Christina Bohannan Ad
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Few states have featured Democrats taking an anti-transgender turn more than Iowa. Major candidates there, including Senate candidate Josh Turek, gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand and IA-03 candidate Sarah Trone Garriott, have all staked out some of the most anti-trans positions of any Democrats running in the midterms, each responding to ads against them. That is why Christina Bohannan’s response is notable: in a state where major candidates have all been following virtually the same playbook, she has bucked it. In an ad running this week across Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, Bohannan highlights her own high school track career and shifts the topic from fairness in sports to what she calls the real unfairness: Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks siding with drug companies against capping insulin prices and the unfairness in the current tax bracket in Iowa. It is the first ad this cycle from an Iowa Democrat answering anti-trans attacks against her that does not involve borrowing Republican messaging and making her own anti-trans ad.
“I’m Christina Bohannan. As the only one in this race who ran track in high school, it matters to me that girls’ sports are fair. That’s why Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ false smear campaign is downright pathetic. What Miller-Meeks is doing in Washington, siding with the drug companies, taking their money and sticking it to Iowans, that’s what’s really unfair. I’m Christina Bohannan and I approve this message because I’ll cut middle-class taxes, shake up Washington and always put Iowa first,” Bohannan says in the television ad.
See the ad here:
Bohannan’s ad comes in response to attacks against her from her opponent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Miller-Meeks has flooded the district with anti-transgender mailers, stating that Bohannan “wants your tax dollars to fund sex-change surgery” and “When Iowa voted to protect girls’ sports, Christina Bohannan voted NO.” Miller-Meeks has also focused on an unearthed video of Bohannan saying a trans sports ban in Iowa would make the state look like “a backwater” to the rest of the nation, something Miller-Meeks has tried to jump on by accusing Bohannan of calling Iowa a “backwater” over its trans athlete ban.
The race is expected to be one of many that are highly competitive this year. It is a rematch of a previous election, where Bohannan came up 798 votes short against Miller-Meeks in 2024 and where similar anti-transgender attacks were run against her. This year, however, Bohannan appears to be surging ahead in several indicators. Polls show Bohannan up, and the race was originally rated a toss-up, but now election prediction outlets see it as leaning Democratic. Republican officials have in turn privately described the district as “too difficult to win.” Given the competitiveness of this race, it is notable that Bohannan is not throwing transgender people under the bus in a similar way to other Iowa Democrats in the state.
Other Iowa Democrats have taken a markedly different approach. Sarah Trone Garriott, candidate for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, called transgender women “men” in a recent ad and said she opposes them in women’s locker rooms, saying politicians have become “too extreme on these issues.” Rob Sand, candidate for governor of Iowa, said he opposed “biological boys” in girls’ sports and mocked people who objected to the language used, stating that critics “get mad if you use this word or that word” to talk about transgender people. And Josh Turek, candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, even said that he supported a national federal funding ban on gender-affirming care.
While those Democrats have decided that their transgender constituents are no longer worth protecting, Christina Bohannan’s approach may be closer to what is becoming the prevailing wisdom even among those running these ads. In a recent memo, the American Principles Project, one of the biggest funders of anti-trans attack ads, warned that targeting trans people “may not be sufficient” for Republicans to win in 2026, an assessment shared by former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, who said this week that his party is “still running transgender ads. It’s just not resonating.” And more Democrats are beginning to take Bohannan’s approach rather than the anti-trans one. In a debate this week, Montana’s Sam Forstag called his opponent’s attacks “fear-mongering” meant “to distract” voters while Republicans “pick our pockets,” and in Ohio, Sherrod Brown has answered anti-trans attack ads by turning them back on his opponent rather than adopting their talking points. Transgender voters will be watching closely to learn what lessons the results hold.
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