A Florida school board that was at the epicenter of national debatesover covid mask mandates and book bans lost its conservative majority this week, a change that some say signals a priority shift among voters.
Two Democrat-backed candidates beat out conservatives in Tuesday’s school board election in Sarasota, Florida, flipping the board’s majority. Helmed for the past year by a co-founder of Moms for Liberty — a conservative group that gained a national following with its parents’ rights messaging — the board is moving in a new direction, the winners said. A third Democrat-backed candidate will head to a runoff election against a contender endorsed by Republicans in November.
“I really think at the end of the day, regardless of political affiliation, our community was just tired of the culture wars, the political theater and being the center of national attention for all the wrong reasons,” said Megan Tennimon, a former teacher who won election to the board on Tuesday.
While Democrats say the flip indicates voters want to move on from fights over social issues, Moms for Liberty points to conservatives’ wins in other parts of Florida.
“Every couple of years someone in the media writes our obituary, and every couple of years parents show up and prove them wrong,” said Tina Descovich, Moms for Liberty co-founder and chief executive. “School boards are ground zero in the fight for parental rights, and last night Florida parents made that clear.”
The Sarasota County School Board had been controlled by conservatives since 2022, on the heels of the pandemic. As school board meetings and elections, typically quiet and uncontroversial, became partisan battlegrounds, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) got involved around that time by endorsing candidates, something that governors have rarely done.
His involvement in the local races came as he pushed an education agenda that included a ban on teaching young students — and later all students — about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Among those who won DeSantis’s support was Sarasota County School Board Chair Bridget Ziegler, first elected in 2014.
Ziegler, who was embroiled in a sex scandal in 2023 and refused to step down when her husband was accused of sexual assault, did not run for reelection this year. Ziegler’s husband was cleared of the sexual assault charge in 2024. She did not immediately return requests for comment.
Elsewhere in the state on Tuesday, a Democrat-backed school board candidate flipped a conservative seat in Orange County, one of the largest school districts in the country. On the same ballot, a democratic socialistwon an upset primary victory in the U.S. Senate race.
“I think that they realized how destructive those divisive policies really were,” Beth Mayberry, another Democrat-backed winner in the Sarasota County School Board race, said about voters. A retired educator, Mayberry’s campaign focused on school funding and mental health.
“What they’ve seen in the last four years, with basically the tabloid happenings on the school board and a lot of the policies and resolutions that were being made, our general community did not agree with,” Mayberry said.
Another candidate endorsed by the local Democratic Party, Jimmy Glover, won the majority of votes in his race against two Republican opponents, but failed to capture more than 50 percent of the votes. This will trigger a runoff election in November.
If Glover wins, the board will be completely Democrat-backed — and he will be the first person of color to serve on the Sarasota County School Board, said David Dean, chair of the county’s Democratic Party.
Two other members, who were also supported by Democrats and have previously opposed conservative members, round out the five-member board.
While school board elections are nonpartisan, political parties typically endorse candidates they believe will support their priorities. Dean echoed sentiments that residents are fed up with the culture wars and instead want their school board to focus on teachers and students.
“School board meetings should be boring. They shouldn’t make the national news,” Dean said. “There’s certainly a shift in attitudes toward the MAGA agenda, even here.”
Led by conservatives last year, the Sarasota County School Board voted to remove references to race, sexuality and disability from its anti-bullying rules. In January, it reaffirmed the district’s stance to cooperate with law enforcement, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ziegler, at the time, said it was a safety measure. “Our School District cannot provide safe harbor to criminals, including those who violate our immigration laws,” she wrote on social media.
However, the measure did not change anything because the district had already agreed to work with authorities, Tennimon said. “That resolution was designed to do nothing but instill fear in our community.”
Sarasota is still deep red — many voters support voucher programs and religion in schools.
Moms for Liberty rose to prominence during the pandemic, when conservative parents demanded more say over what their children learned in school — particularly around topics including race, sexuality and gender.
The group has expanded to about 130,000 members in 48 states since its founding in 2021, according to its website, hosting Donald Trump and DeSantis at its summit in 2023 in a run-up to the presidential election. It has since accrued influence in the GOP, in school board elections nationwide, and was called upon by the Trump administration to help shape national education programming.
The group has regularly attacked the LGBTQ+ community and spread “messages of anti-inclusion and hate” while aligning itself with extremist groups, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But organization leaders are pushing back against reports that their influence on school board elections in their home state of Florida has waned. Moms for Liberty officials said 11 of the 15 school board candidates it endorsed in other races across the state won or advanced on Tuesday.
Heidi Brandt, a conservative who will face Glover in the runoff in November, said she was disappointed with the school board election outcome, but hopes the newcomers will concentrate on schools. Like the Democrat-backed candidates, she said she wants to remove political fights from the board.
“This is about our students and our teachers and our families, it’s not about a conservative or liberal majority or minority,” Brandt said. “I understand the celebrations and the turning of the tables, but I’m just truly praying that it’s not going to be about politics.”
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