Fla. sued over exclusion of transgender healthcare from Medicaid – Washington Blade
After months of political organizing on behalf of candidates running to replace two anti-LGBTQ members of the school board in deep red Flagler County, Fla., rising high school senior Cameron Driggers was ready to celebrate their improbable electoral wins this week.
The upset shows that even voters in very conservative districts can see the dangers of extremism, Driggers told the Los Angeles Blade by phone Wednesday evening. “It was a great feeling,” he said, proof that “we shouldn’t give up on Florida just yet.”
After the polls closed Tuesday night, Sally Hunt managed to eke out a razor thin victory against the far-right incumbent school board member for District 1, Jill Woolbright, who handily won her 2020 race and this year had secured the coveted endorsement of the state’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Courtney VandeBunte, meanwhile, beat GOP candidates Lance Alred and Will Furry in a three-way race for the school board seat representing District 2, which will be vacated by conservative Woolbright ally Janet McDonald (who is running for county commission.).
Six percentage points shy of the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed her to claim victory, however, VandeBunte will again face off against Furry in the November runoff elections, which is where Driggers’ sights are now set. “We’re not done,” he told the Blade. “We’re just getting started.”
For Driggers, the outcome was a successful referendum on two “lunatics.” (Woolbright made headlines last year after calling the police on a school librarian for offering books with LGBTQ themes and has characterized opposition to her position on the school board as the work of satanists.)
As co-founder and deputy director of Recall Flagler County School Board (Recall FCSB), Driggers and his friends Jack Petocz and Alysa Vidal mobilized a massive political organizing effort in the weeks and months ahead of Tuesday’s elections.
The group reached tens of thousands of voters through digital campaigns across multiple social media platforms and partnered with the Florida Democratic Party to “change hearts and minds” by knocking on nearly 5,000 doors, Driggers said.
“I think the contribution from my organizers and volunteers and Recall FCSB had a huge impact on the results,” he said, adding that the margin of Hunt’s victory over Woolbright was only about 800 votes.
Driggers said he was optimistic as the polls opened on Tuesday, but mindful that Republicans constitute the overwhelming majority of the area’s elected representatives. Donald Trump carried Flagler County in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, winning 21 percent and 20 percent more votes than Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
Additionally, campaigning for Hunt and VandeBunte, “We were up against thousands of dollars from conservative super PACs,” Driggers said. These groups, some with links to DeSantis, poured money into the race with mailers that made outlandish claims about the Democratic school board candidates, he said.
Cynicism towards politics is common among young people, Driggers said. But “nights like these prove you can effect change, even in the most conservative areas, with the most uphill battles.”