CNN’s Pamela Brown found some Virginia mothers who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election but ended up voting for Republican Glenn Youngkin in the governor’s race last week.
Brown interviewed four Virginia moms – one Democrat, two Independents, and one unaffiliated – but three of whom admitted to voting for Biden in 2020. All said they were the reason for Youngkin’s overwhelming victory on Election Day.
“There’s one key issue all four of these women say played a huge part in their choosing a Republican: feeling heard about their child’s education,” Brown stated.
The moms in this CNN interview dismissed Critical Race Theory (CRT) and mask mandates as key issues for them, despite a Fox News Voter Analysis survey that found the teaching of tenets of CRT in schools was a top issue among Virginia voters.
The survey polled over 2,500 Virginia voters and found 25 percent of them viewed CRT as “the single most important factor they considered when deciding who to support for governor,” the report said.
Breitbart News noted:
Out of the quarter of voters who considered CRT to be the greatest election priority, 70 percent voted for now-Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) and 29 percent cast their ballots for Democrat Terry McAuliffe. As a whole, 72 percent of voters said CRT was “important” to them, and 28 percent said it was not.
Awesome! https://t.co/H8ic81KiTk
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) November 4, 2021
The moms interviewed by CNN cited their children’s “learning loss” during the pandemic shutdowns as essential, and what they saw as McAuliffe’s “dismissive” attitude toward their concerns.
“Well, parents were very angry during school closures at the teachers’ unions and, for me, the nail in the coffin was on his last day of campaigning,” Kay Greenwell said. “He brought the head of the teachers union to his rally and she spoke and it was like someone just poked me right in the eye and said, ‘Do you think you want to have a say in your education? Well, you’re not going to.’”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten minimized academic “learning loss” after teachers’ unions urged school shutdowns and blocked their reopening.
Weingarten placed more emphasis on “social and emotional” learning loss, the federally promoted education concept that has served as the primary vehicle for CRT.
There is so much talk about “learning loss” during the pandemic. When I think of getting students ready for the coming school year, I want them to be socially & emotionally prepared before anything else. I think we can do that. https://t.co/D6UJ7kv1zf
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) June 9, 2021
“If we only focus on academic learning loss, we’re missing out on all the other components of a child that enable them to learn,” she said. “You have to address the whole child’s social-emotional wellness in order for them to learn.” @JessJTang @BTU66 https://t.co/hPP77y3PNR
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) April 15, 2021
The moms said they were also offended by former President Barack Obama’s statements their concerns amounted to a “phony, trumped-up culture war.”
“I just feel like they’re really tone deaf,” one mom said, while another added the Democrats’ “reminded us of the school boards.”
“They weren’t looking at the concerns on the ground,” she said. “We were really concerned about our kids’ education, and the Democrats were not listening to that.”
Education Sec. Won’t Say Parents are “Primary” Stakeholders in Children’s Education pic.twitter.com/SWLlXh6MGx
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 1, 2021
👏 @RepublicanStudy https://t.co/vj5Yc5LsSM
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) November 5, 2021
The mothers agreed Youngkin, and his wife, listened to parents’ concerns.
Republican public relations operative Logan Dobson zeroed in further on the “dismissive” quality of elitist Democrats. Leftist activist Amy Siskind, for example, tweeted she is “disgusted” by “non-college educated moms.”
“Non-college educated moms are disgusting” continues a trend of liberals getting messaging just pitch-perfect leading into the midterms https://t.co/KPxtC2myfH
— Logan Dobson (@LoganDobson) November 8, 2021
One Virginia mother told CNN “it was really tone deaf to just discount parents in the whole educational struggle and, you know, make it about Trump all of the time,” but, on Thursday Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) continued on the theme of Trump-bashing by attempting to tie Youngkin to a negative view of the former president.
Gillibrand told MSNBC Youngkin won his election because he “followed in Trump’s footsteps, lying to people about COVID and what are safe practices for kids.”
Former Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter also apparently saw a need to warn Democrats Wednesday on MSNBC, “The one thing that we need to make sure of is that Republicans in 2022 don’t become is the party of parents.”
“We’re the ones that care about school funding,” she argued, though, again, parents who voted in the Virginia governor’s race and in school board elections around the country appeared more concerned about being declared “domestic terrorists” by leftist educrats.
Former Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter (@StefCutter), addressing last night’s election results: “The one thing that we need to make sure of is that Republicans in 2022 don’t become is the party of parents” pic.twitter.com/7nkxADC2KG
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 3, 2021
In a memo to his colleagues last week, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), said, in light of the victory of now Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, the Republican Party “must become the party of parents.”
“Democrats are attacking our schools in new ways, and conservatives must adjust,” Banks wrote. “Glenn Youngkin understood this. He knew parents weren’t just concerned about traditional education issues, but rather viewed education as an extension of the culture war.”
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