Off the Kuff: “This is the third cycle I’ve made this document, and I bring you good news: it is very possible to avoid a pro-censorship school board takeover, even in deep red districts in Texas. Look at what happened last November: Of the 38 red- and orange-highlighted candidates I tracked in the last version of this document, 30 lost. I profiled nine districts, and the good guys won out in seven of them on election day. Seven of the eight Texas candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty lost. If you care about academic freedom and inclusive classrooms, election night in November of 2022 in Texas was a good night.
(That was a turnaround from last May, when pro-censorship, anti-inclusion candidates won the majority of spots on boards in races they contested. I wrote about the lessons from that election here.)
The rules for defeating pro-censorship candidates are simple: organize and inform. Banning books and attacking vulnerable students are unpopular positions, but candidates who support those positions have won way too many races for three reasons: 1) pro-censorship forces have a massive organization and fundraising advantage; 2) voters don’t know who the book-banning candidates are; and (to a lesser extent), 3) pro-censorship forces have been able to activate partisan instincts in red districts by turning non-partisan school board elections into a fight between Democrats and Republicans.
So what do we do?”