THE MORNING RANT: School Board and Down Ballot Races Are the Most Important Races You Can Vote in this Cycle

It’s election season, and the most important political races in the country aren’t the ones we’re discussing at national political sites such as Ace of Spades. No, the most important races are the down-ballot state and local races. These elections suffer from terribly low voter interest, yet they impact how your community is governed and what is being taught in your schools.

Those down-ballot races also give ambitious politicians the first step up their political career ladder. In deep red states, this is where RINOs get their first victories, and soon they have incumbency and name recognition propelling them upward. Puzzled conservatives eventually scratch their heads and ask how did a Democrat-aligned “Republican” like John Cornyn or Bill Cassidy ever win statewide office in a red state? The answer is that they started way down the ballot and worked their way up over the years. The best time to defeat RINOs is before they start their political climb, but that means voting for actual conservatives in local elections.

School board elections, which are often “non-partisan” are also critical. If you don’t like your child being taught that the U.S. is evil and that children can change their genders, then it’s imperative to vote in school board races. Low turnout is the left’s friend.

For example, a conservative backlash in recent years to woke public schools propelled conservatives to a school board majority in the Grapevine-Colleyville School District in suburban Dallas. But in last week’s school board election, there was decreased turnout. Conservative incumbents were defeated by candidates committed to restoring the left-wing agenda in local schools.

“Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board sees major shift as incumbents lose seats” [NBC DFW – 5/04/2026]

Two Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board members backed by conservative PAC Patriot Mobile were among three incumbents voted out Saturday in a sweeping change for a district already facing major decisions. The results mean the far-right conservative group no longer has a majority on the GCISD Board of Trustees.

Barely 11,000 votes were cast out of 90,000 registered voters, representing a 12% turnout. The conservatives lost by a 52/48 margin, each losing by less than 500 votes. If the 79,000 non-voters have any complaints about the left’s woke agenda, they forsook the most important place to stop it – their local schools.

Sometimes a little research is necessary to vet the candidates, but a few minutes researching a race is time better spent on politics than watching cable news. There’s also a pretty easy shortcut to determine who are the actual conservatives in down ballot races - watch the yard sign people. The neighbor who proudly puts out Trump signs, or who currently has a Paxton sign in his yard, can probably be trusted to also have yard signs of the real conservatives in local races. (I’m aware that this is more of a challenge in deep blue areas, since putting out a Republican yard sign can be an invitation to vandalism.)

Other Stuff I’m Writing About

My latest piece at the The American Spectator has been published. “Price Gouging, Now Personalized Thanks to Surveillance Pricing and Collusion” discusses how corporations damage consumer faith in free markets when corporate executives green light unethical behavior such as price fixing among competitors, and with surveillance pricing (in which consumers are charged based on their internet browsing history.)

As reported by CNBC based on documents released by the California Attorney General, Amazon would send links to its vendors showing competitors (such as Wal Mart and Home depot) undercutting Amazon’s pricing. If the vendor did not pressure the competitor to raise the price being charged to consumers, Amazon would throttle visibility on its web site for the vendor’s products.

This piece is not behind a paywall. I’d be honored if you’d give it a read.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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