Tuesday's primaries showed conservative mothers can win school board races with a little coordination and funding. With the spread of woke culture in the nation's schools, some conservatives finally realize just how important the culture war is. White privilege, multiple genders, eleventy million pronouns, transgender bathrooms, and furries often dominate school curricula and culture. Moms for Liberty, the 1776 Project PAC, and Governor Ron DeSantis answered the call for those who want to return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic in Tuesday's primaries. They joined forces and flipped multiple school boards to a conservative majority.
Conservative mothers are now winning back territory in the woke culture war being waged on America's children. Motivated parents are scrambling to regain the right to have a meaningful voice in their children's education. Mothers are fast becoming the most powerful agents of change in the populist movement.
There has been a noticeable decline in the traditional American family since the 1960s as a stabilizing force in American culture. While the pandemic was, by almost any measure, a complete hellscape, it delivered an unintended gift to many American parents. With their children suddenly at home, many parents began to see how children were negatively shaped by the very institutions they had previously trusted. Families had either underestimated or allowed public education and the prevailing culture to be dominated by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Social Emotional Learning propagated by the left.
It was during the pandemic that parents began to proactively reclaim their roles in the lives of their children. Parents who had previously shied away from being vocal or actively engaged began to see their children were being indoctrinated, often without their consent, with concepts that were contrary to their core beliefs. As a result, beginning in the late spring of 2020, many parents began to mobilize and interact with school boards to question the curricula. Wins in school board races like the ones in Florida and other states are the product of this grassroots movement.
Florida now enjoys a vibrant populist/conservative movement in part because of its governor, Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has been a staunch advocate for the rights of parents to make their own decisions on mandates and education. DeSantis' endorsements helped multiple school board candidates. With his backing, Bridget Ziegler, Robyn Marinelli, and Timothy Enos flipped their school board in Sarasota. Prior to the election, the Sarasota school board had a 3-2 progressive majority.
DeSantis's rapid response director, Christina Pushaws, said:
"Today, @RonDeSantisFL endorsed candidates won and flipped the school board, so it's now 4-1 anti-woke indoctrination and pro parental rights."
25 of the 30 conservative school board candidates endorsed by DeSantis won seats across the state. Pushaw tweeted Florida is now "the state where woke goes to die." Casey DeSantis tweeted it is "just the beginning. Mamas stood strong, and together we elected school board members who will put students' rights first and protect parents' rights."
Also, in Florida, backed by the 1776 Project PAC, Roberto Alonso and Monica Colucci won their school board elections. They flipped their school board in Miami Dade county, making it now the largest county in America with a conservative school board majority. All three 1776 PAC endorsed candidates in Clay County, Florida, also won. Erin Skipper, Michele Hanson, and Ashley Gilhousen flipped the board to a 3-2 conservative majority. Christia Li Roberts, Jennifer Russell, and Amy Pritchett flipped the Martin County school board to a conservative majority with the help of the 1776 Project PAC.
Clay County was one of the districts referenced by Christopher Rufo's reporting where a father testified his 12-year-old daughter was transitioned "without his knowledge and affirmed a male name and pronouns," allegedly contributing to "her attempted suicide in a school bathroom" in January of 2022. The family filed a lawsuit against the school district, which disputes the family's claims. The PAC helped to flip five school boards from a progressive to a conservative majority.
Moms for Liberty/Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich
Moms for Liberty (MFL) was a pivotal force behind the wins. The organization was officially founded by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich in 2021 and has grown exponentially. Both mothers served on school boards from 2016 to 2020. The group now has more than 100,000 members in about 200 chapters in 38 states. MFL partnered with the leadership institute to vet, endorse, train, and teach candidates how to win their races. Moms for Liberty backed 65 candidates total in Florida's primary election. 43 won, and 14 are moving on to runoffs in the general election.
Justice appeared on Wednesday's War Room to celebrate the victories with two other mothers who won their elections. She explained that mothers began to see their positions with school boards being denigrated. Justice said:
"Parents were not embraced. They went to school boards and spoke. They sent emails. And so people will ask me, you know, what was it that really ignited parents' concern? All of these things made them worried. But the biggest thing was going to elected officials and to these school board bodies and then being ignored, having mics cut off and parents saying, wait a second, we're talking about the most important thing in my life, my child, and I'm telling you that I'm concerned about some things that are happening with them, and you're ignoring me."
April Carney won her seat in Duval County, as did Charlotte Joyce. When asked by Bannon why she and other mothers are "fighting for this concept called parental rights." Carney's answer was simple and direct:
"It's just having the ability as a parent to make your own choices for your children. I mean, it's that simple. It shouldn't be such a hard thing to fight for. We should be working in conjunction with public education so that parents should have the ability to make decisions with our educators."
Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project PAC wants to take these victories to all 50 states. The PAC already has an impressive list of endorsements and wins in 9 states; Florida and Texas in 2022 and Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Virginia, Ohio, and New Jersey in 2021. Very few of their endorsed candidates lost their races. Candidates running for office can apply for their endorsement on the website. They believe the wins will cause a ripple effect and will help wherever they are needed.
1776 Project PAC/Flipping School Boards in All 50 States
The 1776 Project PAC has already indirectly impacted a curriculum in Texas. The Grapevine-Colleyville, Texas school board voted 4-3 on Tuesday to "ban CRT, ban boys from using the girl's bathroom, and to not require teachers to use preferred pronouns." Just last May, the PAC helped elect Tammy Nakamura to the school board, and "she was the tie-breaking vote." On Tuesday, another candidate endorsed by the PAC won his race. Ryan Walters, a candidate for state schools superintendent, won his primary runoff in Oklahoma. Walters won 53% of the vote.
Funding from PACs and other organizations is often critical to putting wins on the board. Without support and funding, it can be very difficult to win school board seats, especially in deep blue counties. In Nashville's August primary, the Davidson County Republican Party (DCRP) rounded up four candidates to run in the deep blue county. It was the first time in history the DCRP encouraged candidates to declare Party, and the first time there was a concerted effort to vet and support candidates. The Republican Party, however, donated a fraction of the money raised by the county's Democrats. The Davidson County Democratic Party executive committee poured $70,000 into the four races, and all four progressive candidates won.
Bridget Ziegler/Sarasota
As with many races across the nation, election day proved to be the critical make-or-break for these mothers. Bridget Ziegler, who won a seat on the Sarasota school board, stated:
"[We] had a huge surge on election day. On election day, she outperformed the Democrats 3 to 1. It was an earthquake yesterday. It is an amazing moment for our Republic. This shows that the grassroots is where the power is, and that should be where the power is and that everyone needs to [rise up]. There was a massive rejection of the woke ideology. People are tired of their kids being exploited for anyone political. Parents are tired of the left's political agenda, and parents rose up. I'm proud to be a part of that."
Ziegler has been at this for a while, though. According to her website, Bridget has served as a Parent Advocate on the Sarasota County School Board since 2014. She was elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2018 by Sarasota voters.
