As a wedge issue, CRT was working. But it wasn’t working by appealing to parents, as Republicans pretended. It was working by appealing to white people. In the Fox News poll, white respondents opposed the teaching of CRT by 24 percentage points, but parents opposed it by only five points. That’s because many parents aren’t white, and the poll’s nonwhite respondents were twice as likely to favor CRT as to oppose it. When Republicans talk about a parental backlash against CRT, they’re not talking about all parents. They’re talking about white parents.

Surveys taken by Monmouth University in August, September, and October show that during these months, Youngkin gained ground among white voters but not among voters of color. On one question that was tested repeatedly—“Who do you trust more on race relations issues?”—white voters moved toward Youngkin, while Black voters moved toward McAuliffe. But the most telling question in the Monmouth series wasn’t explicitly about race. It was “Who do you trust more on education and schools?” On that question, from August to October, Youngkin gained 12 percentage points among white voters, relative to McAuliffe. That was twice the size of his gain among all voters on the same question, and it was three times the size of his gain among independents.

The racial concentration of this movement toward Youngkin was one sign that CRT, as an ethnic appeal, was working.