Trump trickle-down could impact education board races
Several Democrats aiming to unseat incumbent Republicans on the State Board of Education say they believe the relative unpopularity of the Republican at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump, will help propel them to victory in the Nov. 8 general election.
Approving textbooks, crafting curriculum standards and setting graduation requirements for the state’s more than 5 million public school students. The role of the Republican-dominated Texas Board of Education remains undoubtedly influential even as the Legislature has removed some of its powers over the decades following a series of embarrassing kerfuffles.
The stakes rarely get much buzz during the general election season, however. That’s because the 15 sprawling districts are drawn to be friendly to Republican or Democratic candidates — mostly the former — meaning the shakeups are usually reserved for the spring primary elections.
But several Democrats aiming to unseat incumbent Republicans from the education board this fall say this year could be different.
Those candidates — two of whom are running for the third time — say the relative unpopularity of the Republican at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump, will help propel them to victory in the Nov. 8 general election. And observers and experts say their contention isn’t too far off base.
At least one SBOE race is “very much in play,” said Rice University political scientist Mark P. Jones. He’s referring to District 5, where Democrat Rebecca Bell-Metereau is attempting to unseat incumbent Republican Ken Mercer for the third time. The district reaches from Austin to San Antonio, extending northwest to cover several Hill County counties such as Llano and Kerr.
While Mercer — a fixture of the board’s far-right faction — is still the favorite to win, Jones noted the district is now “pink, not red” after the latest round of redistricting. With Trump also headlining the ticket, “the race stands to be the most tightly contested SBOE general election contest in more than a dozen years,” Jones wrote in an email.
Several recent polls show Trump is statistically tied with Democrat Hillary Clinton in GOP-friendly Texas.
Bell-Metereau, 66, a Texas State University English professor and former Fulbright scholar, notes that Mercer’s margin of victory has gotten smaller each time she’s run against him. InTrump trickle-down could impact education board races | The Texas Tribune: