Tipsheet

Republicans Wallop Democrats in Spending on Tuesday's Wisconsin School Board Races

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  April 05, 2022 12:00 PM

Wisconsin voters are headed to the polls Tuesday to vote in critical local elections for mayors, school boards, and county executives in what may give an early preview of where the battleground state's electorate stands on issues that could prove critical to statewide and national races decided in November. 

With school boards especially, eyes are on these hyper-local races to see if the success Glenn Youngkin had in Virginia last November by championing parental rights and school transparency translates to voters in other states. 

While Wisconsin Democrats have been largely complacent when it comes to school board races — spending less than $10,000 to protect incumbents or elect their party's candidates — local Republican parties have been spending big — more than $70,000 according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — ahead of Tuesday's elections. 

Rebecca Kleefisch — who served as Wisconsin's Lt. Governor and is currently running to unseat Democrat Tony Evers as Governor — has had an active role in her state's movement to take back school boards and has endorsed more than 100 candidates running in Tuesday's local races that could see conservative candidates usher in more parental rights and transparency for the state's school districts.

"Parents are furious," Kleefisch told Fox & Friends before polls opened on Tuesday. "They are seeing how these out of touch leftists and school board members who have allied themselves with the far fringes of the Democrat party have taken over at school districts."

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As an example, Kleefisch pointed to Democrat State Representative Lee Snodgrass who — as Townhall reported in February — stepped on a rake when she tweeted "If parents want to 'have a say' in their child's education, they should home school or pay for private school tuition out of their family budget."

"Democrats have done this for years," Kleefisch reminded. "It's only now that Republicans are getting involved and taking back control at the local level that they're crying about it. You know what, call the 'waambulance,'" the gubernatorial candidate and mother of two added.

"These races are so important and so accountable to the people," Kleefisch also emphasized. "When I'm governor, we're going to ban the teaching of CRT in Wisconsin schools because we're essentially banning the teaching of hate," she pledged.