Tuesday, February 11, 2025
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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Milwaukee Press Club 'Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism' 2020 & 2021 Award Winners

Why Trump Won Wisconsin

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On Tuesday morning, before the polls closed, we wrote a story called “15 Reasons Trump Will Win Wisconsin.”

We talked to literally hundreds of Wisconsin voters this election season, all over the state. As Wisconsin’s leading conservative news site and Wisconsinites ourselves, we have a close sense of the pulse of this state.

Trump won wisconsin

And win, Trump did. Wisconsin ended up putting him over the electoral map victory threshold, sending an ecstatic U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming to the podium at the Ingleside Hotel in Waukesha, where Johnson noted that the immigration chart he gave Trump saved his life, so it was fitting that Wisconsin put Trump over.

Our columnist, Terrence Wall, also wrote a column about why Trump would win. Read it here.

Trump won wisconsin

Johnson and Schimming deserve a lot of credit for Trump’s Wisconsin victory. And the crowd in Waukesha loved them for it, as they mixed with regular folks in the crowd until well past midnight. Wisconsin is never a sure thing for a Republican. We’re a quixotic state and, as the Tammy Baldwin race proved, a little Democratic trickery or Facebook censorship can flip things into the other column pretty quickly.

Trump won wisconsin

As Trump said, “It’s a new golden age for America.” And for Wisconsin, perhaps.

A lot has changed in Wisconsin since 2020, from improvements in the Republican ground game to the growth of conservative media to a strong push for early voting. There’s great enthusiasm on the right for Trump in Wisconsin right now – more than there was in 2020 – when people were fatigued. The lawfare turned that around.

Here we reprint the 15 reasons that Trump won Wisconsin:

1. The Issues Favor Trump

The top reasons Trump won here are the same reasons we think he’ll win the presidency: The economy and the border. At the end of the day, Kamala Harris has not been able to deliver a coherent message on those topics nor explain how she would be different from Joe Biden. Instead, in what may have been the key turning point in the election, Harris, who now claims she wasn’t the border czar, went on the View and said she wouldn’t do anything different.

Trump won wisconsin

The abortion issue mattered here in the state Supreme Court race but has subsequently fallen down the list of concerns because, in this state, abortion is still legal, and Republicans have managed to neutralize the issue – at least enough. It’s not dominating the narrative.

People in Wisconsin are struggling to pay their grocery bills. We spoke to one woman, a checker in a Wisconsin grocery store this summer, who vented that she couldn’t pay her rising rent costs anymore despite working two jobs. There are a lot of people like that. Democrats would have been better served to be honest about Biden’s cognitive decline when the Robert Hur report came out and there was still time for a competitive primary. They should have picked a moderate governor who could have plausibly run against the worst parts of the Biden-Harris record. She can’t. We think people will vote for their pocketbooks at the end of the day. It’s the economy, stupid, and Wisconsinites are hurting.

2. The Grassroots

For years after Scott Walker’s loss as governor, it felt like Wisconsin Republicans lacked a ground and data game, whereas the Democrats were more organized. That doesn’t feel true anymore. Republican Party chairman Brian Schimming has been all over the state drumming up the grassroots, county parties are organizing door knockers, and there are new players in this state playing a ground game. We’ve gotten numerous pieces of direct mail at our houses from conservative groups pushing Trump or Eric Hovde.

The Wisconsin Young Republicans are on fire, especially with door-knocking. The Young America’s Foundation is growing chapters throughout the state. There’s a lot of energy among Gen Zs. Americans for Prosperity, Turning Point (which is targeting people who haven’t voted in the past), WisRed, and Elon Musk are hitting this state hard. Door-knocking matters, and the amount of money Musk and Turning Point put into field workers in this state was jaw-dropping.

Trump won wisconsinMilwaukee and Dane County’s GOP parties are helmed by young, new, enthusiastic leaders, Hilario Deleon and Brandon Maly. They’re joined by veteran grassroots organizers like Kathy Kiernan and Door County chair Stephanie Soucek, who hit door-knocking hard. Orlando Owens has been doing work in the inner city. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Republicans have a ground game in Wisconsin now. Moms for Liberty education activists have worked really hard in this state, elevating the parental rights issue (Scarlett Johnson, Amber Schroeder, Amy Scott, and Bailey Walker come to mind, among many others.)

