The 2024 elections are in the history books. But apparently that’s not set in stone.
Because the Republican Party just released an eyebrow-raising report on the 2024 Trump campaign.
Democrats have been trying to say for years now that Americans are “uninterested” in the “culture war” issues that have been getting more attention over the past few years. These issues include transgender ideology, Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, reparations, “Defund The Police” efforts, race relations, and much more. The Democrats would have you believe that these issues are actually unimportant to Americans, generally speaking.
That’s why they banked on the idea that Republicans were going to be shooting themselves in the foot in 2024 if they tried to message their important campaigns for President, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House seats around “culture war” issues. In fact, in 2022, it was the Democrats who performed better than they were expected to. Democrat Party officials and analysts started to suggest that only the Democrats had a culture war message that resonated with Americans, and that was the issue of abortion.
That was not the case at all, though, for 2024. In 2024, Donald Trump did make culture war issues a big part of his campaign messaging. One of his big spend TV ads focused on the way Kamala Harris allegedly cared more about transgender radicalism while Donald Trump was for the average American who doesn’t want to go along with “progressive” policies like transgender surgeries being given to illegal immigrants. This was his “Kamala’s for they/them, Trump is for you” message that landed so well.
Not only did that land well, but a review of the 2024 election cycle from a Republican-friendly organization finds that culture war issues were very important for Donald Trump this past year. Countless Americans in key swing states were swayed to vote for Trump because of his commonsense approach to these hot culture war issues.
The Role of the Culture War in Trump’s 2024 Victory, According to New Report
The Republican Party’s focus on culture war issues was a decisive factor in President-elect Donald Trump’s significant 2024 victory, according to a new report from the American Principles Project (APP) released on Tuesday. The report highlights how Republican messaging on hot-button issues, particularly those involving transgender rights, helped shift voters in key battleground states.
Among the issues that gained traction in 2024 were topics such as child s*x changes, the inclusion of men in women’s sports, and taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners. The APP report claims that these issues swayed voter sentiment in Trump’s favor by a margin ranging from 1.3 to 2.7 percentage points, a crucial advantage in many swing states. Trump’s victories in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were by relatively small margins — 2.2 points in Georgia, 1.7 points in Pennsylvania, 1.4 points in Michigan, and just 0.9 points in Wisconsin — making the cultural topics a key factor in his success.
“This was the first election where the American people had finally had enough, and they were sick and tired of all the radical changes,” said Terry Schilling, president of the APP. “They had a champion in Donald Trump that was willing to take them on.”
Schilling’s comments highlight a broader sentiment among many voters, particularly those in swing states, who expressed frustration with what they perceived as radical shifts in cultural norms. A significant portion of the American electorate appears to share these concerns, as revealed in a poll conducted by Napolitan News and RMG Research in November 2024. The poll found that 75% of respondents opposed allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports, and 72% supported banning transgender surgeries or drugs for children.
Trump took advantage of these concerns, positioning himself as a defender of traditional values. By contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats embraced pro-transgender policies, which some analysts argue added to the political baggage for the party.
“They had built up essentially an artificial political movement,” Schilling told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF). “They made this whole transgender push built around all the oppression happening against people who identify as transgender, and it just turned out to be completely garbage.”
The report’s findings challenge earlier concerns from some Republican strategists, who feared that engaging in culture war debates could harm the party’s prospects at the polls. However, Schilling argues that the 2024 election proved that such concerns were wrong, pointing to a lack of success in the 2022 midterms as a result of some Republicans hesitating to fully embrace culture war issues like transgender rights.
In 2022, despite what was expected to be a “red wave” following dissatisfaction with the Biden administration, the Republicans failed to achieve the expected electoral gains. This underperformance was partly attributed to issues like the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the enormous spending advantage that Democrats enjoyed in critical swing states, according to a report by Heritage Action for America.
“You can argue whatever you want now as a political consultant or a political pundit, but you’re just an idiot if you think we shouldn’t talk about the culture war,” Schilling said. “It’s a major vulnerability for Democrats, and we should be exploiting every opportunity we can to show the American people just how insane they are.”
Schilling’s remarks highlight a growing belief within the Republican Party that engaging with cultural issues, particularly those surrounding transgender rights, has become a key part of their electoral strategy. As the 2024 election demonstrated, these topics have the potential to rally voters who feel increasingly alienated by progressive shifts in American society.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
