Marino: Ballots and Bookshelves
“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe argued during the Virginia gubernatorial debate in October 2021. It was this line that likely cost McAuliffe the election. The Republican candidate Glen Youngkin seized on McAuliffe’s words, launching a series of attack ads aimed at mobilizing angry parents. Following the debate and subsequent ads, new polling showed Youngkin leading by 17 points among parents of K-12 children — a demographic that was crucial to his election win. The 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election provides evidence that parents feel strongly about the importance of their role in deciding how their children are educated.