3. The Early Vote

The early vote totals are favoring Republicans. Schimming pushed “bank the vote” early on. He embraced early voting hardcore from the start. Conservatives got that message. It’s never good when you have to make up ground on election day, and that’s an advantage Democrats have enjoyed in the past in Wisconsin. No more. Check it out:

“As of 8:53 a.m. on Tuesday, the City of #Milwaukee Election Commission says it has received 106,750 absentee ballots from the 113,311 it issued. Compared to the 169,000 absentee ballots received in 2020, that’s a decrease of 36 percent,” Fox6 reported.

2020, when Biden won Wisconsin, was a really aberrant year. Republicans were caught off guard by the way Democrats loosened voting rules citing the pandemic (dropboxes, Democracy in the Park, the special voting deputies issue, etc.) No more. The early vote numbers out of Wisconsin bode well for Trump, and they must be giving Democrats heartburn.

4. The Ron Johnson Formula

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson won not that long ago. Johnson, like Trump, is an authentic, outspoken, conservative businessman concerned about the economy. He proved just two years ago that Republicans could still win Wisconsin statewide. So did John Leiber, a Republican who took the state treasurer’s office that year. The magic formula is the Johnson race. He wasn’t outspent. Johnson also ran against a historically awful Democratic opponent, Mandela Barnes, who was on video looking crazy and had a far-left record in the state Legislature. Who does that remind you of?

5. The Growth of Conservative Media

Since 2020, the reach of conservative media has grown and the reach of legacy media has declined. Conservative media is also unified behind Trump this year, whereas in the past, they were fractured. Wisconsin now has an award-winning conservative news site with wide reach (us), which started in August 2020. In addition to Wisconsin Right Now (we’ve had more than 20 million reads of our stories since 2020 and over 1-3 million engagements on Facebook each year), conservative talk radio’s reach has grown.

Once concentrated in the Milwaukee metropolitan area (where WISN 1130 AM remains an incredibly important voice for conservatives in Wisconsin), you have the great Meg Ellefson in the Wausau market and Regular Joe in Green Bay. In addition, Elon Musk created a free speech space on X, and the growth of podcasts like Megyn Kelly’s and Joe Rogan’s have exposed more people to conservative ideas and Trump without the warped media filter.

6. Jill Stein

Third parties will help Trump. Jill Stein is on the Wisconsin ballot. Democrats succeeded in unfairly kicking the Greens off in 2020 but not in 2024. In 2016, Stein got more than Trump’s margin of victory.

In 2016, the Green Party’s Jill Stein received 31,072 votes in Wisconsin. It arguably cost Hillary Clinton the State of Wisconsin because President Donald Trump won the state with fewer votes than that in 2016 (22,748 votes).

In fact, she may give the pro-Gaza wing another place to go, and there are a lot of them in Wisconsin, a state with pro-Palestinian encampments and an entrenched public university system.

7. The Minnesota Media Market

Tim Walz was a terrible pick for Kamala Harris. Wisconsinites aren’t going to vote for an ideological extremist just because he wears a flannel shirt for photo ops. And this is key: A large swath of northwestern Wisconsin is in the Minnesota media market. When one of the authors of this piece grew up in northwestern Wisconsin, the only newspaper people read was the hometown paper or the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

People in the Minnesota media market get what Walz has done with one-party control in that state, and it hasn’t been pretty. They get his ideological extremism, and they were in close enough proximity to the police precinct burning down to remember Harris pushed a rioters’ bail fund.

8. The Kenosha Riots

The Kenosha riots are still emblazoned in people’s minds in that area of the state, and it’s turned increasingly red, electing a Republican county executive. The Racine/Kenosha axis could offset erosion in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee Counties.)

9. Inner City Apathy For Harris

We went to Milwaukee’s inner city to interview random black voters about the election, and the overall trend line we discovered was total voter apathy. People weren’t excited by Trump or Harris, and they weren’t planning to vote. We found the only people in America who just didn’t give a damn. This is worse for Harris because she is not a phenomenon like Barack Obama was, and that’s her base. She doesn’t have his force of personality.

This matters because Hillary lost to Trump in Wisconsin in part because turnout in Milwaukee was down just enough in 2016 to stop her from offsetting Trump’s rural gains. Harris seems to desperately know this, which is why they have trotted out Obama and a bunch of celebrity rappers in the final days here, but Cardi B isn’t a big sell to independent or rural voters, and the musical ploy insulted some black voters we know. Hillary ran an urban message too (remember her standing with the “Mothers of the Movement” as cities burned?) How did that work out?

10. The Black & Hispanic Male Vote for Trump

Trump has gained support from a larger number of black and Hispanic voters who are heading to the polls, especially men.

11. Men! (And Brett Favre!)

This is a state of hunters, fishermen, guys who can fix their own cars, folks who work with their hands, and Packers fans. Brett Favre’s endorsement is not insignificant, and he’s been texting voters. In contrast, Harris has given men zero reason to vote for her. The gender gap will be enormous (and contrary to the rhetoric of the left, a lot of women do like Donald Trump. They just tend to be married.)

Harris running around in a pantsuit rambling about Hitler reminds one of Hillary. At times, they almost seem like they’ve morphed into the same person. This doesn’t mean Wisconsin men wouldn’t vote for a female president. Of course, they would. But they’re not going to vote for a far-left, incoherent, and flip-flopping scold who insults them.

12. Polling Error Favoring Trump

Harris has more ways to fail tonight than Trump. She has to take Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and he just needs one (presuming he gets other states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona, which look more certain.) He’s expanded the map, and she’s fighting on many fronts. That matters. When it comes to Wisconsin polling (and MI and PA), all of the polling error needs to go in her direction.

Yet historically, the polls have undercounted Trump. The polls have tightened in his favor, and the betting markets are overwhelmingly predicting Trump. Yes, it’s close, but it’s hard to see a scenario where they’ve undercounted her. In Wisconsin, we all remember the notorious Marquette poll that had Hillary up by six going into election day, and then Trump won it. Marquette has had some outliers again this election season that don’t seem plausible.

13. Other Competitive Races

We have a competitive Senate race that has turned out a lot of voters, we have competitive legislative races (because Democrats nefariously redrew the maps to create them), and we have a competitive congressional race. A lot of money went into these races, and that helped lift other Republicans.

14. Trump’s Appeal to Rural Voters

In 2016, we spoke to rural voters who had never voted before. One logger in Crawford County said he had only voted for two people in his life- Trump and the local sheriff, who was his neighbor. This is still true. They were the “Forgotten Men.” Trump brings out disenfranchised, new voters who haven’t historically voted. We’re a rural state in lots of ways.

15. Our State’s Opposition to Lawfare

In Wisconsin, we have a sense of justice and fair play. Democrats trying to jail their political opponent, bankrupt him, gag him, and tie him up in courtrooms has energized support for Trump here. The assassination attempts have as well.

Trump to Stop U.S. Production of Pennies

President Donald Trump said late Sunday that he has ordered the U.S. Treasury Department to stop producing pennies.

Pennies famously cost more than a penny to produce, putting them in the crosshairs of Trump and DOGE’s government efficiency push.

"For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents," Trump wrote on TruthSocial, his social media site. "This is so wasteful! I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.

Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," Trump added.

DOGE posted on X last month critical of the penny’s cost, hinting at its fate.

"The penny costs over 3 cents to make and cost US taxpayers over $179 million in FY2023," DOGE wrote on X. "The Mint produced over 4.5 billion pennies in FY2023, around 40% of the 11.4 billion coins for circulation produced. Penny (or 3 cents!) for your thoughts."

According to the U.S. Mint’s latest report, the cost of all coins is on the rise. From the Mint’s 2024 report:

"FY 2024 unit costs increased for all circulating denominations compared to last year. The penny’s unit cost increased 20.2 percent, the nickel’s unit cost increased by 19.4 percent, the dime’s unit cost increased by 8.7 percent, and the quarter-dollar’s unit cost increased by 26.2 percent. The unit cost for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year."

Lake Sturgeon Protection

Wisconsin Lawmakers Want State Exempt From Any Lake Sturgeon Protection

(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin lawmakers have filed legislation to protect sturgeon spearing in the state.

The bill would exempt Wisconsin from any listing of lake sturgeon under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The group, including Republican Congressmen Glenn Grothman and Mike Gallagher filed what they called the Sturgeon Protected and Exempt from Absurd Regulations Act.

Reps. Tony Wied, Grothman and Tom Tiffany introduced the legislation on Friday.

The bill is in response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducting a status assessment of lake sturgeon after the group was sued by an animal rights group in 2018 attempting to have lake sturgeon listed as threatened.

“Sturgeon-spearing is crucial to maintaining Wisconsin’s lake sturgeon population which is why we must take proactive steps to ensure that we are exempt from any action to list the lake sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act,” Tiffany said about the bill. “Wisconsin is a global leader in sturgeon management, and the SPEAR Act will protect this unique and long-standing tradition for years to come.”

https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-118hr7037ih

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it will not add the lake sturgeon to the endangered species list last year.

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2023 pointing out the impact a listing could have on Wisconsin and how the state has worked to manage the lake sturgeon population.

The letter was signed by Gallagher and Grothman along with Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil, Tiffany, Scott Fitzgerald and Derrick Van Orden.

“Wisconsin does not list lake sturgeon endangered nor threatened in state waters, and has in place a sturgeon program considered a world model for effective management and recovery, and as such should be exempt from any Federal ESA listing of the species”, said Dr. Ron Bruch, former Chief of Fisheries and Leader of the statewide Sturgeon Management Team for the WI Department of Natural Resources.

dpi wisconsin

Wisconsin Republicans Call for Transparency, Fairness in School Referendums

(The Center Square) – A pair of Wisconsin legislators are pushing for more transparency in the school referendum process in the state.

The proposal comes after 169 out of 241 school ballot referenda in 2024 elections were approved by voters at a cost of $4.4 billion to taxpayers.

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, and Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, proposed bills that would require local governments and school boards to include information on the ballot about how much the difference in taxes would for a median-valued home in the community resulting from the referendum.

“Referendums are opportunities for voters to make important decisions about how their tax dollars should be spent,” Allen said. “Good decision making requires transparency in the information provided to voters.”

A second bill would protect school districts from losing state funding when other districts go to referendum.

“It was a shock to many to learn that the massive school referendum passed in Milwaukee would take away vital state funding from over 300 other school districts,” Allen said. “It’s only fair that large referendums in one district should not negatively affect other school districts.”

A Legislative Fiscal Bureau report last year analyzed by Badger Institute showed that a $252 million Milwaukee referendum would cost Madison, Waukesha and Racine $2 million a year in state funding while Appleton and West Bend would lose more than $1 million each year.

The impact is due to tax base equalization, which means that “a school district's property tax rate does not depend on the property tax base of the district, but rather on the level of expenditures.”

The bill states that any school referendum of over $50 million dollars should be paid for by the district that votes for the referendum instead of taking away money from shared school funding.

Tammy Baldwin Supports Transgender Children Surgeries

Trump Order Forces Many Medical Providers to End Transgender Procedures on Children

Late last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting “transgender” procedures on youth, including puberty blockers and surgeries such as mastectomies and penile reconstruction. In response, many medical providers including some of the top in the nation for performing them have announced they will comply with the EO.

The EO states that “it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

Last year, nonprofit Do No Harm unveiled a database reporting that between 2019-2023, there were 13,000 gender reassignment procedures performed throughout the nation on minors; those procedures included both surgeries and prescriptions. Among the top states in the nation for those procedures was Ohio, which has since enacted legislation banning such procedures.

The Center Square reached out to more than two dozen medical providers throughout the country based on data provided by Do No Harm regarding their total billing, prescriptions, and surgeries performed, asking them how they planned to respond to Trump’s EO.

Among those to announce they were suspending all procedures was Seattle-based UW Medicine, which stated in an email that it was “committed to supporting the clinical care needs and well-being of all our patients, as well as complying with state and federal law. We are currently in compliance and are also continuing to provide our full spectrum of services.”

