Republicans are claiming a massive victory after a number of Florida school board candidates — who enjoyed unprecedented support from right-wing groups and politicians — won their races Tuesday. In total, five school boards in the state flipped to conservative control, including Sarasota County, which will now have a 4-1 conservative majority, and Miami-Dade, which will become the nation's largest school district to be overseen by elected conservatives.
Many of the candidates received endorsements and campaign support from right-wing activist groups like Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project PAC — founded in 2021 explicitly to support right-wing school board candidates — as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made attacking public education a cornerstone of his administration, and Rep. Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican who has argued that "the battle for our country" runs through America's schools. (Donalds' wife, Erika Donalds, runs a consulting business dedicated to launching charter schools affiliated with Hillsdale College, the influential conservative Christian school.)
