Moms for Liberty candidates lose school board majority 4 years after flipping Florida county

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Monday, August 24, 2026

Two conservative advocacy organizations that back school board candidates say most of their endorsees won outright or advanced to the general election in Tuesday’s Florida primaries but the majority they built four years ago in Sarasota County has unraveled.

Most attention Tuesday focused on Florida’s statewide and federal races. But 1776 Project PAC and Moms for Liberty, which back candidates opposed to critical race theory and to sexually explicit material in school curricula, endorsed more than a dozen school board hopefuls across the state, reporting favorable results.

Moms for Liberty said in a statement that 11 of its 15 endorsed candidates had won outright or advanced to the November general election. In an X post the same day, 1776 Project PAC said, “More than 70% of our endorsed school board candidates won their primaries or are going into a runoff.”

But in Sarasota County, 1776 Project PAC’s preferred candidate, Michelle Pozzie, lost by more than 13 percentage points, four years after the group announced it had “flipped the school board from a 3-2 liberal majority to 4-1 conservative” when all three of its endorsed candidates won.

Four years later, the pendulum has swung. All three candidates the group backed in 2022 are set to be out of office after this year’s general election. Only two of them, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler and Robyn Marinelli, remain in office, and neither sought reelection.

On facebook, the national Democratic Party celebrated the flipping of two seats on a school board in which a Moms for Liberty co-founder is the outgoing board chair. Sarasota County voted for Trump by 18 percentage points in the 2024 election. 

Two Sarasota County winners this year, Megan Tennimon and Beth Mayberry, were endorsed by the LGBT advocacy organization Equality Florida. A third Equality Florida endorsee, Jimmy Glover, advanced to the general election in a bid for Ziegler’s seat.

Equality Florida Action PAC reported that 81% of its endorsed candidates across all political offices won their primary elections or advanced to November’s general election, claiming in a statement that "Moms For Liberty is in free fall."

"Voters, from the US Senate and Governor’s races to school boards and state legislative contests, chose pro-equality champions," Joe Saunders, Executive Director of Equality Florida Action PAC, said in a statement. "And we are primed to shatter the conservative supermajorities in the legislature in November."

Tina Descovich, CEO and co-founder of Moms for Liberty, pushed back on the media framing of the Florida results.

"Every year someone in the media writes our obituary, and every year parents show up and prove them wrong," Descovich said in a statement. "Eleven of our fifteen endorsed candidates won or advanced last night. Three of three in Brevard. All three in Clay County. These are moms and dads and neighbors who knocked doors and made calls and won, and no consultant or professor quoted in a newspaper gets to tell them they don't exist. School boards are ground zero in the fight for parental rights, and last night Florida parents made that clear."

Moms for Liberty and 1776 Project PAC were more successful in more reliably conservative areas of the state. In some races the two groups backed the same candidates. Both endorsed three Brevard County School Board hopefuls: Tammy Dennis, Gene Trent and Megan Wright. Wright won outright, while Dennis and Trent advanced to the general election.

Erin Skipper of Clay County, also endorsed by both groups, won outright. Two other Clay County candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty but not 1776 Project PAC — Ashley Hutchings Gilhousen and Michele Hanson — also won outright.

In Collier County, Moms for Liberty-endorsed Timothy Moshier and Jeff Donaldson won outright. In Lee County, Jada Langford-Fleming won outright and Tony Beougher advanced to the general election. In Bay County, Moms for Liberty-endorsed Chris Moore advanced.

Other Moms for Liberty candidates in Bay County fell short. Unofficial results from the Bay County Supervisor of Elections show Michael Petty narrowly losing a school board race and Colleen Koch narrowly missing the general election for another seat. In St. Lucie County, both Moms for Liberty endorsees, Charles Cerami and Brian Capp, lost.

In Orange County, home to Orlando, 1776 Project PAC’s candidates came up short. Results compiled by Ballotpedia show endorsee Alicia Farrant losing the race for school board chair by nearly 20 percentage points. In another county race, 1776 Project PAC-endorsed Marisol Lugo lost by nearly 15 points. A third endorsee, Ilia Adorno, was locked out of the general election after taking 24.2% of the vote in a three-way race.

Elsewhere, 1776 Project PAC endorsees advanced to the general election in Hillsborough County (Brittany Lyssy), Duval County (Donna Westrich), Manatee County (Camden Bedinghaus) and Martin County (Christia Li Roberts). Jacqueline Rosario won outright in Indian River County, as did Gordon Porter in Walton County.

1776 Project PAC describes itself as dedicated to electing “reform-minded conservatives who oppose political indoctrination and believe in parental rights, safe and secure schools, fiscal transparency, improving educational standards, promoting transparency, and reversing pandemic-related learning loss.” Moms for Liberty defines its mission as “unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”

Moms for Liberty says its endorsements are driven by local chapters, which vet candidates and host candidate forums.

"Our chapters do the majority of the work, and it isn't measured in dollars. It's measured in action," Descovich said. "You cannot buy what our moms do on a Saturday morning in August."