Disinformation Report: September 28-October 4

How Anti-Trans Attacks Are Landing Across TFA’s Priority States — and How Campaigns Should Answer

13 PRIORITY STATES

370 STATE-TAGGED POSTS

7.7M ENGAGEMENTS

America PAC, the largest transgender-issue advertiser this series has found in the Meta ad library, ended its second wave as this window closed: the four creatives re-read individually all closed Oct 4 or Oct 5. Texas PAC, a super PAC linked to the Senate Republican leadership’s Senate Leadership Fund, ended its transgender-issue Meta ads Sept 30. Meanwhile, other transgender creative was running on Meta and on television. The Senate Leadership Fund put the detransition testimonial against former Sen. Sherrod Brown that it released for Ohio television on Sept 24 onto Meta on Oct 1, and the next day Ohio reporting found that the woman in it is not from Ohio and had surgery as an adult; America PAC opened its first girls’-sports creative in Michigan; three advertisers ran transgender-sports attacks on a Democratic incumbent in eastern North Carolina; and the Senate Leadership Fund released its first Kansas television ad, whose Google version shows “men in girls’ sports” on screen. On the other side, a committee that had not appeared in these briefings began answering the attack directly in five House races. The largest political story of the week was a federal action: the Education Department formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX rule on Sept 28, and posts that named it carried 11.9 million engagements. This seventh 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 week’s largest political story was a federal rule change. On Sept 28 the Education Department formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX rule covering students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, a rule a federal court had vacated in January 2025, and restored the 2020 regulation. Posts that named the rescission carried 11.9 million engagements, and the largest single relay carried 5.01M — more than every priority state except Texas. The same day the Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77 to 22. Campaigns should be prepared for October attack material that cites the federal rescission.

The second wave from the largest transgender-issue advertiser this series has found on Meta ended as this window closed. The four America PAC creatives from Sept 20 re-read individually all closed Oct 4 or Oct 5, and none of the 203 active cards read on its page predates Sept 25. Final figures on those four: the Ohio spot “It starts with Drag Queen Story Hour. It ends with kids going under the knife.” at $90,000–$100,000 and more than a million impressions; its Ohio companion at $45,000–$50,000; the lead Texas spot at $25,000–$30,000; the lead Iowa spot at $20,000–$25,000. Texas PAC’s transgender-issue Meta ads ended Sept 30, its lead creative at $10,000–$15,000. What runs now is smaller and newer. America PAC’s current transgender copy is four cards: two girls’- sports ballot-return advertisements in Michigan from Sept 29, at $1,500–$2,000 and $500–$599, and two cards of a multi-version Ohio sports advertisement that had been live fourteen hours at the Monday read.

In Ohio the Senate Leadership Fund’s newest creative is a personal testimonial, and its central factual claim has been contradicted in public reporting. The Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republican leadership’s super PAC, released a detransition testimonial against former Sen. Sherrod Brown for Ohio television on Sept 24, and on Oct 1 put it on a Meta page (top creative $4,000–$4,500 and 600,000–700,000 impressions), alongside news-styled creative on a second page. On Oct 2 an Ohio statehouse reporter for Cleveland’s News 5 reported that the woman in the advertisement is not from Ohio and did not have surgery until she was an adult; that post carried 261K, the largest single item in Ohio’s week. A day earlier a national fact-checker had rated false the committee’s claim, in a separate Sept 16 advertisement, that Brown supports “forcing childhood sex change surgery.” Case Study 1 sets out the sequence.

Texas more than doubled to 5.87M and is 76% of the map. Posts naming State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the open Senate seat, carried 6.39M. Undercover video recorded Sept 13 at a Houston church, in which he says his position on transgender children has not changed, was released by a conservative outlet and carried 659K on its largest upload. His television response to Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee — “Ken Paxton is lying about my record, even making fake AI videos of me… No, I don’t support sex change surgeries for kids” — was relayed at 845K, the largest campaign item of the week. Georgia is second at 625K, 89% of it one post about a transgender senior barred from a homecoming-queen ballot in Clayton County. Kansas rose from 15K to 294K on a court hearing over its driver’s-license and restroom law, and Maine from 35K to 198K on photographs of one classroom. Arizona fell 98% and Wisconsin 82% as the prior week’s largest items stopped circulating.

Source: Trans Rhetoric Dashboard. Off-topic viral posts removed.

Reach by priority state, Sept 28 – Oct 4, with the prior week marked. Georgia, Kansas, Maine and Pennsylvania each rose on one story and New Hampshire went from zero to 54K; Arizona and Wisconsin fell as the prior week’s largest items stopped circulating.

Source: Trans Rhetoric Dashboard. Off-topic viral posts removed. Every priority state is labeled; other states are labeled above 100k.

The two largest states are 84% of the week’s priority-state reach, against 76% the week before, and eleven of the thirteen states cleared 30K against eight last week. The map measures attention; it does not rank the severity of attacks. Arizona 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 show the state total; district-only rows, and Mississippi’s, count posts naming the candidates.

RACE	STATUS	THE STORY THIS WEEK	REACH	WHERE IT’S RUNNING
Texas Senate	■ PAID	Undercover video recorded Sept 13 in which the Democratic nominee says his position has not changed; his TV response to Paxton, relayed at 845K, was the week’s largest campaign item	5.87M	Both trans buys ended: America PAC’s lead “six genders” spot (Sept 20–Oct 5, final $25K–$30K) and Texas PAC’s lead creative (Sept 21–30, $10K–$15K). No active paid trans copy on Meta
Georgia Senate + statewide	■ ORGANIC	A transgender senior barred from a homecoming-queen ballot in Clayton County — 555K, 89% of the state	625K	“Ossoff transgender”: no Meta ads, a fifth week. Google: One Nation (aligned with Senate Republicans) started 7 creatives ($435K–$515K)
Ohio Senate · 9th District	■ PAID	The Senate Leadership Fund’s TV testimonial reached Meta Oct 1; reporting on Oct 2 showed the woman is not from Ohio and had surgery as an adult (261K). In the 9th, the Democratic incumbent’s own sports ads drew criticism from both parties (19K)	448K	Senate Leadership Fund testimonial: top creative $4K–$4.5K, 600K–700K impressions. America PAC sports ad from Oct 4. In the 9th: the House Republican super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund, “Marcy Kaptur is lying,” from Sept 29 ($3.5K–$4K)
Michigan Senate	■ PAID	A high-school volleyball player’s account of a 2025 locker-room incident (213K); a Republican state-house candidate’s wife fundraising on his opponent’s bid to be “the first transgender elected to state office in Michigan” (95K)	325K	NEW: America PAC’s first girls’- sports creatives in the race, Sept 29: $1.5K–$2K and $500–$599
Kansas Senate + Governor	■ PAID	A court hearing on the state law tying driver’s licenses to sex at birth and restricting restroom use	294K	The Senate Leadership Fund’s first Kansas TV ad, Oct 2 ($9.8M reserved statewide, per the ad-tracking firm AdImpact); its Google version (Oct 2–4, $7K–$8K) shows “Men in girls’ sports and locker rooms” on screen
Maine (statewide)	■ PAID	Photographs of one Lewiston classroom during a Teacher of the Year visit — 184K, 93% of the state	198K	Lead Maine Committee (it also backs Sen. Susan Collins) against the Democratic Senate nominee: “Allowing MEN in Girls’ Sports,” Sept 2–30 (lead card final at $2.5K–$3K) and new versions from Oct 2, each under $500. Google: $1.69M added in-state
Minnesota (statewide)	■ PAID	A headline calling the Democratic Senate nominee a “‘trans kids’ enthusiast,” on 13 accounts (65K); a federal hearing Sept 28 on two suits against the Minnesota State High School League’s policy	83K	Republican nominee Michele Tafoya’s campaign: two video ads from Sept 17 ($1K–$1.5K each) that raise women’s and girls’ sports only in the video; one says men don’t belong in women’s sports. None in the governor’s race
Iowa Senate + Governor	■ PAID	A national reporter’s Sept 30 analysis quoting the Democratic nominee for governor calling state sports policy “settled law” — 63K, 75% of the state	84K	ENDED: America PAC’s lead Iowa creative (one of six), Sept 20–Oct 5, final $20K–$25K. Google: Lower Costs Now (affiliated with the Democratic super PAC Future Forward), 49 creatives
Iowa 2nd and 3rd Districts	■ PAID	The 3rd District incumbent attacks the Democratic nominee on “sex change surgeries for children”; the Republican state party chair made the same attack in the 2nd	5.6K	The 3rd District war-room page’s two creatives on girls’ sports and locker rooms, now $1K–$1.5K each. In the 2nd, the new Democratic-side Common Ground Coalition PAC’s counter-frame. Neither Democrat answers on Meta
Pennsylvania 7th and 8th Districts	■ PAID	No transgender-issue narrative from any candidate, a fourth week	284	NEW, Democratic side: Common Ground Coalition PAC, “[Name] is attacking trans people instead,” from Sept 30; active in the 8th, ended Oct 2 in the 7th
Wisconsin Governor + 3rd District	■ PAID	A Sept 29 report tying a Sept 17 school locker-room altercation near Madison to the governor’s race (14K); the 3rd District incumbent on his opponent (28K)	59K	From Sept 29: Moms for Liberty Wisconsin, a conservative parents’ group, “Vote to protect girls’ sports” ($2K–$2.5K); the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin on “trans kids” (under $200). Google: Restoration of America PAC, a conservative super PAC, 26 new creatives
New Hampshire (statewide)	■ ORGANIC	A suit filed Oct 1 by four families against the federal Medicaid rule on transition care for minors (11K); a national commentator’s attacks on the Democratic Senate nominee (42K)	54K	No trans creative in the Senate or governor’s race on Meta. Google (content not reviewed): new creatives from No Going Back PAC, linked to President Trump’s super PAC
North Carolina 1st District	■ PAID	The Democratic incumbent’s ad saying states should decide and “North Carolina has decided”; his Republican opponent built an ad around it	36K	Congressional Leadership Fund (Sept 29, $4K–$4.5K, “fighting for they/them, not us”); Restoration of America PAC (Sept 17); the Republican nominee (Oct 1)
North Carolina Senate	■ ORGANIC	The state Court of Appeals heard argument Sept 29 in a detransition malpractice case (14K)	47K	Not found on Meta for either candidate. Google: $2.38M added in-state
Arizona 1st District + ballot	■ PAID	The Republican nominee posted a new ad four times naming “sex changes for kids” in his opponent’s agenda (4.2K)	6.3K	Not on Meta; on Google, two of the three creatives his joint committee started this week ($16.5K–$19K in all) show “Amish Shah: sex changes for children” on screen. Prop 318: “vote no” ads from the opposing committee Will of the People since Sept 24, each under $800; none from supporters in either library
Arizona 6th District	■ PAID	The National Republican Congressional Committee listed “legalize trans prostitution” and “sex changes surgeries for kids” among the Democratic nominee’s positions (2.6K)	2.9K	Only trans creative: Common Ground Coalition PAC’s, from Sept 30. No ad text references the Democratic nominee’s family
Michigan 7th and 10th Districts	■ PAID	No transgender-issue narrative from any of the four candidates, a third week	0	In the 10th, Common Ground Coalition PAC’s counter-frame ran Sept 30–Oct 2. Nothing in the 7th
Mississippi Senate	■ PAID	The Republican incumbent called the Democratic nominee and a visiting senator “the Transgender Defenders” (3.1K)	3.3K	Her campaign ran the same line on Meta Oct 1–4 ($900–$999); the look-alike campaign site still says “transgender defender”
New Mexico 2nd District	■ QUIET	No transgender-issue attack on Rep. Gabe Vasquez circulated this week	1.2K	The House Republican–aligned American Action Network’s “Medicamentos de Castración” spot from earlier editions: no confirmed airing this week
Missouri 2nd District	■ PAID	The Republican incumbent’s transgender creatives ended Oct 1; posts naming either candidate drew 101 engagements	101	Final for the lead creative: $600–$699, 150K–175K impressions, Sept 25–Oct 1
Florida Governor	■ ORGANIC	The Republican nominee on camera: “there is no way we are gonna support anybody telling our young boys that they’re supposed to have some surgery” (90K)	126K	No trans copy in 18 active ads read. Google: the nominee added $779.4K, subject not reviewed
Nebraska (statewide) · New York 17th	■ UNCONFIRMED	Two viral posts on Nebraska’s political ads (74K), one describing a mail piece urging a Republican vote “to keep boys out of girls’ sports in high schools”	80K	Mail appears in no public library; no trans creative in the Senate race or the 17th on Meta
Nevada (statewide)	■ PAID	A state outlet resurfaced a 2015 Assembly floor speech by the Democratic candidate in the 2nd Congressional District (128)	196	House Freedom Action, a Freedom Caucus–aligned super PAC, against her since Sept 19: “supports men in women’s sports” (lead card final at $5K–$6K). Google: $1.08M added in-state

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 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. News-styled explainers are not counted as paid.

Seventeen rows read “Paid,” against five last week (ten with five of last week’s rows corrected, as noted under Limitations), and in three of the seventeen the only transgender-issue creative is a Democratic-side counter-frame. Across the House races in the table, Republican-side paid transgender-issue creative ran in six (Arizona’s First, Iowa’s Third, North Carolina’s First, Ohio’s Ninth, Missouri’s Second and Nevada’s Second) and the Democratic-side counter-frame in five (Arizona’s Sixth, Iowa’s Second, Michigan’s Tenth and Pennsylvania’s Seventh and Eighth).

Key Findings

• The week’s largest political story was a federal rule change, larger than any priority state’s total. On Sept 28 the Education Department formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX rule covering students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; posts that named the rescission carried 11.9 million engagements.

• The second wave from the largest transgender-issue advertiser this series has found on Meta ended as this window closed. The four America PAC creatives from Sept 20 re-read individually all closed Oct 4 or Oct 5, the lead Ohio spot at $90,000–$100,000; what America PAC runs now is four much smaller cards in Michigan and Ohio.

• The Senate Leadership Fund’s newest Ohio creative is a personal testimonial, and its central claim was contradicted in public reporting. Its detransition testimonial reached Meta on Oct 1. On Oct 2 an Ohio statehouse reporter found that the woman in the advertisement is not from Ohio and did not have surgery until she was an adult; that post carried 261K, the largest item in Ohio’s week.

• A Democratic-side committee began answering the attack by name in five House races. Since Sept 30, Common Ground Coalition PAC, a super PAC registered Sept 18, has run Meta creatives against five Republican House candidates on one template: “[Name] is attacking trans people instead…” In Michigan’s Tenth and Pennsylvania’s Seventh and Eighth, it is the first transgender-issue creative this briefing has recorded.

• Kansas rose nineteenfold on a court hearing, and the Senate Leadership Fund released its first television ad in the state. On Oct 2 the Fund released its first Kansas television ad against the Democratic Senate nominee, Adam Hamilton; its Google version shows on screen “ADAM HAMILTON: MEN IN GIRLS’ SPORTS AND LOCKER ROOMS.” Campaigns there should have a response ready for either ruling.

• Texas more than doubled, and the Senate race is almost the whole of the state’s column. Texas carried 5.87M, 76% of the map, its largest week since the week of Sept 7–13. Undercover video recorded Sept 13 at a Houston church carried 659K on its largest upload; relays of the nominee’s television response to Paxton reached 845K. Campaigns should assume that recordings of past remarks can surface at any point before Election Day.

• Three advertisers attacked one Democratic incumbent on sports while he advertised on it himself. Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina’s First District released an advertisement on Sept 30 saying there are “real concerns about fairness and safety” and that “North Carolina has decided.” The Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican super PAC, opened a creative on Sept 29, Restoration of America PAC has run a sports creative against him since Sept 17, and the Republican nominee, Laurie Buckhout, built an advertisement around his spot the next day, Oct 1.

• Three of the week’s largest state items were school stories, and none involved a campaign. They were a homecoming-queen ballot in Georgia (555K), one Lewiston classroom in Maine (184K) and a Michigan high-school locker-room account from 2025 (213K).

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	208	5.9M	▲ 119%	4.3M / 118K	Politics & Poll Tracker
Georgia	5/19/26	8	625K	▲ 492x	619K / 6K	Libs of TikTok
Michigan	8/4/26	15	325K	▼ 67%	313K / 12K	a high-school athlete
Kansas	8/4/26	15	294K	▲ 19x	27K / 122K	ACLU
Maine	6/9/26	17	198K	▲ 468%	196K / 130	Libs of TikTok
Iowa	6/2/26	9	84K	▼ 51%	21K / 64	David Weigel
Minnesota	8/11/26	38	83K	≈	76K / 819	Jack Posobiec
Pennsylvania	5/19/26	10	80K	▲ 100x	5K / 3K	Fascinating
Wisconsin	8/11/26	11	59K	▼ 82%	58K / 1K	Derrick Van Orden
N. Hampshire	9/8/26	13	54K	▲ new	43K / 284	Laura Loomer
North Carolina	3/3/26	13	47K	▼ 67%	13K / 5K	Andrew Solender
Arizona	7/21/26	10	6K	▼ 98%	4K / 218	Jay Feely
Nevada	6/9/26	5	196	▲ 13%	128 / 60	Nevada Globe

 “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: Politics & Poll Tracker, a political news aggregator; Libs of TikTok, an anti-LGBTQ account run by Chaya Raichik; the American Civil Liberties Union; Jack Posobiec, a conservative commentator; David Weigel, a national political reporter; Fascinating, an account posting science and history curiosities; Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin’s 3rd District; Laura Loomer, a national commentator; Andrew Solender, an Axios reporter; Jay Feely, the Republican nominee in Arizona’s 1st District; Nevada Globe, a Nevada politics outlet.

One judgment shapes two 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 1.96M of Texas’s 5.87M and 28K of Wisconsin’s 59K, and nothing in the other eleven states. Counted the strictest way — only posts that name the state or its residents in words — Texas reads 3.91M and Wisconsin 31K, and every other figure here is unchanged. Texas ranks first on either count. The larger figure counts attention on a race; the smaller counts attention that named the place.

Texas more than doubled and took 76% of the map; Georgia came second on a single post. Four states carry a concentration caveat. Georgia’s 625K is 89% one post, Maine’s 198K is 93% one post, Pennsylvania’s 80K is 90% one recirculated human-interest post about conjoined twins, one of whom was a transgender man, and Iowa’s 84K is 75% one reporter’s analysis. At that concentration a state figure describes one story rather than a state. New Hampshire went from zero to 54K, almost all of it attacks on the Democratic Senate nominee and coverage of the Medicaid lawsuit.

Source: Trans Rhetoric Dashboard. Tone is an automated reading; "neutral" includes hostile-leaning news coverage.

Tone is an automated, directional reading; “neutral” absorbs a large share of hostile-leaning coverage, so the anti-trans shares shown are conservative. Four states need context this week. Georgia, Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan all read above 95% hostile, which is accurate for what was posted and says nothing about opinion in those states; in three of the four the largest items originated outside the campaigns, and Wisconsin’s is the Third District incumbent’s own post. Kansas reads more supportive than hostile only because its largest single item is from the plaintiffs’ counsel in the court hearing there; most of the rest is news coverage read as neutral. Pennsylvania reads mostly neutral because 90% of its column is one viral human-interest post. Arizona and Nevada are below 7K and their percentages describe a handful of posts.

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 the grouping found few chains in which other accounts carried a story further; most of the largest items were single posts. The Title IX rescission traveled as the same headline posted by several news accounts — NewsWire (5.01M), The Hill (1.14M) and Aaron Parnas (651K) — rather than through one originating post. Originators can be pre-empted; amplifiers require rapid response.

Case Studies

Case Study 1: Ohio’s Senate Race — A Testimonial, and a Public Correction

What happened. On Sept 24 the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republican leadership’s super PAC, released a detransition testimonial against former Sen. Sherrod Brown for Ohio television. Press reports put the committee’s Ohio transgender campaign at roughly $10 million inside a far larger announced Ohio buy. On Oct 1 the testimonial reached Meta, and the committee’s news-styled page opened new creative the same day. The copy reads: “Hormone shots. A botched double mastectomy. Years of trauma… ‘I wasn’t born in the wrong body. I was a kid.’ […] Sherrod Brown supports sex change surgery for minors and admitted he’d NEVER oppose it.” The lead creative reached $4,000–$4,500 and 600,000–700,000 impressions in four days. A companion page built in a news-headline format — “BREAKING: Sherrod Brown’s controversial position allowing sex changes for minors resurfaces” — shows 900,000 to a million impressions on one version.

On Oct 2 an Ohio statehouse reporter for Cleveland’s News 5 reported that the woman in the advertisement is not from Ohio and did not have surgery until she was an adult; her treatment and her own litigation are in Texas. That post carried 261K and was the largest single item in Ohio’s week. A day earlier a national fact-checker had rated false the committee’s claim, in a separate Sept 16 advertisement, that Brown supports “forcing childhood sex change surgery,” citing his statement that health-care decisions belong to families and doctors rather than politicians. Ohio produced 448K across 79 posts, more than 400K of it in posts that name the Democratic candidate.

Why it matters. The record supports a narrow statement: an attack built on a named person’s account contained facts that could be checked, they were checked within days, and the correction became the largest single item in the state’s week. Whether that changes how the advertiser builds the next testimonial is not established by one case; what would show it is the sourcing of the committee’s October creative — whether the next witness is an Ohioan and whether the age claim is dropped.

Takeaway. A campaign facing a testimonial advertisement should treat the witness’s stated facts as the first place to look, before the policy claim. Residency, dates and age are checkable in public records; a characterization of a voting record is open to dispute in a way those facts are not.

Case Study 2: Texas — Undercover Video, and a Response Ad That Became the Week’s Largest Campaign Item

What happened. On Sept 13, at a Houston church, a woman asked State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Texas’s open Senate seat, whether he would defend her transgender niece’s ability to compete in women’s sports. He answered “always,” adding: “The way I fought for trans kids in the legislature is how I will fight for them in the U.S. Senate. And my position hasn’t changed,” and said the question should be decided locally and case by case. A conservative outlet released the recording in late September. The largest upload carried 659K, at least eight accounts carried it above 30K, and the Republican National Committee’s and Senate Republicans’ accounts circulated it. A spokeswoman for the campaign of Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, said “this bombshell video proves it.”

On Oct 2 the nominee went up on television with a response to Paxton’s attacks: “Ken Paxton is lying about my record, even making fake AI videos of me. No, I’m not a member of the Chinese Communist Party. No, I don’t support sex change surgeries for kids.” Relays of that spot were the largest campaign item of the week, at 845K on one political account and 171K and 161K on two other accounts. Texas finished at 5.87M, 76% of the map, and posts naming the nominee carried 6.39M.

Why it matters. Two things are established by the record. First, the attack’s material is the candidate’s own recorded speech from a church event, not a committee’s characterization of a vote. Second, his television response, which answers Paxton’s ads, including what it calls “fake AI videos,” and does not address the recording, drew more engagement on its largest relay than the recording’s largest upload, 845K to 659K. Whether that holds is not established: this is one week, and the recording continued to circulate after the response aired. The October figures for the race will show which carried the month.

Takeaway. A campaign should assume that recordings of its candidate’s remarks, including at events that seemed private, can surface late in the race, and should decide in advance which recorded statements it will stand behind and how it will explain them.

Case Study 3: A Counter-Frame Enters Five House Races, and a New Super PAC Enters Six States

What happened. Since Sept 30 Common Ground Coalition PAC, a super PAC registered with the Federal Election Commission on Sept 18 that had not appeared in these briefings, has run Meta creatives naming five Republican House candidates: Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s Sixth, Joe Mitchell in Iowa’s Second, Mike Bouchard in Michigan’s Tenth, Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania’s Seventh and Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania’s Eighth. Every version uses one template: “80% of us want politicians focused on the cost of living. [Name] is attacking trans people instead… Talk Less. Lower Our Costs.” Three sets are active; the Pennsylvania Seventh and Michigan Tenth sets ran Sept 30 to Oct 1 or 2. Every banded Meta card is under $300 and the largest shows 50,000–60,000 impressions; on Google the committee started 32 creatives in Pennsylvania at $6,300–$9,500, content not reviewed. Two versions, against Ciscomani and Bresnahan, say the Republican is “running ads attacking trans people.” For Ciscomani the claim has a basis in the record: his campaign’s July advertisement “Out of Touch” attacked his opponent on girls’ sports and bathrooms, and this briefing recorded it in August. No active transgender-issue advertisement from any of the five Republicans appears on Meta.

Separately, Google’s library records an advertiser named Lower Costs Now spending $1,285,700 nationally in its week of Sept 27 and entering six of the states this briefing tracks at scale: Texas ($385,200), Georgia ($303,700), Ohio ($182,700), Michigan ($142,200), Iowa ($134,800) and Kansas ($89,900), with under $3,000 in each of the other eight priority states. Lower Costs Now is a super PAC registered Sept 10 whose Federal Election Commission registration lists FF PAC, the committee of the Democratic super PAC Future Forward, as an affiliated organization; an independent-expenditure report it filed Oct 1 records spending supporting Democratic Senate candidates and opposing Republican ones, including a $592,472 media buy supporting Talarico. The content of its Google creatives was not reviewed for this briefing, so whether any of it concerns transgender issues is unknown.

Why it matters. The observation is that a Democratic-side counter-frame naming the attack has appeared in five House races at once, at small Meta spend, including three districts where this briefing had previously recorded no transgender-issue creative at all. Two readings fit and the record does not choose between them: a low-cost test of a message before a larger buy, or the full extent of the effort. What would distinguish them is visible in the October libraries — whether the Meta sets scale past a few hundred dollars and whether the two inactive sets return. Federal Election Commission filings show an administrative link between the two: Common Ground Coalition PAC’s treasurer is Lower Costs Now’s assistant treasurer, and Common Ground’s mailing address is the one Lower Costs Now lists for FF PAC. Neither committee declares an affiliation with the other, and their shared cost-of-living language is not itself evidence of coordination.

Takeaway. A campaign in one of these five districts should know that a committee it does not control is characterizing its opponent’s record in its district (in Arizona’s Sixth and Pennsylvania’s Eighth, its advertising), and should confirm independently whether that advertising exists before repeating the claim. A campaign in any district should add a named outside committee search to its weekly library check, under its own candidate’s name and its opponent’s.

Attack Formats to Watch

• The testimonial with checkable facts. The Ohio testimonial, released for television on Sept 24 and on Meta since Oct 1, rests on one named woman’s account of her own surgery. On Oct 2 an Ohio statehouse reporter established that she is not from Ohio and was an adult when she had the procedure. Campaigns should check residency, dates and age in a testimonial first; those facts are in public records, while a characterization of a voting record is open to dispute.

• The federal action as campaign material. The Sept 28 Title IX rescission carried 11.9 million engagements, the week’s largest political story by a wide margin. The Medicaid rule takes effect Oct 13, which makes it one federal action this month that a campaign can prepare an answer to now.

• The undercover recording released weeks later. The Texas recording was made Sept 13 at a church event and released in late September. The format does not require the candidate to have said anything new. State parties should assume that recordings exist of every public event their candidates have held this cycle.

• The candidate’s own advertisement as the next attack. In North Carolina’s First District the Republican nominee’s Oct 1 creative is built around the Democratic incumbent’s own advertisement on transgender participation in sports, asking why he had not supported a federal bill on the subject. Two outside committees were already advertising against him on the same ground. A statement on this issue should be written on the assumption that it will be quoted in an opponent’s advertisement.

• The school story no campaign started. Three of the week’s largest state items were school stories: a homecoming-queen ballot in Clayton County, Georgia (555K), a classroom photographed during a Teacher of the Year visit in Lewiston, Maine (184K) and a high-school volleyball player’s account, posted the week she spoke on Capitol Hill, of a 2025 locker-room incident at a Monroe, Michigan high school (213K). None involved a campaign on either side, and Libs of TikTok carried both the Georgia and Maine items to a national audience within days of the local reports. State parties should know which districts in their states have contested school policies before an account with a national following names one.

• The counter-frame that names the attack. Since Sept 30 a committee has run creatives in five House races saying the Republican “is attacking trans people instead” of addressing costs. In three of the districts this briefing follows every week, it is the first transgender-issue creative recorded. Meta spend is under $300 on every banded card. Whether this scales is not established; the format names the attack and leaves the policy argument aside.

• The older verdict presented as current. A detransition malpractice verdict delivered in January 2026 recirculated this week without a date, carrying 32K across three uploads. The North Carolina appeal argued Sept 29 is a separate case and has not been decided. Campaigns should date every court item before repeating or rebutting it.

• The ballot measure advertised by one side. Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington vote Nov 3 on sports eligibility by sex at birth, in Arizona, Nebraska and Colorado for college as well as school sports; Arizona’s measure also reaches bathrooms and locker rooms. In the public libraries the only committee advertising on Arizona’s Prop 318 comes from its opponents: Will of the People’s “vote no” ads on Meta since Sept 24, each under $800; no ad from the measure’s supporters appears in either library. The only other Meta creative naming the measure is an explainer from a page styled as a local newspaper, back on Sept 29 after two weeks at zero, which gives only the supporters’ argument.

Looking Ahead — The Calendar

October 13: the Medicaid rule takes effect. Federal Medicaid funding for transition-related care ends for patients under 18, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding for those under 19, with a taper of up to six months for patients already on hormone therapy, and states may continue covering the care with their own funds, which the rule permits but does not require. Two suits are trying to stop it: the suit filed Sept 2 by 21 states and the District of Columbia, and a suit filed Oct 1 by four New Hampshire families whose children are eleven to fifteen years old. Whether coverage continues becomes a decision for each state three weeks before Election Day.

October 14: early voting opens in Iowa. In the Third District the Republican incumbent is posting that the Democratic nominee is refusing to debate; reporting indicates no televised debate has been agreed. Both of the incumbent’s transgender-issue creatives are still running.

Pending, with no date: the Kansas ruling and the North Carolina appeal. In Kansas a Douglas County judge held a hearing this week on a challenge to the state’s driver’s-license and restroom law, which has been in effect since February. In North Carolina the state Court of Appeals heard argument Sept 29 on whether a detransition malpractice suit can proceed under a 2025 law extending the filing window, and a decision is expected in the months ahead. Both cases drew national coverage this week, so either ruling is likely to travel beyond its state.

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 at the end of October would fall in the final days before the election, in the state that produced 76% 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 raised it again at an Oct 3 rally in Ohio, and his administration’s Title IX rescission came Sept 28, both before 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 measure also reaches bathrooms and locker rooms. Colorado also votes on a separate measure, Proposition 135, barring gender-transition surgery for minors, and Missouri’s Amendment 3 would prohibit gender-transition procedures for minors alongside its abortion provisions. Arizona is the priority state on that list; in the public libraries only the measure’s opponents have advertised, on Meta since Sept 24, and the state fell 98% this week.

Undated, and in the House: the college-sports bill. The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act 77 to 22 on Sept 28, with the votes of three Republican senators who had sought protection for state laws barring transgender participation in women’s sports. 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 Line

America PAC, the largest transgender-issue advertiser this series has found on Meta, ended its second wave as this window closed, while other transgender creative ran alongside it: the Senate Leadership Fund’s Ohio testimonial reached Meta on Oct 1 and was contradicted in Ohio reporting the next day; America PAC opened girls’-sports creative in Michigan; three advertisers ran sports attacks on a Democratic incumbent in eastern North Carolina; and the Fund released its first Kansas television ad, whose Google version shows “men in girls’ sports” on screen. The week’s largest political story was the Sept 28 Title IX rescission, at 11.9 million engagements. On the map, Texas more than doubled to 5.87M and took 76% of the week; Georgia, Kansas and Maine each rose on a single story. No state reached a series high.

One development is new and its meaning is not yet established. Since Sept 30 a newly registered super PAC has run creatives in five House races saying the Republican “is attacking trans people instead” of addressing costs, at under $300 a banded Meta card. Separately, Lower Costs Now, a super PAC whose registration names Future Forward’s committee as an affiliated organization, entered six of the states tracked here at $1,285,700 nationally in one week; what its creatives say was not reviewed here. Whether the counter-frame is a test or the start of something larger will be visible in the October libraries. Across the House races in the table, Republican-side paid transgender-issue creative ran in six this week and the Democratic-side counter-frame in five.

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 only two columns: counted the strictest way, on posts that name the state or its residents in words, Texas reads 3.91M rather than 5.87M and Wisconsin 31K rather than 59K, and the other eleven figures are identical on either basis. Texas ranks first 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 (Sept 28 – Oct 4), 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 5; bands on ads still running rise as they run, so a later read will show higher figures. Meta’s 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 Minnesota ads were found; its keyword searches return the top twenty to thirty results, so the largest result sets were sampled rather than exhausted. Google’s publishes advertiser, state, dates and money; Google creatives were reviewed only where noted. Neither covers television, streaming, radio or mail, which is why the Nebraska mail piece is marked Unconfirmed.

Four state figures rest on a single item: Georgia’s 625K is 89% one post, Maine’s 198K is 93% one post, Pennsylvania’s 80K is 90% one viral post that is not campaign content, and Iowa’s 84K is 75% one reporter’s analysis. America PAC’s final figures cover four of its twenty creatives, re-read individually at the close; the other sixteen were not re-read. Correction: earlier editions described the Medicaid suit as a 22-state lawsuit filed Sept 4 (it was filed Sept 2 by 21 states and the District of Columbia), reported no transgender-issue advertising in Maine on Sept 21 and Sept 28 (a committee that also backs Sen. Susan Collins was running it on Meta from Sept 2) or in Minnesota on those dates (the Republican Senate nominee’s video ads, from Sept 17, raise it in the video only), reported no paid transgender-issue advertising on Meta in Nevada on Sept 21 and Sept 28 (a House Freedom Action ad against the Democratic candidate in the 2nd Congressional District ran there from Sept 19), reported none from the Republican incumbent’s campaign in Mississippi on Sept 14 (it ran a “transgender defender” ad on Meta Aug 28–Sept 13) or from the Republican nominee in Ohio’s Ninth District on Sept 28 (girls’-sports ads on Meta Sept 16–21 and Sept 24–30), reported no advertising on Arizona’s Proposition 318 in the public libraries on Sept 28 (its opponents had run Meta ads since Sept 24), described the Texas Children’s settlement as $10 million to the state (it is $10 million in total, $8.6 million of it to the state), and described the Medicaid rule’s taper as covering all patients already in treatment (it allows up to six months for patients already on hormone therapy). 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: September 28 – October 4, 2026, the seventh 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. Per-state signal counts trans-relevant posts by the state they are tagged to, with a manual audit of the highest-engagement posts.

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 5, 2026, plus AdImpact reservation figures as reported in the press; spending and impression figures are the ranges the libraries publish, not estimates. Committee registrations come from Federal Election Commission filings, and links between committees come from those filings or from press reports. 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 the woman in the Ohio advertisement, a transgender high-school senior in Georgia, a Maine teacher and a Michigan high-school athlete. Minor children of candidates are never named in these briefings under any circumstances. Legal characterizations of the Medicaid rule follow the published rule: federal funding ends, state-only coverage is permitted, and a taper of up to six months is allowed, not required, for patients already on hormone therapy.

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.