Opinion — Riley Gaines: Voters elected Democrats, but in four states they still voted to protect women's sports

In a Fox News op-ed, Riley Gaines argues that the Democratic wave hid an inconvenient result for the left: voters still rejected the progressive social agenda.

Gaines points out that voters in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington backed ballot measures protecting female athletic competition on the basis of biological sex, including in Colorado and Washington, two reliably blue states. "Yet the same electorate willing to put Democrats in positions of power also voted to reject a central pillar of the modern progressive agenda," she writes.

She notes that opponents of the girls' sports initiative reportedly raised about $4 million, with backing from unions and progressive groups including Planned Parenthood, while supporters raised about $200,000, mostly from grassroots donors. "At what point does the political left accept that this is a losing issue and give it a rest?"

"Women's sports protections are not some fringe position held exclusively by Republicans," Gaines writes. "The issue cuts across party lines, and the people who have spent years insisting otherwise have a serious problem on their hands."

This is an opinion piece. The views are the author's.