| | |  | BY JUAN PEREZ JR. | | With help from David Siders
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An elementary school teacher in her classroom in Louisville, Kentucky. | Jon Cherry/Getty Images | SCHOOLHOUSE, ROCKED — National teacher union chiefs are hitting the campaign trail with former President Barack Obama and first lady Jill Biden to support Democratic tickets in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Former Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway are among the powerful conservatives rallying parents and lawmakers around a Republican schools agenda. Campaign ads on school shootings, book bans, education funding and teaching on race and gender now crowd a corner of television airwaves, funded by tens of millions of dollars in political group spending. Some of the most important elected offices in American education are on the ballot next week — and it shows. Tuesday’s midterms feature races for school board seats and elected superintendents across the country — plus scores of gubernatorial and legislative posts that wield incredible influence over classrooms. These people set and supervise school budgets, develop and implement policy on what kids learn and respond to angry parents in hours long public meetings. The stakes of their work are higher than ever. One reason why: The nation’s test scores plunged by historic levels during the coronavirus pandemic — particularly in math — capping a yearslong trend of stagnating performance. Getting back on track will be a heavy lift in a country where parents are divided on partisan lines over what children should learn. “The growing partisan polarization over education policy issues present serious challenges when trying to develop consensus solutions to practical problems,” Martin West, the academic dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former adviser to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), recently told Nightly. “But my hope is that education leaders realize there’s no Republican way to do math and Democrat way to do math,” West said. “And that even if sometimes those groups disagree about curriculum, at the end of the day they have the same goals and should be working together to find ways to help students make up lost ground.” We’ll see. Here are some of the top Nov. 8 contests that will direct the future of American schools: State superintendent: Oklahoma is one of six Republican-controlled states that will elect a state superintendent of public instruction this year — one of the most important offices you might have never heard of. Jena Nelson, a Democrat and former teacher of the year, is facing Republican Education Secretary Ryan Walters in an election infused with debates over school curriculum after a 2021 state law barred educators from teaching concepts that cause people to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race or gender identity. State school board: Texas voters are filling every seat on the state’s education board this year. The balance of power on seven other state boards — plus the District of Columbia — are also in play. Yet Lone Star State winners could face political pressure from Republicans who want a head start on their demands for Austin legislators. The state GOP’s latest platform calls on lawmakers to prohibit sex education in public schools and school-based reproductive health care services. The board, which is responsible for setting state curriculum standards, could also implement its own policies. Governor: Prominent Democrats are rallying behind Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a campaign that marks one test of whether liberals can appeal to parents more concerned about reading and math than classroom culture wars. “As governor, Gretchen made the largest investment in K-12 education … and she did it without raising taxes, by the way,” Obama recently declared during a Detroit schoolhouse rally. Republican Tudor Dixon has put education at the center of her campaign and carries significant support from Michigan Families United, a super PAC partly funded by DeVos and her family. U.S. Senate: It’s been decades since Republicans elected a senator to represent Washington state. But Democrats are spending millions to shore up Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the upper chamber’s education committee, as she faces a tightened race against political newcomer Tiffany Smiley . Murray’s a former teacher, a major proponent of the American Rescue Plan and has the endorsement of the National Education Association labor group — an archenemy of conservative leaders. Even if Murray wins reelection, the education committee gavel will change hands if Republicans seize the Senate. Ballot measure: Undocumented Arizona high schoolers can receive in-state college tuition if Proposition 308 wins approval. The border state’s conservative politics boast a deep record of hostility toward undocumented migrants, including young people brought into the United States as children who are often known as Dreamers. Yet Latino organizers and business interests back the measure, while a few Republicans even helped push the initiative onto the state’s Nov. 8 ballot. Supporters still face opposition from voters who are incensed about the border crisis and see immigration as a top concern. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at jperez@politico.com or on Twitter at @PerezJr .
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Former President Barack Obama said in Arizona that democracy 'may not survive' if election deniers in the state win. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images | DOUBTING THE DENIALISTS — In a new analysis shared first with Nightly, the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy found 67 percent of all Republican nominees for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, Senate and the House of Representatives “have either denied or raised doubts about the validity of the 2020 presidential election.” That’s a lot of election denialism on the ticket on Tuesday, David Siders emails Nightly. But what may be more interesting is the size of their winning margins. In its analysis of those candidates’ primary victories, Protect Democracy — whose executive director, Ian Bassin, worked as associate White House counsel under former President Barack Obama — found election deniers and doubters won their primary contests with smaller percentages of the vote than victorious Republicans who did not question the 2020 election results. They received, on average, 14 percent fewer votes in their primary elections. Jim Marchant, for example, a leading proponent of the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen , won his primary for Nevada secretary of state with less than 40 percent of the vote. The takeaway, said Farbod Faraji, counsel at Protect Democracy, is that “primary wins by election deniers are not indicative of the popularity of either these candidates or their election denialism positions, particularly among GOP voters.” In other words, they won largely with factional support , enough to prevail in multi-candidate primaries. Still, some may very well win in general elections next week, when Republicans are widely expected to take the House in a midterm election year favorable to the party out of power. Pro-democracy groups are already bracing for baseless claims of voter fraud and rigged elections. In an open letter shared first with Nightly, 25 former Republican members of Congress and other statewide elected officials — including former GOP Reps. Barbara Comstock and Rick Lazio and former Sen. Daniel Coats, the Indiana Republican who served as director of national intelligence in the Trump administration — lamented what they called “a new crop of candidates for public office stating publicly that they will not support the winner of the election even after the votes are counted and any recounts or legal disputes are resolved.” “Any election denier who declares they will not support the outcome even before the election is held or contested is not honoring the time-honored traditions and essential requirements of our democratic republic,” the former Republican officials said in the letter. “These ‘bad actors’ should be called out and not be given support from either political party.” The letter, issued through the political reform group Issue One Action , is scheduled to run in local newspapers in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin on Sunday and Monday.
