GOP governor gets bad news as his pet initiative fails to make the ballot

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo admitted some bad news on Friday — his pet referendum will not make it onto the ballot.

According to The Nevada Independent, Lombardo stated on social media that his ballot question restricting participation of transgender athletes in school sports will not go to voters this year, because "legal delays and uncertainty surrounding this case have made it impossible to complete the initiative process in time for the 2026 ballot."

He is likely to push for the next legislative session to take up the issue, which is likely not to go anywhere unless Republicans can break the Democratic majorities in both chambers. If that fails, he has signaled his intent to try to get it onto the 2028 ballot instead, since the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled it is a legal ballot measure.

"Female athletes deserve a permanent solution that protects female athletics," he said.

The ballot question "would have limited transgender athletes to sports based on their assigned sex at birth and required entities overseeing school sports to categorize them as male, female or coeducational," noted the report — a policy that polls in recent years show is strongly popular with voters, but that Republicans have had mixed to unclear results translating into wins at the ballot box.

Lombardo, a Republican who has on-again, off-again tried to keep President Donald Trump at arm's length in a key swing state where the president is deeply unpopular, is facing a tough re-election battle in November, and likely wanted the transgender athletics question on the ballot as a way to encourage Republican voters to turn out.

It's a common tactic used by both parties to try to push their voters to the ballot box. One of the most infamous cases was the GOP's extensive promotion of ballot questions prohibiting same-sex marriage in 2004 to drive evangelical turnout for then-President George W. Bush's re-election. Although Bush won, some experts have argued the ballot questions weren't much of a factor in the end.