Vulnerable Democrats running for key Senate races seem to be awfully desperate lately when it comes to trying to back peddle on their support for radical LGBTQ+ causes. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio recently released an ad calling out an ad from the Senate Leadership Fund for claims about his support for allowing boys to participate in girls' sports. However, the ad uses a dubious fact-check to try to back up Brown's claims. This recent ad from Brown also calls out his Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno.
The Senate Leadership Fund put out an ad criticizing Brown for backing President Joe Biden’s "extreme liberal agenda," which indeed touched upon this key issue, as it targeted Brown for "voting to let transgender, biological men participate in women’s sports," as well as "allowing puberty blockers and sex change surgeries for minor children."
Fox News highlighted how the fact-checker in question, WKYC Digital Anchor and Legal Analyst Stephanie Haney, an NBC affiliate, has a particularly liberal bias. As the report also noted:
WKYC digital anchor and legal analyst Stephanie Haney fact-checked the ad, saying its assertions were false. WKYC aired a portion of the ad before Haney took the Super Pac to task.
"Let’s start with the claim that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown supported allowing puberty blockers and sex change surgeries for minor children," Haney said, noting that the ad cited an interview Brown did in 2023 with WSYX.
"A child’s health care decisions are between them, their parents, their families, their doctors, not politicians," a clip of Brown said. "I will never agree with anybody that wants to bring politics into the family situation with health care. Period."
Haney then read a statement from Brown’s campaign team: "Sherrod’s comments cited in the ad were not in support of puberty blockers or gender reassignment surgeries, but instead a call to keep politicians out of decisions that should be made between families and doctors."
Haney told viewers she could "verify" the Senate Leadership Fund claims were "false."
Haney, who has called former President Trump "racist" and fawned over former President Obama on her X account, then moved on to the claim about women’s sports.
"When making the claim, the ad refers to a vote in the U.S. Senate from March of 2021. When we pull up this vote on the U.S. Senate website, we see the amendment that was the subject of the vote had nothing to do with allowing transgender people to participate in women’s sports. It was actually only about money," Haney told viewers.
"Sen. Brown voted against including an amendment in the American Rescue Plan that would have stripped federal funding from Ohio schools if those schools allowed transgender people to participate in women’s sports," she continued. "So, we can verify, the claim that Brown voted to let transgender biological men participate in women’s sports is false."
Haney ultimately ruled that two claims made in the ad were verified as "false," essentially telling viewers the Senate Leadership Fund commercial was misleading on its face.
That statement from the campaign doesn't exactly sound like one opposed to children who may think they're transgender going through medical procedures that may involve hormone therapy, sterilization, and/or genital mutilation, though.
While the Fox News report notes that the Senate Leadership Fund had reached out to the affiliate to inform them the fact-check was misleading, the fact-check still rates the ad as "False."
The Wall Street Journal last week also made Brown a major focus of their editorial, "Transgender Sports Is a 2024 Sleeper Issue," highlighting how "Democratic Sens. Brown, Tester and Baldwin are all under fire for their votes." The editorial similarly calls out the "sloppy" fact-checks:
Some media fact-checkers are calling this claim false, but not without astounding sleight of hand. The ad, sponsored by a Republican-aligned Super PAC, cites Mr. Brown’s vote against a failed 2021 amendment offered by Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville. “When we pull up this vote on the U.S. Senate website,” says a report by WKYC in Cleveland, “we see it had nothing to do with allowing transgender people to participate in women’s sports. It was actually only about money.”
Only money? “Specifically,” WKYC explains, “Brown voted against including an amendment in the American Rescue Plan Act that would have stripped federal funding from Ohio schools if those schools allowed transgender people to participate in women’s sports.” Ergo, the ad’s claim is “false,” and Mr. Brown “did not vote ‘to let transgender biological men participate in women’s sports.’”
PolitiFact has a similar sloppy take, saying that such arguments about Mr. Brown are false because the 2021 amendment, as well as a similar one this year, “did not dictate athletic eligibility.” Well, not directly, but adding strings to federal funding is a common way for both parties in Congress to drive policy, and it’s hard to imagine any public school telling Uncle Sam to take his money and scram.
The LGBT activist group GLAAD confirms our point when it says Mr. Brown has “consistently opposed attempts to ban transgender athletes from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity.” It means this as a compliment.
It's particularly dubious that the fact-check would rate the ad as "false," given what Brown's own voting record indicated he voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act last year. Simply put, the bill "generally prohibits school athletic programs from allowing individuals whose biological sex at birth was male to participate in programs that are for women or girls."
Brown also sponsored "Recognizing June 2024 as 'LGBTQ Pride Month,'" as he has in years past. The resolution in part laments how "State legislatures across the country have introduced and passed harmful legislation specifically targeting LGBTQ youth, particularly transgender youth, and their ability to obtain access to healthcare, participate in athletic activities, and learn about race, gender, and sexuality in schools..."
He's also a cosponsor of the Equality Act, which would in part allow for boys and men to participate in girls' and women's sports and show up in their private space.
As we covered in March, Brown has also been endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which lamented what they call the state's "discriminatory, anti-transgender, anti-health care bill."
This ad from Brown also comes as Democratic Rep. Colin Allred went for a similar tactic in his race against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate race out of Texas. It would seem that Democratic candidates are finally realizing that protecting women and girls' sports is a popular position to take, though it might be too little too late in these final weeks before the election.
Democrats have come under from all sides for trying to have it both ways. Allred and Brown have both been criticized by the Advocate for such ads as they desperately try to win over voters in the final weeks of this race.
The Brown-Moreno race is a true "Toss-Up" for this cycle. Whoever wins this Senate seat could see his party control the chamber.
Moreno also will likely be riding former and potentially future President Donald Trump's coattails this cycle. Trump is expected to win Ohio for the third year, and is currently ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris by +7 there, according to RealClearPolling, though it's worth reminding he won by 8 points in 2016 and 2020, and he massively overperformed the polls both years.
In the last final weeks of the race, the momentum looks to be with Moreno, and with Republicans overall. As we covered last week, Morning Consult, a liberal poll which previously showed Brown to be in the lead, had Moreno up.
Since then, other polls showing Moreno with an edge have also been released. This includes the ActiVote poll, showing Moreno up by +3.8 against Brown.
📊 OHIO Senate: @ActiVoteUS
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) October 21, 2024
🟥 Bernie Moreno: 51.9% (+3.8)
🟦 Sherrod Brown: 48.1%
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Last 3 polls
7/20-8/12 - 🔵 Brown +5.0
8/16-9/22 - 🔴 Moreno +2.2
9/23-10/20 - 🔴 Moreno +3.8
538 rank: n/a | 400 LV | 9/23-10/20https://t.co/82AJr4pKlM pic.twitter.com/k3TZgHtRnS
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