Cindy Pearson (seen here speaking at a board meeting on May 23, 2024) was reelected by a margin of less than 300 votes. | Megan Mallicoat, Jacksonville Today
Published on August 20, 2024 at 8:48 pm
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The Duval County School Board will have a Moms for Liberty majority in the fall, with two of the conservative group’s endorsed candidates winning Tuesday.
Tony Ricardo and Melody Bolduc won their races in District 1 and District 7, respectively, against Nadine Ebri and Sarah Mannion. The District 5 race will go to a run-off between Moms for Liberty-endorsed Reggie Blount and Hank Rogers in November. Nashon Nicks took more than 19% of the vote in District 5, according to a preliminary total from the Duval Elections Supervisor.
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The only loss for a Moms for Liberty candidate Tuesday came in District 3, where incumbent School Board member Cindy Pearson is on track to narrowly defeat her challenger, former Duval Moms for Liberty Chair Becky Nathanson, pending the final count of mail-in ballots. Pearson was ahead of Nathanson by a margin of just 342 votes as of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Duval Elections Supervisor Jerry Holland told Jacksonville Today that Pearson’s victory margin was still wide enough not to trigger an automatic recount.
The primary election’s results effectively skew the board more solidly conservative. With the District 5 race yet to determined, four of the seven school board members now have ties to or endorsements from Moms for Liberty.
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Ricardo and Bolduc also have the backing of Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose endorsements have bolstered the Republican Party’s work to build conservative majorities on school boards across the state. Last month, DeSantis endorsed 23 conservative school board candidates.
School board elections in Florida are nonpartisan, which is why they are open to voters of all parties and often settled during the primaries. However, they have become very partisan in practice — as evidenced by everything from endorsements from party leaders like DeSantis to the way the races are funded.
Locally, Duval GOP chair Dean Black told Jacksonville Today last month that they made an intentional decision to treat the school board races as if they were fully partisan.
“Tonight was a victory for Duval County parents, teachers and especially our children,” Black told Jacksonville Today on Tuesday evening after the results came in.
In response to Republican efforts to elect conservative candidates to school boards statewide, Florida’s Democratic party leaders selected a list of 11 candidates to support themselves, including Duval’s Mannion.
“We felt it was really important for us to try to create balance and show people that there are other options,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told Jacksonville Today last week.
Across the state on Tuesday, nine of the 11 Democrat-supported candidates either won their races or moved to a run-off round in November.
The election comes in the middle of the board’s effort to correct an estimated $1.4 billion budget shortfall, potentially by closing a number of schools. The board is scheduled to decide what course of action they will take at its meeting in October — just weeks before the new board members are sworn in in mid-November.