Seattle Children’s Hospital ranked among the top in the nation for puberty blocker prescriptions; though it did not respond to request for comment, there have been reports that it has suspended those services, and its webpage for gender affirmation surgery has since been removed.

MultiCare Mary Bridge Children's Hospital located in Tacoma wrote in an email that while it does not perform gender-affirming surgeries, “we are aware of the executive order that calls for an end to gender-affirming medical treatments for children and adolescents under 19 and are continuing to monitor the situation. Executive orders are directives to federal agencies on how they will operate. Much of what’s been issued has not yet become rules for us to evaluate.”

D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital released a statement that it will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or hormone therapy, noting that prior to the EO it did not perform gender affirming surgeries.

Coolie Dickinson Hospital based out of Massachusetts wrote in an email that it “is reviewing to see what, if any, actual impact the executive orders might have and would follow up, if there is any impact. In the meantime, the care we provide to our community continues as normal at this time.”

University of Michigan Health stated that its “teams are assessing the potential impact of this executive order on our healthcare services and the communities we serve. Our priority remains delivering high-quality, accessible care to our patients while ensuring compliance with the law."

Another medical provider to cease gender transition services for anyone under 19 is VCU Health and Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Virginia, which wrote in a statement that it was “in response to an Executive Order issued by the White House on January 28, 2025, and related state guidance received by VCU on January 30, 2025. Our doors remain open to all patients and their families for screening, counseling, mental health care and all other health care needs.”

UCSF’s Gender Affirming Care in San Francisco has also ended services for patients under 19, a policy also adopted by Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York simply wrote in an email that “we will keep you posted once we have an update on this matter.”

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia both said they were reviewing their services.

Several hospitals and hospital systems who performed these procedures on minors did not respond to The Center Square's requests for comment on the executive order. The Center Square will continue to seek clarification on whether they plan to comply with the order.

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Bill Would Limit Which Flags Can Fly at Wisconsin Government Buildings

(The Center Square) – A new Wisconsin bill would limit government-sponsored divisions from flying certain flags.

The bill prevents flags other than the U.S. flag, Wisconsin flag, local flags and U.S. armed forces and POW/MIA flags from being flown or hung outside any state or local institution.

The bill was introduced by a group of Republicans including Rep. Jerry L. O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, Dave Murphy, R- Greenville, Rob Brooks, R-Saukville, Joy Goeben, R-Hobart and State Sens. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, and Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee.

The bill points to particular flags that have led to divisiveness including those of political movements or social causes, such as MAGA, pride, heterosexual, CSA, Second Amendment rights, BLM, ALL Lives Matter, Antifa, Pro-Life, Pro-Choice and others.

The bill doesn’t prohibit any private citizens or Native American tribes from flying any flags.

“Government should not be in the business of choosing sides, or even giving the appearance of choosing sides,” said Feyen. “This bill simply ensures that the first impression of all government buildings and institutions is neutral, offering equal treatment to all Wisconsinites.”

The lawmakers said that they were asked to act on the divisiveness by Wisconsin residents.

“Flags on government buildings are not supposed to be divisive and should not support one ideology over another,” said Sen. Tomczyk, “When the governor uses flags flown over the State Capitol and other taxpayer-funded buildings to divide the people of Wisconsin, it is shameful and frankly, embarrassing. It is time to end this nonsense.”

Illegal Border Crossings Buses Carrying Migrants Northern Border Illegal Border Crossers Immigration Parole Illegal Immigrant Convicts Biden’s Immigration Policies

Republican Bill Would Block Illegal Immigrants From Receiving Tax Breaks

Immigrants residing illegally within the U.S. could no longer receive child tax credits or tax breaks for low income earners if the Safeguarding American Workers’ Benefits Act becomes law.

Reintroduced by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., the legislation would require both parents and children to have Social Security numbers that are valid for employment in order to claim the Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., has introduced a companion bill in the House.

The U.S. Joint Committee on Taxation estimates Hyde-Smith's legislation could save nearly $28 billion over ten years.

