How Republicans Turned "School Choice" Into a Losing Issue
How Republicans Turned “School Choice” Into a Losing Issue
After 18 months of Covid disruption, support for vouchers and even charter schools has plummeted—even in the home of “Live Free or Die.”
By Jennifer C. Berkshire The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/republicans-school-choice/tnamp/?__twitter_impression=true
SEPTEMBER 14, 2021
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CONCORD, N.H.—
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As for critical race theory, the news was even worse. The specter of CRT motivates no one but GOP primary voters, Wilson said. For anyone else it’s a turnoff. Even the right’s go-to villains had come up empty. Targeting teachers and teachers unions causes support for the cause to dip, Wilson said, flashing a PowerPoint slide stamped with the stern warning, “Do not say this.”
Losing message
The first stop on Pompeo’s New Hampshire itinerary was an event for Linda Camarota, a Republican candidate for state representative, running in a special election in the GOP stronghold of Bedford. Pompeo praised Camarota, one of the first candidates his PAC endorsed, as a warrior for school choice and parental rights. Camarota, a self-proclaimed constitutional conservative, ran hard against taxes and CRT in schools.
That turned out to be a losing message. Democrat Catherine Rombeau, a former school board member who made public education and how to pay for it the central issue of her campaign, eked out a surprising victory, narrowing an already razor-thin GOP state House majority. Rombeau, like many Bedford residents, moved to this booming suburban community for its strong education system. The idea of defunding the local schools in the name of “education freedom” holds little appeal to voters here, something Rombeau appears to have understood.
Republicans are reportedly seething over the loss, even as they try to process what went so wrong. The answer just might be hiding in plain sight—in the Club for Growth’s polling.
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