The extremist culture warriors in Florida flopped at the ballot box on Tuesday. Not even Governor DeSantis’s endorsement helped them in their crusade to ban books, censor history, and sugarcoat what children may learn.

DeSantis quite deliberately set out to take control of Florida’s education system, including its schools and public colleges. He believes that as Governor, he is authorized to shape the curriculum to match his extremist agenda. He has poured billions into charter schools and vouchers for all, no income limits. He has grabbed control of the boards that oversee public colleges, and he has handpicked college presidents from his circle of cronies. The state’s sycophant legislature gives him whatever he wants, including the elimination of tenure in higher education and the ideological takeover of the state’s highly regarded progressive college, New College, which has been transformed into a conservative outpost that values athletics more than philosophy and that abhors gender studies and other “woke” courses.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel wrote about the voters’ rebuff to “Moms for Censorship,” err, “Moms for Thought Control, err, “Moms for Liberty.” Voters in most school districts rejected the right wingers endorsed by DeSantis.

Folks, this was a good day for the students and teachers of Florida.

He wrote:

Extremism took a beating in some unexpected places Tuesday. Orange County voters made the region’s deep-pocketed tourism interests nervous. And voters told has-been politicians who were desperately trying to get back into office that they needed to stay on the sidelines.

It was a momentous primary Election Day in Florida — one that seemed to suggest a course correction after years of divisive culture wars.

Nowhere was that more evident than in school board races where Moms for Liberty-backed candidates got walloped.

In Orange County’s highest-profile race, attorney Stephanie Vanos, who vocally opposed the Moms’ agenda, destroyed her opponent 68% to 32%. Seminole County also opted for candidates who wanted to return the focus to classroom basics.

And it wasn’t just here. In Republican-leaning Pinellas County, voters rebuffed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attempts to get more culture-warriors on the school board. (See the Tampa Bay Times: “Pinellas voters ignore DeSantis endorsements, reelect school board incumbents”)

Even in hard-core Sarasota County — which helped give birth to the Moms-for-Censorship movement — voters decided they’d seen enough. Voters in that dark red county ousted the DeSantis-backed Moms for Liberty school board chair and ensured another culture-war crusader was kept out of office.

Politico also reported on voters’ rejection of DeSantis’s candidates. The results suggest that Tinpot Authoritarian DeSantis is losing his grip:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attempt to elect conservative-leaning school board members across Florida hit a snag Tuesday, as candidates backed by the Republican governor fell in several key races.

DeSantis, who has made reshaping Florida’s education system a top priority, endorsed 23 candidates ahead of Tuesday’s election. And as of late Tuesday night, at least 11 appear to have lost. That is a notable downturn from 2022, when DeSantis saw a runaway success: Of the 30 he endorsed two years ago, just five lost.

Candidates endorsed by DeSantis won six races, according to unofficial county election results, with another six heading to runoffs in November.

Although Florida’s school board elections are nonpartisan, candidates in some high-profile races had dueling endorsements and donations from conservatives like DeSantis and the parents’ group Moms for Liberty, and state Democrats and the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

The school board elections come just months after DeSantis dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. During his governorship, DeSantis built clout and power throughout Florida, reshaping the state legislature, state Supreme Court and school boards through his endorsements or appointments. That his preferred school board candidates didn’t win Tuesday could be a sign of his decreasing influence in the wake of his failed presidential bid.

Out of the four matchups where DeSantis and the Florida Democratic Party went head-to-head, Democrats notched two wins compared to one for the governor, with another set for a runoff. These races were some of the more heated in Florida, as candidates squared off over issues like book banning and the role parents have in shaping their children’s education.

The Democratic Party of Florida endorsed 11 candidates this cycle, of which seven won Tuesday with two of those races heading to runoffs. The party’s efforts were meant to “fight back against Ron’s Moms for Liberty candidates and their partisan extremism,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.

“When we knocked doors and made phone calls for these candidates, we kept hearing the same question from voters — ‘is your candidate going to ban books, or are they going to protect them?’” Fried said in a statement Tuesday night. “Our freedom starts in our schools, and we’re proud to have supported candidates who will fight for our students’ rights to see themselves represented in a book, to feel safe at school, and ensure every student has access to a high-quality education where they can learn and grow.”