What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

I realize I’ve been guilty of this tonight, but I have mixed feelings about people saying “education” is what’s motivating GOP voters tonight. I really think this debate should be framed more around race and racism.

That’s a really important distinction. We seem to have decided that if we’re talking about culture wars in the setting of schools, we’re putting that in the “education” bucket. But as I’ve mentioned before, education in the traditional sense has historically been a dud of an issue in elections. So, I’m not convinced that there’s been a major shift in voters’ priorities in the last few years, especially since education did so little to move voters during teacher strikes ahead of the 2018 midterms.

I think there’s a whole constellation of education- and culture-related issues, of which CRT is one part. Things like school closures under COVID-19 potentially also matter a lot to voters.