In Other News · United States

Source: Axios

An intra-party debate over how best to deflect Republican attacks on transgender issues has Democrats angrily sniping at each other just weeks out from the midterm elections.Why it matters: This is not the position Democrats hoped to be in two years after their 2024 election loss, which many in the party attributed to being outflanked by GOP messaging on trans issues."People feel you need to respond in some way to some of these attacks because people didn't do it two years ago," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a co-chair of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, told Axios."But you also need to realize what we're winning on right now," Pocan added, saying Democratic candidates need to strike "a balance.""Silence is deadly, and I think we played that out in 2024," said Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at the centrist think tank Third Way, citing polling that found most voters believed Democrats "thought there should be no rules in sports, no rules around health care."Driving the news: Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) set off a firestorm in her district and on Capitol Hill in September by stating in a direct-to-camera ad that she "voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our...