Chris Christie has claimed that the Trump campaign’s most effective ad during the 2024 race was one which focused on attacking Kamala Harris’s transgender rights policy.
The former Donald Trump ally-turned-critic said that Democrats focused on trans issues and pronouns during the Harris campaign, which could have pushed moderate liberals to vote Republican.
He specifically pointed to one particular Trump campaign attack ad which ran with the argument: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
“The most effective ad that the Trump campaign ran in this campaign was, you know, ‘Kamala Harris is for they/them, and Donald Trump is for us,’” Christie said in a panel discussion on ABC News’s This Week with Jonathan Karl.
“That’s because most people don’t see themselves as they/them. Yet, the Democrats have spent more time talking about a trans issue, which, quite frankly, is infinitesimal,” he said.
Karl interrupted him and pointed out that it was “the Republicans who spent more time talking about it.”
But Christie added that he also believed the Democratic Party “from 2017 through 2024 went off the deep end.”
On November 6, not long after Trump clinched victory, New York congressman Ritchie Torres posted on X: “Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’”
The former New Jersey governor said he agreed with the Democrat that the “far left” had actually helped Trump win the election.
“Well, he’s absolutely right,” Christie told the panel. “I mean, the stuff they have been saying is just offensive to a large percentage of the American people. The DEI stuff is offensive to a large swath of the American people.”
Christie’s comments come as Democrats continue to search for answers following Harris’s loss last week.
Since Trump won the election, two Democratic congressmen have come out against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.
New York Rep Tom Suozzi and Massachusetts Rep Seth Moulton, both of whom have supported transgender rights in Congress in the past, expressed frustration at their party’s unwillingness to address an issue that was central to the Trump campaign’s messaging, particularly in its TV ads.
Speaking to The New York Times last week, Suozzi said: “The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left. I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports. Democrats aren’t saying that, and they should be.”
Moulton also told the Times. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” he said.
“I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
