Change of Power in Texas
In Cypress, a suburb of Houston, Texas, known for attracting families with high-quality education, Republicans have banned textbook sections on climate change, diversity, and vaccines during their two-year control of the school board.
This month, Democrats gained a majority by winning three seats on the school board, ending conservative rule.
Scope of Victories
From Texas to Pennsylvania and Ohio, Democratic-backed candidates ran successful campaigns in some of the largest school systems in the country and political battlegrounds. They emphasized test scores and school bus safety rather than debates over which bathrooms transgender students use and book bans in school libraries.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats won at least two dozen seats on school boards, according to estimates from the progressive recruiting group Pipeline Fund. Besides Texas, Republicans lost seats in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and on the national battleground of Pennsylvania.
Fatigue from Culture Wars
"People just want their school boards to be boring again. They want normalcy. When the board was taken over by a super-partisan extremist majority, people across the political spectrum were upset."
– said Leslie Gilmart, one of the newly elected members in Cypress-Fairbanks.
New Democratic Strategy
After years of failures in school board elections, especially in the post-COVID era of educational culture wars, Democrats were motivated to recruit candidates to run more professional campaigns with national funding.
"This is no longer just a parent committee. You can't do this just on hope. Hope is not a strategy."
– said Odus Eubagaru, campaign manager for the Democratic slate of candidates in Cypress-Fairbanks.
Roots of Culture Wars
The issues that prompted the Republican takeover of school boards emerged from grassroots organizations like Moms for Liberty, which formed to oppose school closures and mask mandates for children during COVID-19. Attempting to control school boards across the country, these groups argued that public school programs had become too progressive.
Parents were also motivated by battles over teaching "critical race theory," including transgender students in school sports, and allowing students to choose their preferred pronouns. Many book bans were based on the removal of sexual content from school libraries, which opponents deemed inappropriate for children.
Changing Priorities
Now, the culture wars that Republicans leveraged to gain power at national and local levels are losing significance for voters concerned about rising costs. Only 4 percent of Virginia voters named transgender policies in schools as a top issue in this year's gubernatorial election, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
Culture battles have sharply decreased in 2024 compared to their peak the previous year, according to an analysis by the Cato Institute. Neil McCluskey, director of the institute's Center for Educational Freedom, said that 2025 is expected to have about the same number of battles as last year, although the conflict remains higher than before COVID.
"COVID is over, and dissatisfaction with school districts has subsided. It hasn't disappeared completely, but it has decreased. I think we're more at a level of fatigue."
– noted McCluskey.
Success of Pipeline Fund
The election of Democrats to school boards is a primary goal of the Pipeline Fund, a liberal group focused on lower-level elections. This organization recruited and trained school board candidates in 12 states. In Pennsylvania, 43 out of 49 of their candidates won in 15 districts, including some rural, conservative areas like Lancaster County. In Ohio, 18 out of 22 candidates won.
"When the Democratic brand suffers, you can show people what a Democrat really looks like in Mobile, Alabama, and Anchorage, Alaska."
– said Denise Feriozzi, founder and executive director of the group.
National Context
"National politics is very illustrative, but local politics is very personal. One of the messages that really resonated with voters was that we are not bringing any national political agenda to the school board."
– said Daniel Kimiketa, one of the Democrats elected to the Central Bucks school board.
Further down the ballots, Republicans also faced setbacks with cultural messages that had helped achieve past victories. Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears spent millions on anti-transgender messaging in her unsuccessful race against Spanberger.
"Republicans thought this was an effective strategy because it represented their party's values, like 'We care about you, and Democrats care about this niche group.' And I think that narrative has now flipped."
– said Chris Cormier Maggiano, board member of the pro-LGBTQ+ PAC Fight for Our Rights.
