Fox News released a new national poll on April 22. It shows Democrats leading Republicans on transgender issues by 13 points. It shows less than 1 percent of voters — a figure that rounds to zero in the topline — naming transgender issues or “wokeness” as the most important problem facing the country, even when the poll lumped those two topics into a single response category. And it shows Donald Trump’s approval rating at 42 percent, against 58 percent disapproval.
In February, I wrote about a Fox poll released in late January. That poll reported Democrats leading Republicans on trans issues by 22 points — the largest partisan gap Fox measured on any topic — but marked questions 21 through 31 “held for future release.” Every other question in the release came out with full party, age, and education breakdowns. The ones Fox held were the ones that would have shown the demographic shape of the 22-point Democratic lead.
The April poll is different. Conducted April 17–20, 2026, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), with a sample of 1,001 registered voters and a margin of error of 3.0 percentage points. The trans crosstabs are in this release.
Democrats lead Republicans on transgender issues 56–43. The Democratic advantage is larger than on the economy (+4), larger than on inflation (+8), smaller than on healthcare (+21), smaller than on climate (+29), smaller than on abortion (+18). The trans-issues gap has moved from the largest partisan gap in Fox’s January poll to one of several Democratic-advantage issues in the April poll — not because Republicans are gaining ground on trans issues, but because they are now losing on nearly everything.
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The real story is Trump’s collapse
Donald Trump’s personal standing has collapsed.
His approval is 42–58. Strong disapproval is 45 percent — nearly twice his strong approval of 23 percent. Asked whether the Trump administration has been “competent and effective in managing the federal government,” 56 percent say no. Asked whether Trump has the judgment to serve effectively as president, 57 percent say no. Temperament, 60 percent no. Mental soundness, 55 percent no. Whether Trump cares about people like them, 63 percent no.
The environment underneath him is worse. On the economy Trump is at 34–66. On inflation, 28–72. Government spending, 33–67. Foreign policy, 40–60. His only issue above water, among the eight handling questions measured, is border security, at 53–47. Seventy-three percent of voters say economic conditions are “only fair” or “poor.” Seventy percent say the economy is getting worse. Sixty-two percent say current grocery prices are a major problem for their family. Sixty percent say the same about gas prices. Fifty-five percent about healthcare costs. Fifty-two percent about housing.
And the generic congressional ballot, which in Fox’s January survey was already a Democratic +5, now has Democrats at 52, Republicans at 47. Five points again.
This is the environment in which Fox published the trans crosstabs.
The question the right has answered for everyone
The headline is question 25.
Fox asked a version of a question pollsters have been fielding for nearly a century: “What do you think is the most important issue facing the country today?” Voters named inflation (26%), the economy (17%), political leadership and corruption (13%), Iran and war (11%), political division and the preservation of democracy (9%), immigration and border security (8%), healthcare (3%), homelessness (3%), government spending (2%), and climate (1%).
Fox combined “wokeness” and “transgender issues” into a single response category. That combined category rounded to zero percent.
The rounding is doing real work. No demographic subgroup in Fox’s crosstabs exceeded 1 percent on the combined “wokeness / transgender issues” category. The 1-percent readings were scattered — women, Hispanic voters, suburban voters, voters under 45, a few Republican-leaning subgroups, and “very conservative” respondents. Among Democrats, independents, moderates, men, rural voters, Black voters, and voters over 65, the finding rounded to zero or registered as no respondents at all.
That is a striking result in its own right. Fox’s pollsters put their thumb on the scale by combining the right’s two favorite culture-war categories into a single response option, which should inflate the reading. It still rounds to zero.
This is the issue the Republican Party built its 2024 ad strategy around. Republicans spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads attacking trans rights in the 2024 cycle, per AdImpact data reported by the Washington Post’s Casey Parks — a figure that excludes cable and streaming. In the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race, eight-figure anti-trans ad spending was deployed against Abigail Spanberger; she won by 15 points, the largest Democratic gubernatorial margin in Virginia since 1961.
Even with $215 million in network TV. Even with eight-figure state-race spending. Even with an administration that made it a signature. Even with the “wokeness” and “transgender” categories bundled in Fox’s own Q25 to inflate the result. Less than one (1) percent of voters tell Fox’s pollsters this is the top issue facing the country.
The honest part of the data
Fox asked voters what is the one issue Democrats should talk about less. The answers are worth looking at directly.
“Culture Issues,” at 19 percent, is the single biggest “talk about less” category for Democrats — a Fox-constructed bucket that includes transgender issues, LGBTQ, DEI, racism, gender, and wokeness. It is ahead of Donald Trump (16 percent), immigration and transgender issues individually (both 11 percent), abortion (5 percent), and inflation (2 percent). Trump is a person, not an issue; the comparison that matters is the 19 percent on culture as a bucket.
Within that bucket, transgender issues specifically came in at 11 percent — tied with immigration as the largest single-issue response. Eight percent of Democrats themselves — Fox’s own Democratic respondents — say their party should talk about transgender issues less. Nine percent of 2024 Harris voters say the same.
The honest read requires separating two findings in the same survey. Voters trust Democrats on trans issues by 13 points. Voters also want Democrats to talk about trans issues less. Both numbers are true and they do not contradict each other. Voters are telling the party they agree with to stop litigating a topic the other party has spent five years forcing into every news cycle. That is a fatigue signal. It is the measurement of a manufactured-discourse cycle reaching the point where the audience it was aimed at stops paying attention — including the audience that has always been on the trans-friendly side.
The right has spent two cycles confusing fatigue with persuasion. They see a poll that says “stop talking about trans issues” and read it as an instruction to keep talking about trans issues. The volume is self-reinforcing: the more the right pushes, the more the discourse fatigues, the more voters say stop, the more the right interprets the signal as proof the issue is working. The signal silence would produce is identical.
A Democratic party that reads the 11 percent correctly makes fewer speeches specifically framed around trans rights and more policy work that includes trans people inside larger questions of economic and healthcare access — without concessions on substance. The 13-point lead on trans issues holds only if the substance holds. A party that leads by 13 on trans issues does not need to keep litigating them on the stump. It needs to govern.
The part that is not in the poll
The Republican Party spent five years building an anti-trans narrative machine — more than $215 million in 2024 TV ads, more than 760 anti-trans state bills filed in 2025 alone, and a federal administration that has made trans-targeted executive orders and agency policies a signature of its second term. Measured by its most favorable indicator, Fox News’s own polling, the machine now delivers a 13-point deficit on the topic it built itself around, less than 1 percent share of voter concern, and a general-election environment in which the party is losing nearly every issue that isn’t border security.
The messaging strategy did not save them from the economy. The messaging strategy, measured by Fox’s own crosstabs, did not even do the thing it was built for. Fox published the numbers this week because the numbers are now indistinguishable from the rest of the collapse.
Less than one percent.
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