We Won Our School Board Races
It’s a day for celebration. Here in Northwest Houston we took back three seats on our school board from Critical Race Theory supporters: one racist-and-race-baiting instigator and another couple of go-along-to-get-along-ers. It took a lot of work. More from me as a precinct chair than I’m used to, and far more from a number of concerned citizens/parents.
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| image from campaign materials |
My friend Bill, the organizer of the block walking, went
every weekend for the past three months (after the time spent vetting and
choosing candidates to get behind). And then the past 2-3 weeks, he and
recruits have done block walking every day.
As of last Thursday, they had touched 20,102 homes—and then
you add whatever they did Thursday evening through Monday of that final
weekend.
I’m a miserable failure at block walking. But I did contact
by phone, email, or both, close to the number of Republican voters who came out
from my precinct. I haven’t yet done a deep enough dive to see whether the very
ones I contacted were the ones who voted, but I know at least some of them are. Of course I don’t know how they voted, but I hope that was time well spent. I also did some persuading beyond
our precinct, with this blog (here, here, and here) and social media and just talking to friends. And
I put up yard signs. I always felt like there was more to do, but I maxed out
and ended up sick (not COVID) for the final couple of weeks.
Nevertheless, our outcome was good enough.
Back in July, when we were planning how things might go, we
were hoping to consolidate behind one candidate for each of the three races. Our
district has no runoff. Whoever wins, even by a single vote, is the winner.
That favors the incumbent, with name recognition and connection to the teachers. Maybe that’s why the incumbents
have all been in office for nearly two decades.
The consolidating happened for two of the positions. There
were actually four candidates for each of those races, but they consisted of
Democrat or Independent candidates, in addition to the nominal Republican
incumbents that we wanted out. So we weren’t dividing any conservative votes.
(Note: the school board is nonpartisan on the ballot, but knowing party
affiliation is informative for people who want to get rid of the Critical Race
Theory and LGBT agendas.)
The worrisome race was the one we most wanted to win,
because the incumbent was the writer of the pro-CRT resolution the board had
all signed last year. And, despite being a pastor, he’s a pretty despicable
human being. That race had six candidates (the report chart below from ABC 13 News leaves
out Todd LeCompte; I don’t know why; the county’s official count shows him
getting 659 votes, or 1.85%). The incumbent and one other were Democrats; the
others all proclaimed to be Republican/conservative, but one stood out among
the others. We went with Natalie Blasingame.
An additional good candidate actually bowed out before the
drop-out deadline, but the others stayed in the race. That made strategy,
originally based on a two-or-three-person race, more challenging, because the conservative vote could be divided. But the
logical answer seemed to be, “Just campaign harder.” It helped that the Harris
County Republican Party decided to endorse our candidates. (They did endorsements for other school districts as well.) We had to do some persuading in that position
5 race, but to not endorse would have been a real detriment to anyone trying to
beat that awful incumbent.
It also helped that a conservative group in our part of town
independently interviewed the candidates and had them respond in length to a
questionnaire, which they published. That group only endorses when a
supermajority independently go for a particular candidate; in this case, they all
went with our candidate, 100%.
Other endorsements came in as well. Every time people went
through the trouble to learn about the candidates, they would see how well
prepared our candidates were. As for those position 5 candidates who didn’t win
this time, I hope some of them will consider that we have four more positions
on the ballot two years from now—and all the incumbents signed that CRT
resolution.
As for numbers, here’s the report from our local ABC 13 News:
When I got home, around 10:30 Tuesday night, after working the polls and turning in our materials after a long line wait at NRG stadium, I checked online for results, and at that point it was obvious we had won positions 6 and 7. But Dr. Blasingame was behind the incumbent by 118 votes. However, that was when only about 26% of votes had been counted. By the time I got to bed, Blasingame was in the lead by 169 with 36% of the vote counted. It seemed to me that she was trending by the early morning hour that I got to bed. By Wednesday morning, when 100% were counted, all three had won and we could fully celebrate.
Here’s my conclusion: it takes a lot of time, attention, and
work to get a school board you can trust. But when it comes to threats to our
children, people do finally wake up and take action. It took some monumental
effort on the part of some. But that effort spread to others, who influenced their friends and neighbors. People want to be able to trust their schools. If
they can’t, they will act rather than succumb.
While it starts with parents and children, community really
does tend to choose The Good when they can see clearly what that is. And
people’s eyes are beginning to open.
Other
Battles Won
Texas House Seat
Meanwhile, in San Antonio, another upset was taking place. A
75% Hispanic district was just won by a Republican in a special election.
Congratulations to John Luhan. Maybe Dems have been premature in their
calculations to turn Texas blue:
· “Texas District, Roughly 75% Hispanic, Turns Red For GOP” Hank Berrien for The Daily Wire, November 3, 2021.
