First he fought against the extremists of the School Board. Now he postulates for the Senate.
Jennifer Jenkins, who first reached the headlines when she beat Tina Descovichco -founder of the Moms For Liberty of the extreme right, in the career of the Brevard County School Board, Florida, in 2020, announced Wednesday that he was running for the United States Senate in Florida.
Under the leadership of Republican governor Ron desantis, the State has Become the child of the poster for the extremism of the right That has saturated races of the school board throughout the country. And Moms For Liberty, an extremist group that aims to support the rights of parents and has been behind the acquisition wave of the right school board, was founded in Florida and has influenced the educational policies of the State.
Jenkins Surprised political experts in Florida When he beat Descavich, the headline, for almost 10 points.
“When the school board was not delivering, I decided to address myself,” Jenkins said in a campaign release video. “And despite the chances, I won. In a county that Trump won by two digits.”
Jennifer Jenkins for the American Senate
Jenkins has long retreated the parents’ rights movement, whose leaders say that parents should be the final decision makers when it comes to the education of their children. The movement has been behind the conservative position to prohibit books with racial justice and LGBTQ+topics, censor what teachers can say in the classroom and craft policies that attack young transgender.
In 2024, Jenkins founded Educated We Stand, a non -partisan organization dedicated to the fight against extremism in the boards of public schools throughout the country. Almost 80% of the group’s approved candidates won their careers that year, even in Florida and Wisconsin.
Jenkins is ready to expand his work.
“I don’t want to fight cultural wars anymore. I never did,” Jenkins said. “But I refuse to move away from people who are being marginalized and attacked.”
“The most important theme [for Floridians] It is the affordability crisis, “he added.” Property insurance, edible, rentals and public services continue to increase, and we have career politicians who refuse to do something about it. “
Cultural wars have injected into all kinds of political breeds throughout the country in recent years.
Candidates for the school board in states that include Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida Voters promised that they would eliminate sexually explicit materials from schools and prevent transgender children from practicing sports or using the bathroom that coincided with their gender identity. They saw Variable degrees successful The great impulse of Moms for Liberty to take care of the Penylvania schools fell short, while the candidates of the right school board in Texas were able to win majorities. Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s career of Virginia in 2021, partly due to the concerns of the “rights of parents.”
Democrats, meanwhile, in large part fought to respond to the movementwith some Trying to appease conservatives When trying to meet in the middle about the issue of civil rights for trans children and others who call the extreme movement a distraction of the “real” issues.
External observers may believe that Jenkins’ candidacy is a long shot, since Democrats in Florida have suffered several important losses in the last decade. The last Democrat to be chosen for the United States Senate in Florida was Bill Nelson in 2012. He lost his 2018 re -election commitment to Senator Rick Scott.
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But Jenkins believes it is a mistake to rule out Florida as a lost cause of progressives.
“I reject the idea that the State cannot be won for the Democrats. We do not have to give up our state to a rule of a party,” he said. “This is my future, this is the future of my 9 -year -old daughter. I will not give up.”
If Jenkins wins the Democratic primaries, he would probably face Republican Senator Ashley Moody in the general elections. Desantis appointed Moody, the former state attorney general, for the position after Marco Rubio resigned to serve as Secretary of State for President Donald Trump.