Voters in Sarasota County, Florida have delivered a decisive rebuke to the conservative majority that has controlled the school board, with Democratic-backed candidates winning two races outright in recent elections. The shift marks a dramatic reversal for a board that has become a flashpoint in national culture war debates. Bridget Ziegler, the Moms for Liberty co-founder who has led the conservative faction since her 2014 election with support from Gov. Ron DeSantis, will leave the board when her term ends on November 17, 2026, after choosing not to seek reelection. If Democratic candidate Jimmy Glover wins his November runoff, the entire board will flip to Democratic control.
Under Ziegler’s leadership, the Sarasota County Schools Board pursued an aggressive conservative agenda that drew national attention and community backlash. The board voted to strip references to race, sexuality, and disability from anti-bullying rules, pledged cooperation with ICE agents to help deport undocumented students, and rejected federal protections for LGBTQ+ students in May 2024. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Moms for Liberty, which Ziegler co-founded, as an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group. These policies created what many residents saw as a culture war playing out in their schools rather than educational governance focused on student needs.
Ziegler’s political standing deteriorated significantly following a 2023 scandal in which she admitted to having bisexual threesomes with her husband, who was then state Republican Party chairman, and a woman who later accused him of rape. While police cleared her husband of the charges, the incident exposed a contradiction between her personal life and the anti-LGBTQ+ positions she championed through Moms for Liberty and the school board. Voters and community activists seized on this hypocrisy, with youth activist Zander Moricz publicly criticizing her for changing district lines for political gain, removing books from schools, targeting trans and queer children, and erasing Black history while sending her own children to private schools.
Winners Megan Tennimon and Beth Mayberry attributed their victories to voter fatigue with divisive politics and the board’s tabloid drama. Tennimon told The Washington Post that the community was tired of culture wars and being the center of national attention for wrong reasons. Watch for the November runoff election involving Glover, which will determine whether Democrats achieve complete control and begin reversing the conservative policies that have defined the board’s recent tenure.
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