FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Almost three-quarters of voters say they believe medals awarded to biological men who beat females in sports should be given instead to the women who lost.

Female athletes worldwide have lost nearly 900 medals to transgender-identifying rivals competing against them in women’s sporting categories, according to a United Nations report released last week.

Fully 72% of voters say those medals should be awarded to the biological women who would have won them otherwise, and 68% say women’s sports records set by biological males should be thrown out so that women’s sports records are restored to biological women. 

This is according to a poll released Thursday from Napolitan News Service, which surveyed 1,000 registered voters from Oct. 28-29. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The new U.N. study demonstrates that, across 29 sports, over 600 female athletes have lost to male competitors who identify as women.

“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report says.

In America, the issue of biological males playing in girls and women’s sports is “moving the needle in some key Senate races and possibly having an impact on the presidential race,” said Scott Rasmussen, president of RMG Research, which conducted the poll on behalf of Napolitan News Service.

“Some Senate campaigns are running hard on that issue, gaining some traction,” Rasmussen told The Daily Signal. “And one of the reasons it’s effective is [that] to most people, it’s idiotic to let boys play in girls sports. It’s common sense.”

Biological males competing in girls or women’s sports is expected to be a “sleeper” issue in the Nov. 5 election across the nation. 

For instance, a debate moderator asked Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, about an ad from his opponent in Texas’ Senate race, Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, that accuses Allred of refusing “to protect the integrity of women’s and girls sports.”

In response, Allred denied what his voting record shows. He said Cruz’s attack ad was “a desperate, last-second attempt … to distract you because he can’t defend his own record.”

“Ted Cruz was running a lot of ads,” Rasmussen said of the incumbent senator’s ads directed at Allred. “His challenger felt he had to respond. And when he did, [he] kind of tried to sound like he was agreeing with Ted Cruz. The progressives attacked him.”

An ad targeting Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, argues that Brown is “too liberal for Ohio” because he voted “to let transgender biological men participate in women’s sports.”

Brown’s reelection campaign cut an ad in response saying that it’s a “total lie” to suggest that Brown had voted to allow transgender athletes to participate in girls sports. The ad also reminded voters that Ohio already banned biological males from playing girls sports, garnering Brown criticism from LGBTQ groups.

“You want to protect women, and you want to protect women’s sports, but some of the progressive Democrats have a hard time letting go of that issue,” Rasmussen said, “and so it’s something that is shaking up the race again, perhaps just on the margins.”