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48 percent The percentage of Republicans who think the United States is doing too much to help Ukraine in its war against Russia, according to a new poll from The Wall Street Journal . The last time The Wall Street Journal polled that question, in March, only 6 percent of Republicans thought the U.S. was doing too much to support Ukraine. |
| | | — New York AG presses in court to oversee Trump Organization: Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked a judge today to reject state Attorney General Tish James’ bid to impose far-reaching supervision of Trump’s business empire as litigation proceeds over her claims that the firms engaged in vast bank and insurance fraud in real estate transactions. The two sides squared off in a Manhattan courtroom for the first time since James drew national attention in September in a lawsuit arguing that pervasive fraud in the dealings of the Trump Organization warrants strict limits on the businesses’ activities in New York, as well as banning the former president and his three eldest children from serving as an officer of any New York corporation. — Paul Pelosi released from hospital: Paul Pelosi was released from a San Francisco hospital today . The 82-year-old husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi underwent surgery on his skull, hand and arm, according to CNN, which earlier reported his release. Paul Pelosi was beaten with a hammer on Friday, by an attacker accused of seeking the speaker and other top Democratic officials. The Justice Department has charged 42-year-old David DePape with assault and attempting kidnapping in relation to the attack. — Newsom rejects every California city’s homelessness plan in stinging rebuke: Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued a blanket rejection of local California governments’ plans to curb homelessness , putting on hold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid — a sharp rebuke to how cities and counties are tackling the metastasizing issue. “Californians demand accountability and results, not settling for the status quo,” Newsom said in a statement today. — Doctor who performed abortion for 10-year-old sues Indiana AG, alleges ‘fishing expedition’: The Indiana physician, who drew national attention this summer after providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio, filed a lawsuit today alleging that Attorney General Todd Rokita is using “frivolous” consumer complaints to investigate her and other physicians. In the lawsuit, Indianapolis OB-GYN Caitlin Bernard and her colleague Amy Caldwell allege Rokita, the state’s Republican attorney general, issued subpoenas for “confidential and sensitive” medical records based on complaints from people who were not their patients, had no firsthand knowledge of their work and, in some cases, lived out of state. The doctors argue in the lawsuit the subpoenas are effectively a “fishing expedition” against abortion providers that violate Indiana law.
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| END OF REGIME — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart today that any North Korean nuclear attack against the United States or others would “result in the end of the Kim regime.” The statement came hours after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile, again raising tensions in the region, write Lara Seligman and Paul McLeary . The administration included similar language in its National Defense Strategy, which the Pentagon released last week. Both Austin and his South Korean counterpart Lee Jong-sup told reporters after the meeting they were concerned about Pyongyang’s recent missile launches. Austin said the tests are “destabilizing to the region,” and called on Pyongyang to “cease that type of activity and to begin to engage in serious dialogue.” However, he noted that the Pentagon does not currently have any plans to change its posture in the region.
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| | | WHEN GRIDLOCK IS THE GOAL — The Federal Communications Commission is currently short a chair , despite the Biden administration putting up a qualified candidate in Gigi Sohn. This means the commission is deadlocked at two Democrats and two Republicans — making it hard to get anything done. There’s increasing evidence that media conglomerates on both sides of the aisle, from Comcast to Fox, prefer it this way. Nilay Patel spoke to many of the most important players in this saga for The Verge.
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Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to speak at a campaign event. | AP Photo/Julio Cortez | COURSE CORRECTION — As Kamala Harris was mulling her midterm pitch over the summer, she made a departure from the White House script, write Christopher Cadelago and Eugene Daniels . The vice president was, she conveyed privately, not interested in echoing the phrase “ultra MAGA,” a slogan pushed by the White House to ridicule Republicans embracing Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. It wasn’t so much that Harris questioned its potency with voters, two people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO. She wanted to be direct in describing the threat she saw from far-right Republicans. Harris indicated she viewed the term as inadequate and, most importantly, inauthentic to her. As she hit the trail, Harris has leaned instead on words like “extremists,” and descriptors such as “so-called leaders,” to help sum up a GOP she views as enthralled with, and terrified of, Trump — and an existential danger to the future of democracy. There has been little distance between Harris and President Joe Biden as they crisscross the country to campaign for Democrats. But for some in her orbit, the seemingly minor distinction over semantics has come to represent something much larger for a veep intent on maintaining her own voice and carving out a lane for herself, even as she labors in a backup role defined by loyalty. Read about how Harris is trying to distinguish herself from the White House here . Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here . | |
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