2022 saw ‘red wave’ school board elections

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Due to the lengthy vote-counting after Election Day, the school board election results are finalized and confirmed: A red wave impacted school boards across the country. Candidates endorsed by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis did well in school board elections and other conservative candidates won across the country.

As Accuracy in Academia previously reported, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis 34 candidates for school board races and 29 of these candidates won their races. Other advocacy groups, such as Moms for Liberty, Minnesota Parents Alliance, and 1776 Project PAC, had various levels of success at the ballot box.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board noted the red wave at the school board level.

Moms for Liberty said that at least 114 of 270 candidates won their elections. The organization’s candidates flipped school boards in places such as South Carolina’s Berkeley County and York County’s Rock Hill School District, Cape May County in New Jersey, and New Hanover in North Carolina.

The Minnesota Parents Alliance saw 49 of its 119 candidates win school board elections, which may not seem successful until considering the political makeup of the state. Minnesota has not had a Republican governor since 2011 and has not elected a Republican senator since 2009. As the organization’s executive director, Cristine Trooein, said, “The fact that our candidates did as well as they did [demonstrates that] the parent movement really transcends politics.”

The teachers’ union in Minnesota, Education Minnesota, opposed the candidates endorsed by the Minnesota Parents Alliance and claimed a success rate “between 80 and 90 percent of the time.”

The 1776 Project PAC endorsed 53 school board and state superintendent candidates and 20 of these candidates won their races. The state where the organization met significant resistance was in Michigan, which state veered to the Democratic Party in the 2022 election cycle.

Despite the mainstream media’s narrative that hyped a “red wave” in the 2022 midterms, the media’s narrative ignored conservative gains in school board elections nationwide.