Ron DeSantis & Moms for Liberty crushed by school board election losses
Two “parental rights” candidates running for Florida school board seats who were endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the anti-LGBTQ+ group Moms for Liberty (M4L) were crushed in their elections on Tuesday, while a third is headed to a runoff.
Overall, out of 23 total school board endorsements made by DeSantis, five of his candidates won, 12 lost and six advanced to the November runoff.
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Incumbents Laura Hine and Eileen Long held off challengers endorsed by DeSantis and M4L, who hoped to produce a far-right majority on the Pinellas County school board in St. Petersburg.
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Unofficial results revealed current school board chair Hine and her colleague Long held their seats after an ugly campaign dominated by the hectoring M4L moms arguing for their “parental rights” agenda.
The incumbents countered that the DeSantis-backed candidates would create turmoil on the board and distract from the real work of student achievement in the Gulf Coast district.
Hine overwhelmed her opponent Danielle Marolf winning 69% of the vote compared to Marolf’s 30%. Board member Long took out challenger Erika Picard, 54% to 45%.
A third candidate opposing the DeSantis-inspired Moms for Liberty agenda, Katie Blaxberg, earned 34% against two opponents: DeSantis-backed Stacy Geier with 37% of the vote and Brad DeCorte netting 28%.
Blaxberg argued the “parental rights” activists have gone too far in their facetious hunt for pornography in school libraries, their “groomer” accusations, and erasure of LGBTQ+ identity and uncomfortable historical truths like slavery.
“The misinformation that has been spread by this group of people and the intent to… place mistrust in our teachers,” Blaxberg told the Associated Press, “people are tired of it.”
Blaxberg and Geier will face each other in a runoff.
“We have got to stay focused on that work at hand and not be subject to the social political winds,” board president Hine said ahead of the vote. “Education is vital, and it has to be stable. I think we really have succeeded with that so far here in Pinellas County.”
DeSantis backed #Florida school board candidates got crushed tonight. A candidate needs 50% to win, or else the top 2 advance to a runoff in Nov.Green = winYellow = runoffRed = lossOut of 23 total, 5 candidates won, 12 lost and 6 advanced to the Nov runoff. Not great, Ron pic.twitter.com/kKvyCcMUqK— LAPYS (@lapys1738) August 21, 2024
In May, M4L embarked on a hoped-for comeback campaign following the libertine scandals of their co-founder Bridget Ziegler whose bisexual contretemps were exposed last year. Her husband, who participated in the threesomes, was fired from his job as Florida GOP chair after rape allegations from one of the couple’s sexual partners. Afterwards, Bridget Ziegler’s influence on Sarasota’s school board evaporated like a puddle of hypocrisy.
The group made a name for themselves as a close ally of the Florida governor and failed Republican presidential candidate by promoting his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and hunting down LGBTQ+ content in local school libraries — when they weren’t busy hijacking local school board meetings.
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