Virginia Governor
And nationally it was a bigger day than you would expect for
an off-year election.
In Virginia—where Loudon County schools have been a big issue lately—Glenn Youngkin succeeded in winning the governorship over incumbent Terry McAuliffe, who had recently said we shouldn’t be allowing parents to decide what their kids are taught in schools. Ben Shapiro summed it up in a couple of tweets:
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| tweet images found here |
As VP Harris said, possibly accurately, the way this
November election goes, so goes the nation in 2022 and 2024:
· “Kamala Harris warns McAuliffe loss could doom Dems in 2022, 2024” Steven Nelson for New York Post, October 29, 2021.
Virginia Lieutenant Governor
Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor was also a big win: Winsome Sears, who is a pro-Second-Amendment woman, who happens to be black, is confusing the media, who want to label all that has happened this election on “white supremacy”; she doesn’t fit their narrative. Maybe they need a new narrative. Her acceptance speech is uplifting and oh, so American!
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| Newly elected VA Lt. Governor Winsome Sears gives her acceptance speech. screenshot from here |
· “Watch: Here's the Speech from Virginia's First
Black Lt. Governor CNN And MSNBC Didn't Show. She's Republican” Brodigan for
Louder with Crowder, November 3, 2021.
· “Marine vet Winsome Sears celebrates win in
Virginia lieutenant governor race with 'USA' chant, says she's 'living proof'
of American dream in patriotic speech” Chris Pandolfo for The Blaze,
November 3, 2021.
· “Winsome Sears, Virginia’s Next LieutenantGovernor, Makes History as First Black Woman to Win Statewide” Fred Lucas for The
Daily Signal, November 3, 2021.
· “Lt. Gov of Virginia Winsome Sears challenges
Joy Reid to have her on MSNBC if she's 'woman enough'” Libby Emmons for American
News, November 3, 2021.
New Jersey Truck Driver Wins Senate
Other wins include a New Jersey truck driver who spent only
$153 on his campaign for state Senate, taking out the sitting Senate president:
· “New Jersey truck driver Edward Durr defeats state Senate president, longtime Dem” Houston Keene for Fox News, November 4,
2021.
· “Republican truck driver Edward Durr defeats
powerful Democratic NJ state Senate president; historic victory called
'stunning and shocking'” Dave Urbanski for The Blaze, November 4, 2021.
· “UPDATE: The GOP trucker who spent $153 on his campaign just unseated the NJ senate president” Joel Abbott for Not the Bee,
November 4, 2021.
Massachusetts School Board
And former teacher in Massachusetts, ousted because he had
attended the January 6 rally and was subsequently slandered as a domestic
terrorist, made it onto the school board:
· “Teacher forced out after January 6 photo wins seat on school board in Massachusetts” by Hannah Nightingale for American News,
November 3, 2021.
Newark City Council
In the New Jersey city of Newark, Republicans took over the
entire city council:
· “Republicans sweep Newark elections, eliminate Democrats from council” Kent Mallett for Newark Advocate, November 3,
2021.
Minneapolis Keeps Police Department
Minneapolis went against the advice of their Rep. Ilan Omar
and decided not to defund their police department and replace it with some
social workers:
· “Minneapolis voters reject ballot measure to dismantle police and replace with new agency” Clare Hymes for CBS News,
November 3, 2021.
The Celebration
There’s a lot of celebrating going on. But the satire site The
Babylon Bee has been having way too much fun. Here is some of their post-election hilarity:
· “Dems Announce Plan To Call People Racist Even Harder” The Babylon Bee, November 4, 2021.
· “McAuliffe Blames Loss On Low 3AM Ballot Turnout”
The Babylon Bee, November 4, 2021.
· “McAuliffe: ‘I’ll Be Back And I’ll Get Your Children If It’s The Last Thing I Do!’” The Babylon Bee, November 3, 2021.
· “'Racism! COVID! Trump!' Screams McAuliffe Over
And Over In Desperate Last-Minute Appeal” The Babylon Bee, November 2, 2021.
· “Terry McAuliffe Baffled That Telling Parents
The State Owns Their Children Wasn't A Winning Strategy” The Babylon Bee,
November 2, 2021. This one contained a surprisingly accurate quote (still satire):
o "It's
so weird," a crestfallen McAuliffe told reporters. "We pulled out all
the stops: we told parents that we own their children's minds, that they're
wards of the state, and that their children should read horrific LGBTQ+
pornography in their school libraries, and it just didn't seem to connect with
the people for some reason."
Others are enjoying the celebration without even needing to
turn to satire:
· “Watch how depressed all the ‘objective’ CNN hosts were as the Virginia results rolled in” Not the Bee, November 3,
2021.
· This tweet thread from Dinesh D’Souza and Gad Saad:
The war, of course, is never over. But it’s nice to
celebrate some wins—and relish some good cheer in the hope that the tide might
be turning.
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