Party down: State, national progressives are getting involved in local school board elections
The Texas Democratic Party wants a larger pool of attractive, experienced candidates.
So does the national progressive movement.
Both groups are willing to dive into nonpartisan school board elections in Texas to make that happen.
The Texas Democrats and Our Revolution — the remnants of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign — have taken the unusual step of jumping into a Dallas ISD race, endorsing challenger Lori Kirkpatrick over incumbent Dustin Marshall. Kirkpatrick finished first in the District 2 race, just 14 votes shy of avoiding a runoff election with Marshall, despite being a political novice.
The state party threw similar support behind nearly a dozen school board candidates in the Dallas and Houston areas.
Depending on the race, such endorsements could have a significant impact, legitimizing one candidate over another and potentially transforming school board policies. All of this appears to have been done, though, without too much bother about the specifics of the local races.
Such efforts are part of a wider movement to incubate a group of candidates for future partisan elections — "building a bench," as it’s called.
“The Democrats have been stymied in terms of expanding their bench in partisan state-level offices,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Party down: State, national progressives are getting involved in local school board elections | Education | Dallas News:
