so an interesting ad came out this election in pa. dave mccormick, a wealthy businessman was running against the incumbent democrat bob casey - who had been in office for close to 20 years and was generally well liked. casey grossly outspent mccormick in ads and was largely attacking his business background. the mccormick campaign tried going at different angles with middling success. until they went for the trans angle. it showed clips of a very obvious man playing on a womens basketball team and a pride parade with a man dressed in garters, stockings, a leather suit with holes cut out for the tits and waving pride flags while undulating and had the nipples blurred out (even though it was a male) and hit with a tagline bob casey: hes for they/them, not for us. this was huge. no one locally was mentioning the senate election at all until that ad came out and suddenly people started talking about it at work, at family gatherings, and just casually. it was super effective both as a simple cathphrase and in its imagery. while we all know the polls are bullshit, before this point mccormick was trailing significantly and he turned it around in a way no one expected. like it or not the anti-trans angle worked better than anyone could have expected.
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