The cliche that American political trends are born in California and then spread east bodes ill for the Democratic Party in 2022 after San Francisco voters ousted three members of the city’s school board in a recall election.
Political operatives in California, right and left, said Wednesday that there were no unusual circumstances to explain away voters, in one of the most Democratic enclaves in the United States, removing liberals from their school board — and by a landslide. Parents punished the leadership of the San Francisco school board because they are broadly dissatisfied with their children’s public education, signaling that voter frustration on this key issue is hot and extends beyond Republicans in conservative communities.
“There’s a frustration that kids are not being put first and that these ideological totems are being put first,” said Tim Miller, a political operative and former Republican who lives across the San Francisco Bay, in Oakland, and is active in the “Never Trump” movement. Miller was not involved in Tuesday’s recall election.
What were the “ideological totems” that fueled the recall?
Some voters were upset with student mask mandates and school closures amid the coronavirus pandemic. Others were angry with plans to soften admissions standards to an elite high school. Still others opposed the board’s campaign to change the names of schools honoring revered American historical figures such as President Abraham Lincoln. Undergirding these complaints is an exasperation with board management of public schools and perceptions that it is failing its basic charge to educate children.
After watching the GOP flip the governor’s mansion in Virginia and win a slew of local off-year elections in 2021, Republicans were predicting this sort of revolt, and over these issues, in several battleground states and swing House districts. But they were not expecting the Democrats’ troubles to metastasize in deep-blue bastions of liberalism like San Francisco. “The liberal backlash against progressive wokeness is real,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican operative in Sacramento, astounded.
WOKE SCHOOL BOARDS AND TEACHERS UNIONS LOSE BIG IN SAN FRANCISCO RECALL
And if voters on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home turf are rebelling, Republicans are even more convinced that Democrats in targeted districts across the country are in deep trouble this November because parents are unhappy with their children’s public schools.
Within hours of the recall, the National Republican Congressional Committee highlighted the Democratic Party’s alliance with teachers unions and claimed that voters were poised to punish suburban Democrats because of it, particularly three centrist incumbents in Virginia: Reps. Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger, and Jennifer Wexton.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who represents a central California district and is on track to become speaker if Republicans win the majority, is drawing a direct connection between the school board recall in San Francisco and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s upset victory in Virginia last fall.
“Last night’s results follow the clear message Virginia parents sent last November and the outcry that House Republicans have heard from constituents across the country: Parents deserve a say and children deserve a quality education,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Parents are standing up to have their voices heard.”
The turnout in Tuesday’s recall election in San Francisco was not overwhelming, and the removal of the three school board members was supported by the city’s top Democrat, Mayor London Breed. The mayor is empowered to replace the recalled board members. But the issues that fomented the recall, and the overwhelming margin of victory, have caused political observers on both sides of the aisle, and far beyond California’s borders, to take notice.
As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 75% of voters had supported the recall of San Francisco school board President Gabriela Lopez, more than 72% had supported the recall of board Vice President Faauuga Moliga, and almost 79% had supported the recall of board Commissioner Alison Collins. Indeed, the rebuke they suffered is indicative of how top Democrats are faring in California generally at the moment, another ominous sign for the party’s midterm election prospects.
According to a fresh poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, President Joe Biden’s job approval rating has fallen to 47%, with 48% disapproving. Biden won California in 2020 with 63.5% of the vote to former President Donald Trump’s 34.3%. Vice President Kamala Harris’s ratings are even worse — 38%, with 46% disapproving, and she is a former senator from California and former state attorney general.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who easily survived a recall attempt last September and is up for reelection this year, has seen his job approval rating sink to 48%. In September 2020, seven months into the pandemic, 64% of voters approved of Newsom’s job performance. Several issues setting the stage for a GOP wave nationally are hampering the governor’s political standing in California.
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Sixty-six percent of voters in the state say he is doing a “poor/very poor” job handling homelessness, 51% say the same about his handling of rising crime, 43% say the same about his handling of education, and voters are now split on his management of the coronavirus — once his strong suit, with 39% giving him positive marks, 40% disapproving, and 18% saying his performance is “fair.”
“I have seen polls across the state that show the issue of the day is homelessness, and crime is creeping up there,” a Democratic strategist in California said. “Voters are pissed about what they are seeing every day.”
