Almost all of the candidates whom DeSantis endorsed won, with 25 of the 30 winning or advancing to a runoff. That’s an 83 percent success rate. Conservatives also won seats on public hospital boards in counties including Sarasota, where voters were furious over arbitrary medical decisions and lack of access for non-Covid patients during the pandemic.
Democrats were not absent from the fight in Florida. They also actively endorsed candidates in the nonpartisan races and handed out contributions to liberal incumbents. In defeat, they ignored those facts and blasted DeSantis for turning school-board elections into “new partisan battlegrounds.”
Combined with conservative victories in Virginia last year, the Florida results show how education issues ranging from “woke” curricula to mask mandates can energize parents to vote for commonsense candidates.
DeSantis joined forces with a new group, Moms for Liberty, that helped candidates with endorsements, donations, and precinct-walking kits. Julie Fancelli, an heiress to the Publix supermarket fortune, contributed $50,000 to Moms.
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