Democrats are changing their approach to transgender-related attacks ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, urging candidates to answer Republican claims directly rather than remain silent or get pulled into prolonged culture-war fights. The emerging strategy is straightforward: state a clear position, acknowledge concerns about fairness and parental authority, and quickly return to issues such as gas prices, inflation and the cost of living. “Silence is deadly on these issues and that’s the playbook we tried in 2024,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at the center-left think tank Third Way. She advised Democrats to make clear that sports rules should be handled by sports organizations and that parents should control their children’s health care before shifting the conversation back to economic concerns. Republicans previewed an aggressive version of the message this week at the party’s midterm convention in Dallas. Speakers repeatedly accused Democrats of supporting transgender athletes in women’s sports and gender-affirming care for minors. President Donald Trump called the attacks one of the GOP’s most effective sound bites, while acknowledging that he believed the party was deploying the issue earlier than ideal for an election campaign. America PAC, the super PAC backed by Elon Musk, also began running digital ads in key Senate battlegrounds, including Texas and Iowa, criticizing Democrats’ past positions on transgender rights. The Republican strategy draws on the 2024 campaign, when GOP groups spent more than $110 million on advertising focused on transgender issues. Trump also spent more on transgender-rights attacks than on any other subject during the final stretch of that campaign. Ross Hemminger, president of Log Cabin Republicans, described the message as a way to motivate voters who may not participate in every election. “It’s a winning message,” he said. Democratic strategists are pointing candidates toward James Talarico, the party’s Senate nominee in Texas, as a model for responding without allowing the issue to dominate the campaign. In a television interview Wednesday, Talarico said he would oppose transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports when doing so threatened safety or fairness. Matt Angle, a Texas-based Democratic strategist, said Talarico had handled the attacks with discipline and urged him to keep redirecting voters toward economic pressures. Republicans, Angle argued, were trying to change the subject from what he called their failures, while Talarico remained focused on fuel prices and the cost of making a living. The political stakes are substantial. Republicans see transgender-related messaging as a tool for energizing socially conservative voters, while Democrats fear that ignoring the issue will allow Republicans to define them with campaign ads and emotionally charged claims. For voters, the strategy means another election in which national debates over schools, sports and children’s medical care are likely to compete with more immediate concerns about rent, groceries, energy bills and wages. Democrats are now betting that a brief, carefully worded response can prevent the culture-war attacks from overwhelming their economic message.