.12M rather than 11.09M, Michigan 703K rather than 1.73M and Georgia 54K rather than 65K, and the other ten figures are identical on either basis. Texas ranks first and Michigan second on either count.
Tone is an automatic, directional read; “neutral” absorbs much hostile-leaning news, so anti-trans shares run conservative. This covers a fixed seven-day window (Oct 5 – 11), computed on a locked copy of the data; both weeks compared here were collected and filtered the same way, so the thirteen state comparisons are direct. Paid-media figures come from two public libraries, both read Oct 12; bands on ads still running rise as they run, so a later read will show higher figures, and a higher later band is not a correction. Meta publishes spending and impression bands per creative and the advertisements’ written copy, which is what the quotations here are unless a row says the line is in the video; the library’s keyword search also matches words spoken in videos, which is how the three new creatives in this edition’s table with no transgender copy, and the two Minnesota videos carried over from the previous edition, were found. Its keyword searches return roughly the first thirty results, so the largest result sets were sampled rather than exhausted, and Meta throttled 134 of this week’s 442 searches mid-run — all 134 were re-run successfully after the throttle lifted. Google’s library publishes advertiser, state, dates and money but no ad content; no Google creative content was reviewed this week, so every Google row here reports money and timing only, except Arizona’s First, which cites the previous edition’s reading of the same three creatives.
Five state figures rest on one or two items: Kansas’s 26K is 95% one advertising-tracking post, New Hampshire’s 2,849 is 99% one multi-state post, Georgia’s 65K is 73% one post, Minnesota’s 186K is 65% one undated post about a June 2025 championship, and Wisconsin’s 18K is 89% two national posts from one parents’ group, only one of which names a Wisconsin student. One claim in this edition could not be verified: a claim attributed to a Republican official that the Democratic nominee in Texas had undergone surgery is recorded only as material that circulated. Past-edition readings: the previous edition reported no paid transgender-issue creative in New Mexico’s Second District, where a House Republican–aligned American Action Network television spot had been recorded as TV only earlier in the cycle, and treated the New Hampshire Senate race as organic; both changed on creative that began Oct 6 or later, so neither reading was wrong when it was made, and this edition records no correction to a past edition’s paid findings. This briefing contains no survey, panel or message-testing content of any kind; every recommendation derives from observed engagement data, the two public ad libraries, and the public record cited here. Engagement figures measure attention and say nothing directly about persuasion.
Methodology
Data source. Trans Rhetoric Social Media Dashboard, built for TFA on the Junkipedia social listening API — 79,000+ channels across 18 platforms, 1,000,000+ posts spanning December 2023 to present, collected on 90+ keywords. Period: October 5 – 11, 2026, the eighth weekly edition. Priority states are the thirteen states this briefing follows every week; races outside them appear when transgender-issue advertising or attacks surface there, and this week that includes Ohio, Nebraska, South Carolina, Mississippi, New Mexico’s Second District, Missouri’s Second District, Florida and New York’s Seventeenth District. Per-state signal counts trans-relevant posts by the state they are tagged to, with a manual audit of the highest-engagement posts. The audit excluded 772 posts from this window as off-topic, and the largest single exclusion was 644 posts from one account posting the same multi-topic daily list, all of them tagged to Iowa.
Named people, events and quotes were checked against primary or mainstream published sources; where a claim could not be sourced it is identified as unverified in the text or omitted. Paid media comes directly from the Meta Ad Library and from Google’s Ads Transparency Center bundle, both read Oct 12, 2026, plus television reservation figures as reported in the press; spending and impression figures are the ranges the libraries publish, not estimates. Where creatives of different ages are compared, the comparison is by daily pace with each creative’s age given, because a lifetime total rises with time on air. Committee registrations come from Federal Election Commission filings, and links between committees come from those filings or from press reports. Gender and transgender status are taken from sources other than the post describing a person; where a post misgenders its subject, that is noted rather than repeated. Private individuals who are not office-holders, candidates or public officials are not named here, even where the content attacking them does; in this edition that includes a transgender high-school senior in Georgia, a Minnesota high-school athlete, a Michigan voter and her adult daughter, the plaintiff in the New York malpractice case, the woman in the Ohio advertisement, the families in the North Carolina school lawsuit, and the student and father named in a parents’ group’s post. Minor children of candidates are never named in these briefings under any circumstances; this week’s advertising check found no ad text referencing any candidate’s child.
Diffusion: Originators vs. Amplifiers
Story groups match near-identical text and explicit repost markers; the originator is the earliest poster in this data set, and heavy paraphrase escapes the grouping.
