Tuesday was a rough night for conservatives. Democrats took the House and the Senate, and the new Congress gets sworn in January 3.
But the same night produced one of the best results conservatives have had in years, and it came from the voters who handed Democrats their wave.
Washington is one of the bluest states in the country. On Tuesday, Washington voters passed Initiative 638, which keeps biological males out of girls' school sports. As of Wednesday evening it was winning 56.6% to 43.4%, and the Associated Press has called it. It carried 36 of the state's 39 counties.
Under I-638, any student who wants to play on a girls' team needs a statement from a health care provider confirming her biological sex. It goes in with the sports physical.
The night didn't go to Republicans otherwise. Shasti Conrad, the state Democratic Party chair, called it "one of the best election nights in my lifetime."
She's right about that. Democrats had a great night in Washington, and so did the girls.
Colorado voted the same way. Proposition 134 requires school and college teams to be designated male, female or coed, with students playing on the team that matches their biological sex. On Thursday it led 52.7% to 47.3% with about 87% of the vote counted. Colorado voters also look likely to pass Proposition 135, which bans sex-change surgeries on minors.
Colorado hasn't elected a Republican governor since 2002. Its voters still drew the line at boys on girls' teams.
The results from Arizona and Nebraska weren't close. Arizona's Proposition 318 passed with nearly 59%. In Nebraska, Initiative 442 writes sex-based sports into the state constitution, and it won 68% to 32%.
In June, the Supreme Court said states can do this. On Tuesday, voters in four states said they want to.
Washington voters didn't need a poll to make up their minds. They had already watched what happened at Camas High School this fall.
Logan Mihailoff, a biological male, began the cross-country season on the boys' junior varsity team. At a September 5 race, he finished 76th.
A few weeks later he switched to the girls' team.
At a dual meet against Battle Ground in October, nearly half the Camas girls walked off the starting line rather than race him. Later he finished second at the girls' district championship, ahead of two of the girls who had protested and in front of girls trying to qualify for state. Parents say 18 girls have quit the Camas team.
Camas is in Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez's district. Before the election, the Democrat said she opposed I-638 as written. "I think this ballot initiative is going to open up more vulnerability, more problems than it is going to solve," she said. She said she'd rather leave it to local communities.
Camas was one of those local communities, and it put a boy on the girls' team.
Gluesenkamp Perez kept her seat Tuesday, and on the same ballot her voters overruled her on I-638.
Frances Staudt, a Tumwater High School athlete, became the face of the I-638 campaign. When the results came in, she told supporters, "You all stood behind me in this fight and for the girls of Washington."
Brian Heywood, the founder of Let's Go Washington, the group that put I-638 on the ballot, called the vote "a big bellwether for the state." His message to female athletes on election night was "To every female athlete who wondered whether her voice mattered: tonight, Washington heard you."
Democrats will run Congress in January, which will feel like a threat to a lot of parents. But undoing a voter-passed initiative in a blue state is a different fight. Democrats would be going against their own voters, and the Supreme Court has already ruled against them.
Heywood made a promise to supporters on Tuesday night: "I'm not going anywhere."