“I welcome President [Donald] Trump’s intent to target wasteful spending and enforce immigration laws,” Hyde-Smith said Tuesday. “The environment is certainly friendlier now to adopt legislation that saves billions of dollars and ensures that only U.S citizens and persons authorized to work can benefit from the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit.”

While the CTC and EITC should only go to those with SSNs valid for employment, certain loopholes allow some people who do not meet the requirements to receive the federal benefits. The bill would close those loopholes.

Only weeks into Trump’s second presidency, Republicans and the Commander in Chief have already implemented or introduced other anti-illegal immigration measures, including reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy and authorizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to round up and deport migrants residing in the U.S.

The Safeguarding American Workers’ Benefits Act is also part of Republicans’ federal cost-cutting efforts to finance the extension of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $4.6 trillion over the next ten years.

“I will work to ensure that [the] Safeguarding American Workers’ Benefits Act is considered as part of the debate to extend and improve on the Trump tax cuts that expire this year,” Hyde-Smith said.

Riley Gaines

Nearly 80% of Americans Don’t Want Men Playing in Women’s Sports

Surveying nearly an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, a poll taken by the New York Times and polling company Ipsos showed that the majority of Americans do not want transgender-identifying men in women’s sports.

Of those surveyed, 79% answered that men “should not” compete in women’s sports when posed with the following question: “thinking about transgender female athletes – meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female – do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women's sports?”

This number has increased from a 2023 The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll that reported 67% of American voters were collectively against men playing in women’s sports.

When the 2025 New York Times-Ipsos poll is broken up along political divides, 94% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats, and 64% of Independents or “something else” answered that men should not be in women’s sports.

The highest bracket that believes men should be allowed to play in women’s sports are Democrats, equaling 31%.

The results of this poll came just before President Trump declared there are only two sexes in America, male and female. The survey was taken from Jan. 2 to 11.

When reached for comment, Ipsos vice president for public affairs Mallory Newall repeated the question posed to respondents and said “we cannot speculate on what people meant or interpreted beyond the wording of the question.”

Ipsos is a global market research and polling company, according to its description in the poll document.

Men in women’s sports has become an issue in recent years, with high school girls such as Payton McNabb getting injured by a male competitor on a volleyball team and former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines becoming an activist defending women's-only sports after placing second to a transgender female swimming competitor.

The Independent Women’s Forum senior legal advisor Beth Parlato told The Center Square that “without female-only athletics, the safety of girls and women is endangered, and men will dominate the playing field, which unfairly takes away awards, opportunities, scholarships and roster spots.”

The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) is a nonprofit women’s organization “dedicated to developing and advancing policies” that “enhance people’s freedom, opportunities, and well-being,” according to its website. IWF has taken a staunch stance against men competing in women’s sports.

“Males and females possess unique and immutable biological differences,” Parlato said. “With respect to sports, males have biological athletic advantages over females, as the average male is stronger, bigger and faster.

“Furthermore, allowing males in female-only spaces is an invasion of a women’s right to privacy and threatens women’s safety and well-being,” Parlato said.

“Defining sex-based terms in law and policy is essential to protect women’s sports and spaces,” Parlato said.

Trump’s executive order on two sexes provides “needed clarity to preserve the legal existence of women as distinct from men,” Parlato said. “Protect women’s sports bills at both the federal and state levels must be codified into law to ensure equal athletic opportunities for women and girls."

The NYT-Ipsos survey was “of the American general population” aged 18 and up, interviewing a total of 2,128 people; 1,022 of those polled were Republican/Lean Republican, 1,025 were Democrat/Lean Democrat, and 81 were Independent or “something else.”

In a vein similar to transgender-identifying men playing in women’s sports, the poll showed that the majority of Americans are not for sex changes in minors, either.

Respondents were asked “thinking about medications used for transgender care, do you think doctors should be able to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs or hormone therapy to minors between the ages of 10 and 18?”

A total of 71% of Americans do not think anyone under 18 should have access to such drugs or therapy.

Shortly after this poll, Trump signed an executive order “restricting transgender drugs and surgeries for minors,” The Center Square previously reported.

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