Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South
Aug 24, 2026 · 25 min · 7 segments
SYNOPSIS: We return from our summer hiatus with a look at some fascinating local and state races in recent weeks in Florida and Tennessee. Democrats in both states flipped multiple seats at local…
Jesse Fox MaysharkHostState and federal-level offices have received most of the attention this year, and for good reason.
The competitive primaries for gubernatorial and Senate seats in many Southern states have provided compelling storylines and dramas.
That was victorious Sarasota School Board candidate Megan Tenneman last Tuesday, August 18th, thanking supporters at her election night party.
Florida held primary elections that day for state and federal offices, along with nonpartisan elections for school board seats across the state.
Three of those were up on the Sarasota County Board, which oversees the education of about forty-three thousand students.
It's a medium-sized district by Florida standards, but it has been notable in recent years as a home base of the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty.
The group is known for stoking controversy over school materials and library books, especially those that include discussions of race and racism, LGBTQ people, and sexuality in general.
One of its co-founders, Bridget Ziegler, has served on the Sarasota County School Board since 2014.
She was initially appointed to a vacant seat by then-Governor Rick Scott, a favor she no doubt owed in part to her husband, Christian Ziegler, a political operative who at the time served on the Florida Republican Party State Committee.
Ziegler subsequently won election to a full term later that year and then was reelected in 2018 and 2022.
In 2021, she was one of the three women who founded Moms for Liberty, initially organizing parents against COVID-related restrictions in schools.
As a conservative cultural backlash built coming out of the pandemic, Moms for Liberty quickly adopted other causes, first targeting the teaching of racial history that they branded as critical race theory, and then broadly aiming at any discussion of or reference to LGBTQ people in school materials.
Ziegler was only officially involved with the group in its first year, but she has remained a fierce culture warrior on the school board.
After the 2022 elections, the five-member board was dominated by Ziegler and three other conservative members.
The district has been roiled by fights over curriculum and book materials, harassment and civil rights policies, and other culture war flashpoints, and its voters apparently have had enough of it.
Last Tuesday, in elections for three open seats on the nonpartisan board, two were won outright by more liberal candidates defeating more conservative candidates.
In the third race with three candidates, nobody won more than fifty percent of the vote, so the top two candidates will go on to a runoff.
But the third-place candidate in that race, Teresa DeWitt, was the only one affiliated with Moms for Liberty.
She won twenty-five percent of the vote and will not be in the general election.
Combined with two incumbent moderate members of the board, the election results mean there will be at least four members who were elected promising to bring an end to its culture war politics.
We are going to go home tonight, and we are gonna let out the breath that we have been holding-
State and federal-level offices have received most of the attention this year, and for good reason.
The competitive primaries for gubernatorial and Senate seats in many Southern states have provided compelling storylines and dramas.
That was victorious Sarasota School Board candidate Megan Tenneman last Tuesday, August 18th, thanking supporters at her election night party.
Florida held primary elections that day for state and federal offices, along with nonpartisan elections for school board seats across the state.
Three of those were up on the Sarasota County Board, which oversees the education of about forty-three thousand students.
It's a medium-sized district by Florida standards, but it has been notable in recent years as a home base of the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty.
The group is known for stoking controversy over school materials and library books, especially those that include discussions of race and racism, LGBTQ people, and sexuality in general.
One of its co-founders, Bridget Ziegler, has served on the Sarasota County School Board since 2014.
She was initially appointed to a vacant seat by then-Governor Rick Scott, a favor she no doubt owed in part to her husband, Christian Ziegler, a political operative who at the time served on the Florida Republican Party State Committee.
Ziegler subsequently won election to a full term later that year and then was reelected in 2018 and 2022.
In 2021, she was one of the three women who founded Moms for Liberty, initially organizing parents against COVID-related restrictions in schools.
As a conservative cultural backlash built coming out of the pandemic, Moms for Liberty quickly adopted other causes, first targeting the teaching of racial history that they branded as critical race theory, and then broadly aiming at any discussion of or reference to LGBTQ people in school materials.
Ziegler was only officially involved with the group in its first year, but she has remained a fierce culture warrior on the school board.
After the 2022 elections, the five-member board was dominated by Ziegler and three other conservative members.
The district has been roiled by fights over curriculum and book materials, harassment and civil rights policies, and other culture war flashpoints, and its voters apparently have had enough of it.
Last Tuesday, in elections for three open seats on the nonpartisan board, two were won outright by more liberal candidates defeating more conservative candidates.
In the third race with three candidates, nobody won more than fifty percent of the vote, so the top two candidates will go on to a runoff.
But the third-place candidate in that race, Teresa DeWitt, was the only one affiliated with Moms for Liberty.
She won twenty-five percent of the vote and will not be in the general election.
Combined with two incumbent moderate members of the board, the election results mean there will be at least four members who were elected promising to bring an end to its culture war politics.
We are going to go home tonight, and we are gonna let out the breath that we have been holding-
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