At Semafor, David Weigel reports that “James Malone’s victory in a Pennsylvania special election this year was a Democratic triumph. The small-town mayor broke the GOP’s grip on Lancaster County, flipping a [state senate district]…that Donald Trump had carried by 15 points. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who campaigned for Malone, thanked Pennsylvanians for rejecting “the extremism and division coming out of DC.”…Last week, shortly after being sworn in, Malone voted with four other Democrats and every Republican for the Save Women’s Sports Act. Like legislation that had passed in the US House, and in dozens of other states, it limited female sports from kindergarten through college to “biological females.” Malone had told constituents that he planned to vote for it, and LGBTQ rights groups had urged him to reconsider, but it passed easily…The Trump administration is enforcing a binary definition of sex and gender, reversing pro-trans Biden-era policies, from the military to the locker room. In Congress, just two Democrats, both moderates from Republican-trending seats, have voted with them, supporting legislation to bar transgender athletes from women’s sports…But in the states, a growing number of Democratic state legislators have supported Republican-led bills. They’ve been condemned by pro-LGBTQ+ groups, and rarely explained their votes. And they’ve been given some space by their party.”

In January, The U.S. House passed legislation to restrict transgender students from playing on women’s sports teams by a  218-206 vote, along party lines. Only two Democrats voted with the Republicans. Then in early March, as Frank Thorp and Sahil Kapur report at nbcnews.com, “Senate Democrats voted unanimously to block a Republican-led bill Monday evening that would prohibit federally funded schools from allowing transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports…In a party-line vote of 51-45, Democrats filibustered the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, introduced by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. It fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance as Democrats dismissed it as a distraction and a cynical political move…Four senators didn’t vote: Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.; and Peter Welch, D-Vt…The outcome means the legislation — which passed the House in January and mirrors an executive order issued by President Donald Trump — won’t go any further. But the failed vote is likely to become a political talking point for Republicans in upcoming elections after they used the issue of transgender rights as a cudgel in the 2024 campaign…A New York Times/Ipsos poll conducted in January found broad opposition to transgender athletes in asking respondents whether “transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female” — should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. In response, 79% of American adults said they “should not” be allowed, while 18% said they “should be allowed.”

The issue has been made more problematic for Dems by the rapidly increasing popularity of women’s sports. Democrats want to be supportive of legitimate LGBTQ human rights, and hold on to the votes they have been getting from that constituency. But resistance to allowing biologically-born males to compete against women and girls for sports medals, trophies and scholarships is growing. Most  men have size and musculature advantage that many voters believe provides an unfair edge in athletic competition with females. The injustice against females was eloquently captured in the photo of self-declared transgender swimmer Lia Thomas being presented a medal for winning an NCAA female swim meet, while much smaller female runner-ups look on. During the 2024 presidential race, the Trump campaign spent more than $20 million on ads that ran more than 60 thousand times, some on televised NFL and College games, which said Kamala Harris supported taxpayer-funded transgender operations for prison inmates. “Kamala is for they/them,” one ad says. “Trump is for you.” The intent of the ad was to “brand” Harris and Democrats as a political party that puts transexuals above other voters. It may have helped Trump win some states. For Democrats, the political calculation for the 2026 elections is whether they win or lose more votes because of their support for rights/privileges of transgendered athletes over the rights of women and girls. As with all controversial issues facing Democrats, the central moral question is fairness. Is allowing transgendered athletes to compete against women and girls really fair toward females, who are more than half of the population?

From “Democrats: How to rebuild a damaged brand” at The Week comes this highly opinionated editorial: “Democrats might be tempted to take solace” from President Trump’s tumbling poll numbers, said Noah Rothman in National Review. “They shouldn’t.” While Trump’s net approval rating has sunk more than 5 percentage points since he took office in January, to about 45 percent, Democrats are doing even worse, with only 33 percent of voters viewing the party favorably. Since Democrats held a healthy 6-point lead over Republicans at this point in Trump’s first term, that’s bad news for the party’s 2026 midterm prospects and proof that “the well of mistrust Democrats cultivated in the Biden years goes deep.” To win back voters, top lawmakers have offered only “impotent theatrics.” Sen. Cory Booker and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries staged a pointless 12-hour sit-in on the U.S. Capitol steps to protest the Trump agenda, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went on TV to tout a “very strong letter” he wrote to the president. They clearly have no idea how to “repair their party’s image.”…JB Pritzker does, said Renee Graham in The Boston Globe. In a speech to New Hampshire Democrats last week, the Illinois governor blasted the “simpering timidity” of party leaders in the face of Trump’s authoritarian threat and called “for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption.” And he slammed “do-nothing Democrats” who want to blame the party’s 2024 losses “on our defense of Black people and trans kids and immigrants—instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.” It’s an electrifying wake up from the “Schumer stupor” and sure to be welcomed by Democratic voters and left-leaning independents, 74 percent of whom think elected officials aren’t pushing back against Trump hard enough. Democrats should give Pritzker “a serious look as a presidential candidate,” said Perry Bacon Jr. in The Washington Post. A billionaire from a deep-blue state, he may not be the ideal nominee for 2028. But “he’s great for the party now.”…A message of “all resistance, all the time” will not fix the “working-class-size hole” in the Democratic coalition, said Ruy Teixeira in The Liberal Patriot. Freshman Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego has an approach that could do the job: The Marine veteran criticized the Biden administration for lax border enforcement, has railed against Trump’s government cuts, and is “unafraid to highlight the non-woke priorities of Latino working-class men who all want, as he put it, a ‘big-ass truck.'” Progressive primary voters may not tolerate such “apostasy,” and the mission of detoxifying the Democratic brand “may not matter” if Trump’s approval rating keeps nose-diving. But outrage alone is not a winning strategy.”