Two pronouns that proved to be decisive in the defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election are inching back into the political discourse as GOP midterm hopefuls lean into culture war issues in an early effort to fend off what is widely expected to be a Democratic resurgence. 

Republican candidates across the Sunbelt are borrowing a page from President Trump’s playbook, tagging their Democratic supporters as beholden to the “they/them” crowd in campaign ads starting to show up on television and online.

In Georgia, Senator Jon Ossoff, who has raised more than $21 million this election cycle as the most vulnerable incumbent Democrat in next year’s election, was among the first to be targeted.

In an ad produced by a Republican advocacy  group founded in 2010 by Senator Mitch McConnell’s former chief of staff, One Nation, a male basketball player in one television ad knocks over a female player as the female narrator chides Mr. Ossoff for voting against banning male players from girls’ sports. 

“Man-to-man defense isn’t woke enough for Ossoff. He’s playing for they/them,” the ad says. 

Another ad by the Senate Leadership Fund targets North Carolina’s former governor, Roy Cooper, who is the top pick for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Thom Tillis. The one-minute ad notes that Mr. Cooper, who reportedly raised $3.4 million in the first 24 hours after announcing his bid last month, vetoed bills when he was the state’s governor that would have banned transgender girls in school sports and gender transition surgeries for minors. 

In the 2024 election cycle, Mr. Trump and his backers spent more than $215 million on similar ads in the final days of the campaign. While trans issues were not the primary concern for many voters, the ads were effective, according to exit polling. A majority of voters — 52 percent — who were made aware of Ms. Harris’s support for sex changes for minors were more likely to vote for Mr. Trump, while a majority of voters supported laws prohibiting biological men competing in women’s sports, according to the American Principles Project.

Transgender issues have been a centerpiece of the Trump administration, with several policies from the Biden administration reversed or in the process of being rolled back. Among those are elimination of funding for gender-affirming care, removal of the nonbinary category in school demographic data, elimination of the Gender Policy Council, and a ban on trans members serving in the military. Mr. Trump’s representatives at the United Nations have also objected to “gender ideology” language in official documents.

Since being pummeled on the topic during the campaign, the president’s opponents have been largely silent or have conceded the Republican argument of an advantage for biological males who compete in women’s sports.

In March, Governor Gavin Newsom, who is looking at a 2028 bid for the presidency, said that transgender athletes competing on girls’ teams was unfair. A former transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, also a 2028 presidential prospect, has said repeatedly that he respects parents who see treating trans athletes the same as women as a fairness issue.

In June, the Supreme Court’s decision upholding a state ban on transgender care for minors received muted response from Democrats, though the Senate’s minority leader, Chuck Schumer, described the decision as a “cruel crusade” against transgender Americans. Last week, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said she is working on a nationwide push to expand gender affirming care for “trans kids,” though she was not optimistic about its prospects.

“I don’t know what effect we can have nationally with what we have going on with the White House and in the Congress,” she said in an interview, adding that the Democrats’ goal is to ensure gender-affirming care is available across the country.

In Virginia as well, the off-year gubernatorial election, often an indicator of following election-year sentiment, has focused on trans issues, which consumed much of the 2021 state race that propelled Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Seares, into office.

In the state’s first all-female race for governor, Ms. Earle-Seares, a military veteran, in a recent X post castigated her competitor, Abigail Spanberger, a former congresswoman, for supporting biological boys in girls’ locker rooms while in Congress. Ms. Spanberger voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would have limited participation in girls’ sports teams based on biological sex, not gender identity. 

On the campaign trail, Ms. Spanberger has said that she would defer to organizations like the Virginia High School League and the NCAA to decide eligibility rules for transgender athletes. She currently leads in polling though much of the race has focused on other issues and unforced errors by Ms. Earle-Seares.