For Republicans around the country, Tuesday’s midterms were a disappointment. For Republicans in Florida, the news couldn’t get much better.
At the top of the ticket, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio cruised to blowout re-election victories, while both chambers of the state legislature remained firmly in GOP hands.
But at the grassroots level — where political meets the personal — the victory was even stronger.
As Fox News noted Thursday, all six of the school board candidates DeSantis had endorsed going into runoff elections on Tuesday won their seats, with one of the victors telling “Fox & Friends First” that it was DeSantis that made the difference.
“The support I got from Governor DeSantis is what put us over the edge,” Cindy Spray, who was running for school board in Manatee County, on Florida’s gulf coast, told co-host Ainsley Earhardt.
“His view of how we need to stay back to the basics of education aligned with what I had viewed. And of course, my grandchildren. You have kids in school, you want to make sure that we’re getting the education system that we’re actually expecting from the public schools back to the basics and… supporting parental rights.”
An incumbent school board from Florida’s Atlantic coast, on the other side of the state, agreed.
“Governor DeSantis’ education plan aligns with the work that I had been doing all along on the school board,” Indian River County’s Jackie Rosario told Earhardt, “So it makes sense to endorse me, and I’m grateful for his endorsement, and I’m just happy that we won.”
Tuesday’s victories were just the latest wins for DeSantis when it comes to education. Before the August primary elections as the Miami Herald reported, DeSantis endorsed 30 candidates for school board statewide: 19 won, five lost, and six went to runoff elections. On Tuesday, DeSantis swept the runoffs.
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Florida school board races are officially non-partisan, but there are few topics more inherently political than education in the country’s public schools — whether it’s leftist pushing critical race theory in curriculum or teachers harping on transgender ideas in the classroom.
In both cases, Florida, under DeSantis and the Republican legislature, has taken a leading role in staking out and defending the conservative position. Last year, the state board of education banned critical race theory from Florida public elementary and high school.
This spring, in a move that turned into national controversy, DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which prohibits teachers from kindergarten through third grade from discussing “sexual orientation or gender identity” in the classrooms, while requiring such subject matter to be handed in an “age appropriate” manner at higher levels.
For normal people, the idea of teaching American students that their country is a racist hell-hole is a non-starter. For decent people, the idea of teachers talking sex to 8-year-olds borders on perversion. (And probably crosses that border by a good distance.)
Since progressive politicians and activists aren’t normal, decent people, both issues turned DeSantis and Florida into an even bigger target of hatred for the national Democratic leadership and its allies in the establishment media.
And on Tuesday, Florida voters gave their verdict — and it was a resounding victory for the DeSantis side, and at the most crucial level of politics.
Last night was a tremendous victory for Governor Ron DeSantis and education in Florida. We all sent a strong message to the boards of education that we want school board members who will ensure quality education for all of Florida’s children. Now it is the time to work together. pic.twitter.com/wdchLZpQWs
— Florida Citizens Alliance (@FLCA4Liberty) November 9, 2022
As the endless stream of school-based controversies over the past year have proven, what happens at school board meetings decides what happens in schools. And what happens in schools affects what happens in the country far into the future.
When DeSantis stomped all over Democrat Charlie Crist on Tuesday — even running up big wins in Democrat-dominated areas such as Palm Beach County — he scored a victory that guarantees him another four years in the governor’s office, or a real shot at the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.
But when he entered politics at the school board level by endorsing candidates in the August primaries and the November general election, he scored a victory for conservatives that’s going to last.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
