As anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric persists as a central strategy in political campaigns nationwide, the Human Rights Campaign’s new messaging playbook is urging pro-equality candidates to stop playing defense and start leading with conviction.
Released alongside HRC’s sweeping One Year In LGBTQ+ impact report, the organization’s new One Year Out: LGBTQ+ Messaging Playbook for the Midterms draws on post-election data, polling, and recent campaign wins to argue a simple point: silence is not a winning strategy. And equality remains a political strength, not a liability.
“Now we’re living in the emergency,” HRC President Kelley Robinson wrote in the report’s opening letter, referencing the national state of emergency HRC declared for LGBTQ+ Americans in 2023. “This is not the moment to hedge. This is the moment to say what you believe—with your whole chest—and fight like you mean it.”
The data behind the strategy
The playbook directly challenges the idea that anti-trans messaging is a decisive electoral tool. While anti-trans ads aired nearly 55,000 times during the 2024 election cycle, HRC’s post-election research found that only 4% of voters said opposition to transgender inclusion influenced their vote. Instead, voters overwhelmingly cited cost-of-living concerns as their top issue.
Yet the harm of those ads was real, creating fear while failing to deliver electoral gains. In response, the playbook argues, candidates who clearly articulated their values and confronted attacks head-on consistently won, often by wide margins.
Examples include Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s 15-point win in Virginia, Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s decisive victory in New Jersey, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York City win, fueled in part by strong turnout from LGBTQ+ voters, who made up 14% of the electorate.
A five-part framework for 2026 midterms
Based on polling conducted with Global Strategy Group, HRC outlines a five-part messaging framework for candidates heading into the 2026 midterms:
- Introduce yourself early and often, sharing your personal story before opponents define it for you.
- Lead with values like fairness, safety and equality, using language authentic to who you are.
- Address voter concerns directly, especially around fairness and safety, rather than sidestepping them.
- Turn the tables by drawing clear contrasts. Polling shows broad bipartisan support for non-discrimination protections, same-sex marriage and access to HIV care, positions that candidates can easily defend.
- Connect attacks on LGBTQ+ people to broader threats against personal freedom, economic stability and democracy itself.
One winning example from Omaha distilled that approach into a single line: “Jean is focused on potties. John is focused on fixing potholes.”
Why the playbook matters now
With anti-equality messaging already surfacing in key races in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma, HRC warns that silence only reinforces the belief that scapegoating works. The playbook argues that when candidates speak clearly and confidently, voters respond, and LGBTQ+ communities are safer as a result.
“Equality is a winning issue,” Robinson wrote. “Not a liability. Not a trap.”
As the midterms approach, HRC says it plans to expand candidate trainings, deploy organizers, and mobilize its 3.6 million members and supporters nationwide. The message is clear: defending LGBTQ+ people isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s how elections are won.
Caroline Savoie